Before Flat design we had skeuomorphism; before skeuomorphism we had Flash; and before that still we had Text-based sites.
From Art Deco, to Pop Art, history shows us that design trends merely ebb and flow – from one into another. Once bored of one style, we move to a new one. Is this the case of Flat Design? It is what the people appear to believe.
Google’s insistence on Material Design certainly proves that a “next best thing” is on its way. Recent promotion of Material Design may even explain the trend shown in the above graph. Designers sure that Flat is on its way out as they move to incorporate Google’s own design guidelines. Material Design supplanting Flat as the next design trend.
But how different is Flat from Material Design really?