Top design news of 2011

What’s up everyone?, we hope you’ve had an amazing holiday season along with your friends and relatives. Now that 2011 is gone and 2012 has made its appearance we’d like to take a look at some of the most important events that occurred in the design sphere, including new products, tendencies, events and more. Hopefully this year is going to be as exciting as 2011 was, filled with new products and trends that will give birth to a new design period.

Technology and related news

The last year saw many amazing gadgets coming out as well as new software editions, new standards and more, so we’d like to take a look at some of the most important releases and updates that we witnessed in 2011.

Adobe acquires Typekit

One of the most important news for graphic designers during 2011 was the purchase of Typekit by the Adobe team. Typekit has been a leader in the typography market for quite a long, delivering high quality fonts ready to be implemented in web design, the site has reported more than 250K costumers, including some of the biggest names around such as The New York Times and IGN.

From now on, Typekit fonts will be offered as a standalone service and then will be included as part of the Adobe® Creative Cloud, which is one of the latest announcements of the design giant. Hopefully this purchase will benefit designers and artist around the world, let’s see what other things Adobe has to offer this year.

Adobe CS5.5

So we did not see the iPhone 5 seeing the light and we also did not see the Creative Suite 6, however the iPhone 4S came out a few weeks ago and Adobe gave us the CS5.5.  I’ve decided to wait till the CS6 hits the store, as I consider these .5 versions to be just minor updates, also the major programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator and Fireworks have not been updated, though a new product dubbed Photoshop Touch SDK has been released to help developers build apps for desktop and mobile devices. One of the most important differences between CS5 and CS5.5 is an increase on performance enhancements, providing you with a better editing experience. Another thing to mention is that CS5.5 features two new members of the family, Adobe Audition CS5.5 and Adobe Acrobat X Pro.

In conclusion, Adobe CS5.5 provides some improvements in terms of performance, a major HTML5 integration in response to Apple’s constant ban to Flash and finally a better mobile experience. In our opinion, this is just an attempt for keeping customers happy whilst CS6 hits the market.

HTML5

There’s no doubt that during the past 12 months, HTML5 achieved huge success among designers and developers, changing the way people approach the web. While some people are still arguing about going native or web, HTML5 keeps evolving, blurring the difference between the two of them and setting new standards. This year we had the opportunity of seeing many companies working with HTML5 in their mobile websites, the language provides a great dynamic experience that more and more devices are supporting every day.

Another field where HTML5 is gaining importance is gaming development. These games have become a big hobby for smartphones and tablets owners around the world. Even some Facebook games are now being developed in HTML5, so we’re definitely going to see many great games this year build upon HTML5. Another aspect we need to parse is responsive web design, HTML5 allows you to work with conditional loadings, touch detection and more, therefore it’s going to be easier to create fluid websites with HTML5 only.

One of the most intriguing concepts that started recently is offline caching, a HTML5 trick that allows the browser/device to sync with the browser and remember everything even if the connection is unavailable, this feature has been included in the Kindle Cloud Reader, an Amazon app that works with your Kindle device, offline caching is supported by Firefox 6+, Chrome 11+, Safari 5+ and iOS 4+. This is one of the most exciting features as many times we’d like to work in places where going online becomes something difficult. This year HTML5 is going to bring more surprises to all of us as it continues to evolve, so if you haven’t say goodbye to Flash (only in the web), then it’s time.

Note: Adobe has officially announced that it will cease the Flash support for all mobile devices.

Lytro’s Multifocus Camera

Hitting the market this year, Lytro announced its first multifocus camera last year, the Lytro Light Field Camera. The camera features a 35-280mm equivalent, constant F2 lens that along with a 11 megaray sensor lets you refocus after shooting, meaning no more out of focus pictures. The camera will come in 8 and 16GB versions, with prices ranging between 399 and 499 US, though this double lens technology has been around for quite a while, this is the first commercial version that people will be able to put their hands into.

iPad 2

Before going to Valhalla, Steve Jobs introduced to us the iPad 2, the newest version of the world’s most famous tablet, but what does this new iPad has to offer to us designers?. The iPad 2 comes with 2 cameras (back and front), which is something that can help us take great pictures even if you don’t have your camera around, besides you can download many great photo editing apps to spicify your pictures even more!. iPad 2 features 512 MB of RAM, which makes your browsing experience much pleasant, so now you can enjoy watching videos, processing pictures and more with ease.

