The author's interpretation seems to be that the spirit of "child-like playfulness" was already the dominating design paradigm at Google, as characterized by Saville in 2010, and the re-design of the logo was done in this spirit. It's pretty plausible, given that this was the first time Google was changing its logo in ten years.
Edit: FWIW, it's not designs that are just flat that the author considers child-like. It's a design vocabulary that uses flat designs, cartoonish characters (e.g. Octocat), addressing users in a child-like manner that's seen as childish. Flatness is just one element of this vocabulary.
To be clear, I don't necessarily disagree with the idea that cartoons and vivid color schemes are used more prominently in the digital world, but I think the discussion of skeuomorphism vs flat design is mostly besides the point, and is undermining her argument with unconvincing examples.
Comments
The author's interpretation seems to be that the spirit of "child-like playfulness" was already the dominating design paradigm at Google, as characterized by Saville in 2010, and the re-design of the logo was done in this spirit. It's pretty plausible, given that this was the first time Google was changing its logo in ten years.
Edit: FWIW, it's not designs that are just flat that the author considers child-like. It's a design vocabulary that uses flat designs, cartoonish characters (e.g. Octocat), addressing users in a child-like manner that's seen as childish. Flatness is just one element of this vocabulary.
To be clear, I don't necessarily disagree with the idea that cartoons and vivid color schemes are used more prominently in the digital world, but I think the discussion of skeuomorphism vs flat design is mostly besides the point, and is undermining her argument with unconvincing examples.