At a recent Render conference, the conference for front-end development I listened to a talk by Sarah Semark titled “The Unbearable Likeness of Web Design”. What was interesting was her perspective on common style and themes.
Its not uncommon for sites to mirror another, quite like fashion. Flat design was adopted by many, and is now considered as the de-facto standard. But like Fashion this trend will be superseded.
When designing systems we must remember that our design is simply, a design, a view of our controllers, and models. Expect it to change.
We should seek out new ideas, look at print design and how its been iterating through the years and try to consider breaking the mould and being the next trend setter vs just following suit.