The Rise and Fall of Neumorphism • Hacker News Board

Re: The Rise and Fall of Neumorphism

#11

Post by neinnonyet » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #9

202206241203 wrote: post #4

In 2000s "Neumorphism" would have been a name of one WinAmp skin. In 2020 I guess a single style warranted a whole trend.

Sorry for offtopicness, but could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. I don't want to ban you, because your comments (with this account) are good. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. O…

We cant ignore the consequences of linking our viewing and posting habits to an identity, either. Some people don't appreciate being profiled. Simply picking a username that is not your real name does not fully address that.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Neumorphism

#12

Post by koboll » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

A web design opinion that has increasingly solidified in my thinking is that box-shadow should never be relied on to distinguish an edge.

Not only is it (obviously) less distinct than a border or an edge where color changes, it breaks outside the visual box model of the page due to spreading outside the element's grid placement, which makes everything look less distinctly part of a grid. box-shadow, when relied on to distinguish edges, is anathema to the human visual system in an unconsciously subtle way. It's fit for light touches that add onto an already clear and accessible design but never for relying on to achieve clarity or accessibility.

We realized this during the flat design era but then proceeded to overshoot things pretty far until exterminating shadows became a hot trend. Now there's a backlash, of which 'neumorphism' is the apex, which swings things too far back in the other direction. Just keep shadows light and use them sparingly, it's not too hard.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Neumorphism

#13

Post by johnsanders » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 5:47 PM UTC

Did I miss something or was Neumorphism just that designers rediscovered inset shadows? We're just putting new names on a design cycle that's been going on for decades, maybe centuries. Things get more ornate until it's so over the top we wipe it all clean and start over.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Neumorphism

#14

Post by sprash » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 5:59 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #10

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god... you reminded me how much I miss skeuomorphism. Every time you open the app, you can enjoy that little piece of art. The artist rendering of the digital model of the object in question. Now all OS GUIs feels completely the same. As if there is a War on Aesthetics and art treated as an infection to get removed.

I understand why trends have moved away from skeuomorphism. It's inefficient to have image assets for every inch of the screen, and it adds more visual noise to parse for the user. Also it was easier to deliver these types of designs in high quality when there was exactly one screen size/aspect ratio to support. At the same time, I was making apps during the skeuomorphic period, and it was a lot of fun! We used to po…

> It's inefficient to have image assets for every inch of the screen

With modern GPUs pushing bitmaps is actually far more efficient than drawing shapes.

> it adds more visual noise to parse for the user

On the contrary. It gives better visual cues on where to find what you need. Also noise is actually good in some cases. I have a blue noise background for my terminals which tremendously helps with eyestrain.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Neumorphism

#15

Post by dchuk » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 6:21 PM UTC

It never rose. It was just silly design concepts on Dribbble, no real/popular apps actually adopted it.

It's a terrible design system, it looks like you took a perfectly good interface, draped a table cloth over it, and pushed it upwards so you have this weird silhouette feature going on.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Neumorphism

#16

Post by _nhynes » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

antiverse wrote: post #5

202206241203 wrote: post #4

In 2000s "Neumorphism" would have been a name of one WinAmp skin. In 2020 I guess a single style warranted a whole trend.

This is a good take, actually. Especially in light of how so many corporations are using that strange design language with elongated/disproportioned bodies of people (I forget the name of it). Creativity in this domain is undervalued.

> elongated/disproportioned bodies of people (I forget the name of it)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis

Re: The Rise and Fall of Neumorphism

#17

Post by refulgentis » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 6:47 PM UTC

Neumorphism really helped sharpen my thinking on a dynamic color theming system heading into Material You.

Neumorphism had no grounding besides "what would trend on Dribbl that finally feels like a movement after years of iOS 7 aesthetic leading the way?"

That isn't a design problem.

"pure white background with overly dark blue", and neuomorphism was doubling on a very-not-skeuomorphic approach and attaching large shadows to it, simply because it created something "new" that felt "more realistic". No benefit to the user. No grounding in design principles.

With Material You, sure, it's flat, but it's skeuomorphic in that _it works how color works in the real world_. (cf. Round Rects are Everywhere https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_..., and replace with "Pure White and Black are Nowhere)

Source: I wrote this, and also this post is my opinion, I do not speak for Google or its design: https://material.io/blog/science-of-color-design

Re: The Rise and Fall of Neumorphism

#18

Post by Scogle » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 7:23 PM UTC

I feel like this article gets a few things dead wrong - mostly that this trend originated in 2020. Maybe the term came around then but this is what dribbble design has looked like since probably 2010 or 2011 (which is also around the same time the flat aesthetic came around, a decade after this article claimed).

Re: The Rise and Fall of Neumorphism

#19

Post by excitom » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 7:51 PM UTC

"The days of having entire websites rendered in neumorphism are behind us, but it will undoubtedly continue to have an influence. "

Too bad. I personally think it's a huge improvement over flat design.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Neumorphism

#20

Post by sebastianconcpt » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 7:55 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #10

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god... you reminded me how much I miss skeuomorphism. Every time you open the app, you can enjoy that little piece of art. The artist rendering of the digital model of the object in question. Now all OS GUIs feels completely the same. As if there is a War on Aesthetics and art treated as an infection to get removed.

I understand why trends have moved away from skeuomorphism. It's inefficient to have image assets for every inch of the screen, and it adds more visual noise to parse for the user. Also it was easier to deliver these types of designs in high quality when there was exactly one screen size/aspect ratio to support. At the same time, I was making apps during the skeuomorphic period, and it was a lot of fun! We used to po…

Art is not noise.

It's the opposite.

Art is a concrete rendering of a symbol with the opposite of noise: meaning.

The compulsion to send a more artistic asset to the category of noise is the replication of the anti-aesthetics culture in GUIs current designs.

As if it would not be alternatives, like appreciation of it in lighter forms, which, Neuomorphism feels like a reasonable attempt at that.