The World is Flat

Periodically, I spend quality time perusing the periodical racks of the local stores. Want to know the trend? See what these other folks have spent tons of money deciding what was hot.

The discovery? Flat is in. No more layered text mastheads. No faded overlays. Drop shadow is dead. Shockingly, not even stroked text.

Don't believe me? Even the Photoshop magazines are doing the non-Photoshopping of the logos, mastheads and text.

This is no big surprise. The layout work reminds me of the late 1970s, early 1980s with a very minimalist look, a reaction to the psychedelic overlays of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Bauhaus is back, baby.

It's all about the font once again. Good news for someone who can tell his Futura from his Univers, knows that Helvetica is just for the squares and Arial -- yeah, maybe as a Disney character but not the characters on my publications.

Big test coming up for some folks on this. It will be interesting to see if they are hip to the trend.