Black & White Trend Stands Beyond Material Design

Black & white trend is a progressive reduction which highlights important things, stands beyond flat design and something more distinct. For someone it may seem to be a next step of minimal design being implemented into the mobile realm.

Black-and-white shades of Instagram

Do you remember last year news about Instagram’s new design? This application was refreshed with a bright icon and black-and-white layout.

If you had been using Instagram regularly you might notice that its icon hadn’t been changed for a long time since its presence among other social applications. Long after the rest of the world had moved away from skeuomorphism, Instagram continued to use a realistic camera as its icon. But suddenly new screenshots showed Instagram moving away from its blue-and-orange aesthetic into plain old black and white.

Instagram had been working on these updates since 2015 and actually such changes didn’t impact negatively on a number of its users. The result was a design that felt more modern. Designers of Instagram wanted to show past, present and future in a new look of the app. Modern flat icon and retro black-and-white made Instagram outstanding and noticeable.

Even before Instagram implemented black and white shades into its logo, these colors were proof of trend, minimalism and simplicity. Black & white colors in brand mean "power" and "confidence". "Confidence" in product quality and "power" to make every product qualitative.

Color and “Feelings”

When it comes to mobile, color impacts on emotions and  can create immediate feelings for the user. In our recent social network app we combined dark and light shades of black & white colors. White space appeals to freedom and dark elements give more visual weight. For social apps like our Pin Mate it’s vital for users to feel free and relaxed, as app tends to gather people and help them to prolong easy communication. Lighter colors create a sense of more open space.Users typically don’t notice a light or white background, they consider final impact on their emotions.

See more: Pin Mate: platform for sportsmen. Case Study

Visual Clarity

Not all social media app will have attractive look with the abuse of black color. Next our app was designed with the aim to keep focus on content. We tried to use more dark color schemes which tend to be a bit more on the trendy side. Hubble bubble app contained elements with high interactivity. We considered that all of them require plenty of space and organization to eliminate any claustrophobic or chaotic feelings sometimes associated with darker color schemes. Photos and other image-based in app elements look great against dark backgrounds. For highly visual projects that don’t require a lot of on-screen reading, this is a great option.

Interactions

Black & white shades are optimal solution for business apps. For projects like our next one the priority for design is to focus on information at a glance. We developed a peer-to-peer platform which consolidate lenders (investors) and borrowers. Lighter color schemes are preferred in more complex designs for financial apps like ours. It makes common tools such as transparencies for notifications and other layered elements more user-friendly. Darker color schemes tend to function best in simple environments where there are many other things to do, interact with or look at. Both color outlines can impact usability. We decided to give users two solutions to provide A/B testing.

See more: Money Lender: Online P2P (peer-to-peer) Platform. Case Study

In conclusion…

v-jet group team gathered product focused vision not just in black and white brand colors. We are focused on the ultimate goal of creating the best product for our user. In the real world black is generally associated with something bad, in design it manages to produce a quite opposite impact. We found implementation of black and white not just attractive thing, but also a way to express individuality and style. Obviously, the more contrasting colors are applied the better, because the optimum balance that is achieved due to such color manipulations adds necessary readability. We hope this article helped you to find the right solution. If you liked this article, then please follow us on Twitter and Facebook. In case of any questions don’t hesitate to contact us.