Happy Holidays All.
A few years back, 2007 to be exact, Christmas Eve coincided with one of my regularly scheduled days for a blog post. Figuring not many people would be paying attention, I decided to have a little bit of fun with the holiday poem A Visit from St. Nocholas.

That year I shared shared Twas the Night Before Google. Two years ago when day and holiday coincided once again, I reworked the poem one more time and shared Twas the Night Before Responsive.
It’s still twas the night before local time so I think I’m not too late with this year’s addition. My versions are hardly great poetry, but they are fun to write and hopefully fun to read. I hope you enjoy
Twas the night…
<strong>before flat design</strong>, and all through the sites, |
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Every element was skeuomorphic, it was all play of light; |
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All buttons were crafted with painstaking care, |
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Shadows, reflections, and gradients everywhere; |
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The leather was stitched all tight to the screen; |
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Metal textured with rust would still have a sheen |
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Designers all over, with nary a murmur, |
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Had started to think about how to go further; |
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When out on the web a new trend all a sudden, |
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Showed me something different; is that a flat button? |
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Away on the internet, I searched so I'd know, |
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What is this new look without all the faux. |
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No bevels embossed, no depth of any kind, |
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Where's all the realism, there's none I can find. |
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I see dots, shapes, and lines and plenty of space; |
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Color, type, and hierarchy, oh yeah, this is great. |
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With a flatness to guide me I quickly changed gears, |
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I'll remove detail from my site and everyone will cheer. |
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Rushing to my desk and soon opening Coda, |
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I connected to my site and reached for a soda. |
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Now Bootstrap! Now Gumby! Now Flatby and Pure! |
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On Foundation! On Bootflat! On UI kits galore! |
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Let's do this quickly; let's do this in haste, |
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Pass me that framework there's no time to waste. |
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A bookshelf gone here, torn paper removed there, |
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The depth has gone away, though I've no idea where. |
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Get rid of the grunge and the candy so lickable, |
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Seriously, why did we think a website was edible? |
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Then in a flash and for everyone to see, |
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I had to look again, my eyes weren't deceived; |
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Is that really be Microsoft taking the lead? |
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Indeed it was Microsoft, Indeed, oh indeed. |
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Windows 8 there it was, grids end to end, |
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And colors and space, disbelief must suspend; |
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With all that we knew about design until now, |
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How could it be Redmond that was showing us how? |
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Detail and dimension removed from the fold, |
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We all stopped to think that our sites must look old. |
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Strip out the watercolor, push pins and tabs, |
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paper clips, sticky notes and all the price tags. |
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With so much removed what will we add? |
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Simple shapes, solid icons, our designs we will clad, |
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Large clickable buttons no one knows to click, |
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And it'll all lay on top of a large background pic. |
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My palette now filled with desaturated color, |
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My canvas is becoming ever so paler. |
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Go big, go bigger, there's no in-between |
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Big giant type all over my screen, |
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I spoke not a word as I worked a design, |
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The return to basics was feeling sublime; |
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But out of the corner my eye caught a vision, |
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What's that moving over there? How did it transition? |
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Depth will return, I promise you that, |
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some buttons already are not quite so flat. |
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It's just a trend I say as I turn out the light, |
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A new trend for all, and to all a good night! |
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Download a free sample from my book, Design Fundamentals.
Very nice.