macOS Big Sur

Designer Michael Flarup writes about how macOS Big Sur will bring back “fun in visual design.”

With this approach Apple is legalising a visual design expressiveness that we haven’t seen from them in almost a decade. It’s like a ban has been lifted on fun. This will severely loosen the grip of minimalistic visual design and raise the bar for pixel pushers everywhere. Your glyph on a colored background is about to get some serious visual competition.

I don’t miss pre-iOS 7 skeuomorphism, but I don’t think I’ll mind some of that era’s icons coming back (just without the gloss). I also wonder if we’ll see them on iOS, or just macOS.

Jack Koloskus wrote about an emerging design language called neumorphism. Some of the new icons in macOS 11 are part of this design, like the Messages bubble that looks 3D. He believes we’ll be seeing more of this, while I am of the opinion that Apple, with this design, is laying the foundations for an AR/VR user interface. Of course an AR interface looks a bit odd on a 2D screen.

When you boil it down, neumorphism is a focus on how light moves in three-dimensional space […] What sets neumorphism apart from its progenitor is that the focus is on the light itself and how it interacts with a variety of objects in a purely digital space. The light simulations in neumorphism are more complex, and are focused on how light from one object could affect another, or the function of the object itself.