
The Flat Sink - sgdesign
http://sachagreif.com/the-flat-sink/
======
crazygringo
I stayed with a friend in a then-new building designed by Philippe Starck, in
New York.

The bathroom sink faucet handles were very cool -- just smooth steel cylinders
sticking out, that you rotated.

Until I tried turning them with my now-soapy hands... and discovered that they
were impossible to turn, because there was nothing to grab onto! His stylish
cylinders turned out to be completely useless. Turns out knobby handles exist
for a reason.

~~~
eduardordm
Still, someone will eventually call this a feature, because it might force you
to dry your hands before turning the knob - keeping it cleaner/dry.

Designers will always find a way to justify their crap.

~~~
jlgreco
The correct comeback to that would be to assert that such a demand is
unnecessarily environmentally unfriendly since it encourages a usage that
wastes more water. Green is very stylish, arguably more stylish than standard
aesthetics.

~~~
greggman
The correct comeback is to dry your hands on the designer's clothing and then
use turn the knobs with your now dry hands ;-)

------
ebf
>Put everything on the same plane, and you make it harder to focus on a
specific section of the page.

Citation needed.

Edit: Since I'm getting downvoted, tell me that <https://svbtle.com/> content
isn't on the same plane and still readable? You can have everything on the
same plane and with proper use of whitespace and good typography, it can be
very readable.

Other examples:

<http://daringfireball.net/>

<https://medium.com/about/9e53ca408c48>

Hacker News

~~~
sgdesign
I didn't say that it was _impossible_ to have good content hierarchy with a
flat design, I just said it was harder.

And "citation needed" is the Hacker News equivalent of YouTube comments:
snarky, doesn't bring anything to the debate, and totally irrelevant.

~~~
ebf
Is it actually harder though? I don't think so. I think there is some truth to
the idea that content over chrome is a good usability principle (obviously to
an extent, Win8 takes it a little too far sometimes), and in my opinion, it is
easier to learn proper use of whitespace and good typography than how to make
textures and less "sterile" designs.

My point is you are stating your opinion as if it is a truth, when it isn't.

Sure, citation needed is a little snarky, but I disagree that it doesn't bring
anything to the debate and is irrelevant. Maybe you could have pointed to
usability studies, so there would at least be some data to back up your claim.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I'm not a designer (or a good one, anyway), so I welcome corrections from good
designers, but I'd assume that whether or not flatness in this sense is a good
idea would totally depend on context: how much site navigation is there, how
many other presentational elements, ads, links to other things, etc.

Svtble works because it takes a minimalist's approach to all of that, throwing
it all away into the bin. The content is readable because it's almost the only
thing on the page. The font is large and the content is centered.

But would that work in the general case, as an approach for user interfaces
and search engines and the modern day portal page and so on? I can't think of
any examples there that would be considered "good design".

~~~
ebf
Good points, but a lack of examples does not necessarily mean that it isn't
possible. I think Bing has down a good job of having a flat design with high
usability.

[http://www.bing.com/search?q=hello+world&go=&qs=n...](http://www.bing.com/search?q=hello+world&go=&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=hello+world&sc=8-7&sp=-1&sk=)

~~~
thaumaturgy
Ehh. Personally, I find Bing's example there to be identical to Google's,
along with all the same flaws. It's readable, but for instance there's no
contrast between the search results and the "related searches" sidebar.

~~~
ebf
And I would say that the use of whitespace and typography is enough to
differentiate it.

------
njharman
Zen and minimalism must vary by the observer...

A curve or spheroidal section is zen and minimal (1 stroke, 1 surface) A box
with 5 sides, 4 corners, etc is not. There are zen circles
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ens%C5%8D>, few to none zen squares.

~~~
vacri
Only if you're defining minimalism as 'the literal least amount of noticeable
features'. The picture in your link is a terrible example of 'minimalism' by
that definition - while it describes a circle created in a single stroke, the
actual pattern is extremely complex. Then there's also writing and three
chops.

------
zefhous
I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the Middle East flat kitchen
sinks are standard and ubiquitous. I wouldn't be so quick to assume that it's
an aesthetic design decision — I bet it's more of a cultural preference.

I don't like flat sinks, but I can see how some people do. In Lebanon they
generally build large flat sinks right into the countertop with the same
marble. They are much larger than most American sectioned sinks and are good
for certain things. They use a small squeegee to clean up after everything is
done.

~~~
deelowe
Kitchen sinks are a bit different. They are deeper, you don't shave in them,
and they are typically sloped a bit so that they don't get small pools of
standing water. These new bathroom sinks are pretty bad. They are really
trendy in hotels along with the water found style sinks and the ones that look
like a bowl sitting on top of the counter top. Every one is a regression in
usability solely for the sake of aesthetics.

