Flat design is characterized by its simplicity and boldness – large, simple type, bright colors, clear navigation. Tiling is often used in flat designs- hexagons, squares and rectangles capture attention and move the eye to vital points in the design. User interfaces like buttons and banners are also designed using flat web design.
Flat web design has brought emphasis back to minimalist design, with its focus on white space and large images. Clean layouts that give weight to the content; large, simple typography; bold use of color; sharp shapes and lines are all part of the overall trend towards minimalism.
Devcom Software Flash CMS Template
Roller Skating Flat Responsive Website Template
Surfo Surfing Responsive Website Template
Flat design avoids the use of embellishments like drop shadows, gradients, bevels and textures. It also avoids animation and keeps the design distraction-free, to focus on the content. Lately there have been other trends emerging from flat design. ‘Almost flat design’ uses some minimal effect for a design variation, such as a simple shadow inside of an element or basic gradient. “Long shadow design”, used mostly for icons, has a tinted area (or shadow) from the image within the icon frame, falling at a 45-degree angle to the image. This muted effect adds depth to the image while maintaining the overall flat design feel.
Flat + Long Shadow Social Icons
Flat design combined with large image backgrounds or video backgrounds, keeps the visitor’s attention alive while focusing on the main content.
Tomas O’donnelly Flat Website Template
Photographer Portfolio Website Template
Sky Wake Flat Responsive Website Template
Flat Design Responsive OnePage WordPress Theme
Flat Responsive Magento Theme
Canyon Flat OnePage Responsive Portfolio
Mountain – One Page Flat Responsive Parallax HTML Template
LightDose Flat & Minimal Responsive WordPress Theme
Wiva – One Page Flat Design Parallax Muse Template
Every element is given attention in flat web design – and as a result we see designs with flat buttons and menus, flat company profiles, flat pricing tables, graphs and sign-up forms, flat social icons, flat friends lists, flat business cards, flat credit cards and flat infographics.
Flat Design Concept Icons For Business
Set of Vector Sport Icons in Flat Design
Flat UI, Infographics and Web Elements
Flat Design in Infographics, User Interface and Web Elements 
Flat web banners with smart objects allow the user to quickly and easily replace the images with his own images.
Flat Design Web Banner Ads Using Smart Objects
Flat design has spilled over into all aspects of communication – print, magazines, posters, brochures, business cards, business presentation formats, mockups and more.
WowNow PSD – Multi-Purpose Flat Design
Running Club Responsive Website Template
Solaris Solar Responsive Website Template
Midas Printing Responsive Website Template
Informer Internet Website Template
The best part about flat web design is that it translates well into mobile devices without losing its appeal. Images stay light and web loading times are faster. That translates into more web visitors for you! Today’s web users are not willing to wait more than
two seconds for a page to load. All the more reason for web designers to focus on simple, clean layouts, clear navigation and flat designs so that the content – your basic message – really shines through on the web.
Check out some more website templates using flat design here!