The iPad 2 features a high resolution screen that provides you a better browsing experience, you will also find really enjoyable the new multitouch capabilities that will show you the real power of this tablet. In case you’re running a design/tech blog, the iPad 2 has a neat keyboard that overruns Android’s version (that’s a fact), hence if you want to buy a tablet for writing blog posts, then the iPad 2 is your best option, though there’s still a long road to walk before designers will be able to see in a tablet all the great benefits of regular computers.

Latest design news

Secondly, we have those news that mostly designers and web developers put their eyes on, these news include new social sharing websites, major redesigns and a new user interface that will definitely shake things up during 2012, so let’s take a look at these news that caused some controversy in 2011.

Google Plus

What started as the ultimate Facebook killer ended as Orkut and other similar projects, Google Plus is the latest social bet from the famous web company and without a doubt the best attempt so far in building a solid social network. Google Plus includes many great features such as Circles, YouTube and GTalk integration and more, however they failed in the way they presented the product and hence it’s only been used by geeks and famous people around the world.

In terms of design Google Plus is way much better than other networks, with a great icons’ usage and a thoughtful color application, using HTML5 is another bonus point for this social service that hopefully is going to grow throughout 2012 instead as fading out as other Google products.

Facebook Timeline

As usual, Facebook is always leading the controversy headlines, either for breaking people’s privacy or making its interface dummy-proof, this social networks is always on the eye of the hurricane. Recently Facebook launched its timeline, which is the new version of the old profile webpage, many people hated it but in fact, there’s no reason for that other than the common privacy issues.

The new design makes a new space management by displaying in one side your recent activity and on the other your latest interactions with friends and acquaintances, you can also upload a portrait picture along with a small avatar, so now you can show people who you are in two different pictures. Timeline also includes Maps and other sections that where previously harder to find. The only problem that we saw is that this timeline affects your privacy settings and therefore many people will see things you want to keep hidden before you realize the problem.

Twitter redesign

The Twitter guys are not willing to let Facebook take any advantage, and that’s why they also redesigned their website in order to provide a much cleaner an organized homepage. The new Twitter interface allows you to keep an eye on the latest trends on suggestions whilst watching the main tweets, you can also tweet from any screen thanks to the new top bar, which also gives you access to your interactions, discover new topics, customize your profile or search for an username or specific subject.

YouTube redesign

In YouTube’s case, they have revamped their design to make it more social, that’s why from now on you can easily share your favorite videos, stay connected with your friends, check the trending and popular videos and more. You can check the newest videos from your friends and exclusive recommendations based on your interests. YouTube has also started to implement HTML5 in order to adapt to those devices that don’t provide Flash support, so it seems that this year is going to be really exciting for the world’s most famous videos website.

Windows 8 Metro

Finally we have Metro, probably the most exciting thing for many web and graphic designers around. Metro is the given name to the new design language developed for the Windows 7 Phone interface and for the upcoming Windows 8. Metro is the first design revolution in the era of mobile devices, as every single one of them was simply trying to emulate the iOS style with a few customization to make them look “original”. Metro offers a new user experience build upon a careful typography selection, color management and more.

Regarding typefaces, Metro features Swiss-like fonts inspired but those found on the most important transportation systems around the world, that’s where the Metro concept comes from. Metro is characterized by a larger use of plain colors, hierarchies and contrast, removing lots of gradients and chrome elements that are so common in other devices. It seems like the people of Microsoft finally realized how important design is at the time of reaching new costumers and without a doubt, Metro is going to be one of the most exciting things to see in 2012.

So that’s it, those are some of the biggest design and technology news that emerged in 2011, what do you think is going to happen this year?, will HTML5 defeat Flash once and for all?, is Metro going to be the new design paradigm?, the debate is open and we’d like to hear from you, so leave us your thoughts and opinions in our comments section and we’ll see you soon, bye!.