One day we'll look back on this design trend and laugh. Too bad it will take
decades before these poorly designed items are replaced in homes and hotels.

~~~
sgdesign
Yes! And those bowl-shaped ones don't even have a ledge to put your toothbrush
holder on!

~~~
deelowe
God I hate those. The counter is either at your knees or the bowl is in your
face. There's no where to put anything and simple tasks just end up being a
mess. What a stupid idea!

------
arscan
I'm not going to comment on the message as a whole, since this whole flat
aesthetic thing has been argued up and down on HN over the last few months.
But there was one line that stuck out to me as being a little off:

 _> Get rid of all texture, and you might end up with cold, sterile designs
that scare users away._

I'm on board with the usability argument, but I don't think that removing
gradients and drop shadows necessarily results in designs that "scare users
away." If anything, I think that abandoning realism allows you more freedom in
making a warm & inviting designs (e.g. some downright unnatural combinations
of pastels that would look too busy with those touches of realism).

~~~
pixl97
_but I don't think that removing gradients and drop shadows necessarily
results in designs that "scare users away."_

Try using Office 2013. It's white and flat (even flatter in Win8 over Win7,
you lose refrence to what the 'tools' part and the data part is. It is not
inviting at all, unless you dig in to the options and try to put some slightly
different colors/textures on it.

~~~
jongold
It fails because it's been designed by idiots, not because it's 'flat'

~~~
jblock
Can't stress this enough. Bad people using a well-thought-out design aesthetic
can still make something that looks like garbage.

------
brudgers
The analogy doesn't hold water.

A flat sink is a flat sink because it is flat.

A flat design is a flat design because we call it "a flat design."

Skeuomorphism isn't realism - pixels are pixels not leather.

A gradient isn't a shadow.

The flat "add comment" button below does not cause me confusion.

Curving a surface doesn't necessarily make it handle liquid properly.

A poorly designed urinal will splatter if hung too low on the wall.

And speaking of urinals, rounded corners and drop shadows do not make the
image of a button art, unless perhaps one hangs it on the wall.

~~~
Semiapies
_Skeuomorphism isn't realism_

People argue that "skeuomorphism" isn't the right term for slapping photo
textures on everything. It might not be, but obviously "realism" is an even
worse term. Leather, chrome, or paper background textures resemble nothing
"real" about showing weather forecasts, emails, or search results.

(That isn't to say good design can't use photo textures, but even many of the
better examples tend toward the overblown "realism" of CD-ROM software from
twenty years ago.)

------
hahainternet
The most irony I found on this page is where an image annotation berated
Google for their flat design, at the same time as having a distracting
background image, unexplained bolding of the first letters of 'Google Reader'
and generally distracting and disorienting design.

~~~
sgdesign
I would like to officially formulate this new law:

"Any blog post criticizing a design will in turn see its own design
criticized."

------
acconrad
I would say the best practical reason to move over to a flat design is
performance increases. It has been shown that CSS properties such as
background-image gradients and border-radii are among the worst offenders for
decreased front-end performance. With websites approaching 2MB in size it is
no surprise to me that flatter design makes for smaller files (less CSS
prefixes, less JS repainting) and less browser rendering. This was precisely
why our company moved over to a flat design as we've increased the number of
users rapidly over the past year.

~~~
mikec3k
You're falling into the trap of thinking everything is HTML. This doesn't
apply to native code. There's very little penalty for using rounded rects,
drop shadows (which are part of most drawing primitives), and gradients.

------
chestnut-tree
Good points in this article. Another aspect I dislike about many modern
bathroom sinks is the position of the tap (faucet).

If the sink has a single mixer tap, it's usually placed in the centre of the
basin to give a neat symmetrical look. However, if the bathroom sink is fairly
small, the tap protrudes forward and you find you can't lower your head to
splash your face without accidentally bumping your head against the tap.

I prefer mixer taps that sit to the side of the basin or even mixer taps where
you can swivel the arm left or right.

------
davidwparker
I'm not sure about bathroom sinks, but my wife and I hate our non-flat kitchen
sink. Sure, I understand that it's curved so that it drains water, but there
is such thing as too much curve. In our sink, dishes that should be able to be
set down properly often end up tipping over or sliding towards the drain. It's
actually a big pain as dishes slide and get in the way. Our next sink will
most definitely be a flat (flat-ish, perhaps with a very, very small incline).

------
sippndipp
If you respect form follows function you can apply fashion to form. Now Apples
"realism" seem to look old. In few years it's maybe in again. That's how
fashion works.

------
pasbesoin
If you have a flat sink, you need an aerator on the spigot. This doesn't solve
everything, but it's a big improvement with respect to splashing.

