Under the gloss
I started my career with flat design as the standard. From my understanding, apple led the transition as the digital ecosystem migrated from desktop to mobile. With less screen real estate and more stuff, it made sense to simplify the visual language, thus going flat. The production of skeuomorphic assets at scale was a tedious mess with the tech bar in the days (photoshop everything). Since then lots have change, to much to make industry-wide statements.
This week's big fuss about Airbnb CEO saying “I think flat design is over or ending” sounds to my ear quite overly dramatic – Big design smelling its own farts. Skeuomorphic, colorful, texture-rich brands have existed, persisted, and will continue to do so. Chesky’s underlying thesis is that the digital native crave some “natural” elements infused in the digital experience.
For some, it will bring some Web 2.0 gloss nostalgia. For others, maybe a fresh smile, it’s cute and, as always well done. Airbnb is in a unique position: they have a mature brand, the budget, and the talent to pull this off. The tech and talent to implement such style is wild. Yes AI is good but big brands like Airbnb are will always stands out thanks to the talent they can hire. From a technical perspective, they are pushing the envelope - kudos.
But let’s not forget why flat design took hold in the first place. The digital landscape is more bloated, chaotic, and demanding than ever. The need for clarity, speed, and legibility hasn’t gone away—in fact, it’s more urgent now. So philosophically, I’d argue this shift is a regression. Aesthetic sugar for short-term conversion gains.
What they unveiled is beautiful—but it’s eye candy. It’s a flex. It’s marketing dressed up as taste. This is the kind of ornamental overreach that reveals the gap between Big Tech and the rest of us. Chesky’s design leadership seems to orbit around trend-surfing and aesthetic opportunism. Let’s not confuse that with vision.
He’s clearly having fun – good for him – but let’s not forget he’s an art director with business interests and way too much money to burn. This year he wanted a big glossy dial – cool. In two years, something else equally infringing, distracting, and expensive will come along. Meanwhile, most apps are riddled with basic bugs and UX issues with tiny design team burning out… because bozos (design influencers) and big tech are setting bogus expectations.
But wait — they must’ve tested this, right? So it’s what people want. But giving people what they want isn’t the same as doing what’s right. Optimization inside an already exploitative system doesn’t make it virtuous — it just makes it more efficient. Airbnb isn’t redefining design; they’re fine-tuning a machine that drives up rents, displaces locals, and turns cities into themed experiences. Now they’re layering on visual gloss to keep it feeling fresh. Design leadership isn’t about aesthetics, conversion, or even scale — it’s about solving problems that matter. And at Airbnb’s level of influence, chasing surface-level wins while ignoring systemic harm is a failure of vision.
What’s missing in all this glossy rebranding is a basic sense of self-awareness. When the richest companies treat aesthetic shifts like philosophical breakthroughs, it distorts the public’s understanding of design. And with Airbnb in particular, the design chatter becomes a convenient distraction from the systemic issues the company has fueled—skyrocketing rents, hollowed-out neighborhoods, touristification of residential spaces, the erosion of local culture. The conversation turns to button styling and nostalgic textures, while the platform continues to shape cities in ways that are deeply extractive. It’s easier to celebrate a glossy dial than confront the hard truth: Airbnb’s most influential “design” isn’t visual at all—it’s economic and urban, and it’s made life worse for a lot of people.
This kind of design theater doesn’t just mislead—it absolves. It lets leadership posture as visionary while dodging accountability. It sets unrealistic expectations for what design is for, training a new generation to chase aesthetics over ethics. Good design isn’t a vibe. It’s the quiet stuff that actually works, improves our condition as humans, and doesn’t make the world worse in the process. That’s what we should be celebrating—not another rebrand dressed up as a movement.
← Index Published on 2025-05-16