2020hindsight.org on January 04, 2006
https://web.archive.org/web/20060104063233if_/http://www.2020hindsight.org:80 #misbehaving2005
@classicweb after looking at many of your posts (toots?!) i realized that many websites in the past used flat design but they used colors and patterns and backgrounds.
So why flat design now is almost totally white (or dark mode)?
@Abdulla @classicweb I think it’s mostly due to corporate minimalism. Everything used to be so bright and colorful and now it’s all sanitized and grey
@Abdulla @classicweb I think the move towards responsive design (mobile, desktop, high/low DPI, etc) made designing and implementing more complex visual flairs *significantly* more complex to design and implement.
Probably only a part of the explanation, but yeah.
Another part is probably straight up we’re stricter (hopefully?) about accessebility. That means we try to have backgrounds that have high contrast and avoid distractions (patterns).
Coming back to responsive design: pre-mobile many sites in their design had a background and a container on top of that background. This translates poorly to mobile and for consistency I imagine many dropped it.
For what it’s worth, I do use colored backgrounds on my own webpage at least. :)