------
jimsilverman
author seems to be confusing visual styling with hierarchy and information
architecture. it's harmless to remove gradients and shadows, but removing
context and visual priority is what makes the sink flat.

------
jamesmcn
The parabolic sinks that started popping up all over Seattle around a decade
ago are great. If I owned my own place, I'd rip out all the existing sinks and
put in parabolic sinks.

------
cpr
He misses the most obvious problem of all, which is that you can't clean
easily in the corners of many sharp-edged flat sinks.

------
neya
The author goes to conclude that Windows RT is an example of 'Flat Design' and
doesn't even justify why.

FYI: In my opinion, the author's $5.99 EBook on design is the best example of
'Flat Design' (I bought one). He claims to teach you to design a web app from
scratch, but whereas the book is more of a walkthrough for a basic app than a
'how-to' (which is what he claims). Once you purchase his book, you realize it
was a 'flat-design' and not a curvy one.

The author is an Apple fanboy himself, bashing out the new Windows Metro UI
under the guise of a design article. Two years from now, I'd love to meet the
author and see him claim the same thing. The author has a blind-folded belief
that 'Apple knows what they're doing' or rather the 'Apple can do no wrong'
mindset. I guess that's why you never saw any articles on Apple maps on his
blog.

Coming back to the point, if Apple knows what they're doing, I bet Microsoft
knows much better, because they are #2 in the OS arena WORLDWIDE (google for
stats). So, this ideology that the Metro UI sucks is just time-limited. It's
only a matter of time that people get accustomed to it and they will and MS
knows that.

~~~
sgdesign
Wow. It's so interesting to see how our own biases can completely transform
the meaning of what we're reading.

Where did I bash Windows RT? How am I an Apple fanboy when this article barely
mentions Apple, and only to say designers are getting tired of Apple's
aesthetic?

I'm a little bit sad for you. It seems you see all discourse through an "Apple
vs XYZ" filter, and that must be extremely restrictive. Just think of all the
information you're missing out on by reducing every single piece of
information you come across to a binary dichotomy…

------
cturner
I had an slight-tilt shower floor in Laos. No problems with the way the water
hit the surface, but there were some problems with the way that the water was
draining to a point two feet away from where the drain was.

------
brandoncarl
My wife and I have encountered these at many hotels over the past few years.

The reason is environmental: the sink is supposed to splash if you turn the
water too high. It's intended to keep you from wasting water.

~~~
rijoja
if the reason is to avoid unnecessary water consumption, wouldn't it be better
to limit the rate of the water? Less water is used and nobody gets wet and
annoyed.

~~~
tedunangst
Low flow faucets make you look cheap.

------
ianstallings
Flat sinks are for putting utensils in and that should be the end of it. Easy
to store dishes, pots, and pans. Curved sinks? Not so much. But for the
bathroom? An odd choice but to each his own.

------
michaelfeathers
Doesn't it seem that the move to flat design from skeuomorphism is an exact
parallel of the move to modernism from pre-modernism in architecture?

------
mblake
Ahh, posts like this are like magnets for front-page HN. Mm, maybe I'm just a
bit jealous. I should buy a boat. Or start a blog of my own.

------
b0rsuk
The disadvantages of flat sinks don't end there. They're harder to clean,
because dirt tends to stick in the corners.

------
dryicerx
A best of both worlds would be a flat sink that's angled/sloped towards the
wall

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
I've seen those in restaurant lavatories.

The disadvantage is that when filling a sink e.g. for shaving, the water pools
at a line rather than a point. this is obviously not a problem in a
restaurant.

See the third illustration "With a flat sink, you need more water to get the
same depth" - an angled flat surface would be somewhere between the two in
efficiency of water use.

~~~
randallsquared
I think if I were going to shave this way, I'd use a bowl instead of putting a
lot of water into a presumably-not-perfectly-clean sink. You could wash a bowl
and put it away after, whereas you'd have to wash the sink immediately before
each shave. If the designer of the sink expected using a shaving bowl, the
flat bottom would make a lot of sense.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
I've been thinking about why you see these in restaurants, upmarket
nightclubs, corporate boardrooms, etc. IMHO it is that:

1) they look impressive

2) They look like you spent money

3) The only task that they're actually used for is washing hands.

This is a different set of purposes from home use. Making your home bathroom
look like a nightclub bathroom at the expense of usefulness is a particular
kind of folly.

------
cwilson
Solution: Lower the water pressure.

------
bobcattr
What font is that, it's great.

~~~
wting
Proxima Nova Soft.

In the future check out this extension as it allows you to hover over elements
to quickly find the font:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whatfont/jabopobgc...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whatfont/jabopobgcpjmedljpbcaablpmlmfcogm?hl=en)

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captiva12
The issue with flat / minimal design is the lack of contrast. I have had
problems when gmail redesigned the interface early this year.

