25 Incredible Examples of Flat Design

It almost seems that this year flat designs have taken over the world of graphic design by force, but especially in the arena of mobile apps with the first industry-shaking flat design being for the iPhone5. The reality is that flat design has been around longer than the emergence of the iPhone5, but of course, it was Apple that helped to bring such cross-industry awareness to the design style.

You ask almost anyone who owns an iPhone5 or who has read about the design in the news, and they’ll describe flat designs as, well, flat. In the design world, flat indicates a design style that avoids 3D effects, animation, and other bling-bling.

Most flat designs also include lots of illustrations, bold use of colors, and fairly minimal layouts.

Just as with any style in graphic design, however, most flat designs do not include all of these aspects. A design can be usually agreed upon as flat if it includes more of these minimal aspects and less of the “extras”.

As mentioned beforehand, you can find flat designs in almost every area of graphic design. The list below includes websites, icons, and mobile apps that most would agree fall under the “flat design” category.

Most very clearly follow the guidelines, if you will, for flat, but please feel free to share in the comments below if you have found a better example.

Websites With a Flat Design Style

The following flat website designs use several flat aspects in a large part of the design scheme. A few do include a bit of animation but were so minimal that they still fall under the flat design category.

Operativnik Website Design by Felix Baky

Bedford by Samuel James Oxley

Sacha Greif

Fostr

Neueyorke

Tivix

Bob Galmarini

Mike McQuade

Enso

Taasky

Layer

Icons with a Flat Design Style

Flat icons are becoming much more abundant and easy to find as popularity in this design style has grown. Let us know if you have some of your own to share!

Flatilicious – 48 Free Flat Icons

99 Designs Icons by Northwood

Flat Icons Pack by Martz90

Circle Icons Pack by Martz90

Apps with Flat Design

In the app world, flat has almost seemed to become synonymous with everything “hip”. Google and Apple both seem to have taken a liking to the style, as well as the following apps and designers below.

TypeGrid by Ye Joo Park

Postcard iPhone App by Yasser Achachi

TV iPad App by Michal Parulski

Flight Search App iOS by Yasser Achachi

Flat Mobile App Music Player by Yasser Achachi

Samsung Smart Home App Concept by Ali Rahmoun

Canopy.co

Learnist

Workout Trainer

Color Zen

Which of the flat designs above do you think represent this style the best? Were there any designs above that you think should not have been included in the list?