Every so often, a new design trend splashes across the internet and suddenly every interface looks like it’s been dipped in jelly. The latest one? Liquid glass: glossy, semi-transparent surfaces with soft highlights that feel both futuristic and strangely familiar.
Our immediate reaction after updating to the latest MacOS wasn’t “wow, the future is here” but rather “hang on, this feels very 00s”. Some of the glassy highlights reminded us less of cutting-edge Apple minimalism and more of the Winamp media player skins we grew up with.
So, is liquid glass revolutionary, or just a UI fad dressed up in nostalgia?
Liquid glass does add depth. It makes flat designs feel alive again, with light bouncing off surfaces and a hint of tactility that skeuomorphic design once promised. Done well, it gives interfaces a sense of physicality and movement that can feel engaging rather than sterile. There’s a reason it photographs so well in Apple keynotes.
It’s also a natural fit for devices with ever-better screens and GPUs. Twenty years ago, rendering all those reflections and highlights would have slowed your computer to a crawl. Now, they glide along seamlessly.
But it’s not all smooth sailing. One person’s glossy futurism is another person’s “too much.” When every app embraces the same glassy aesthetic, the effect quickly becomes homogenous. It can also tip into gimmick territory, shiny for the sake of shiny, without actually improving usability.
We’ve seen this cycle before. From skeuomorphism’s stitched leather and felt textures to the long reign of flat design, UI styles rise, saturate, and eventually fade. Liquid glass may just be the latest iteration of that loop.
It’s probably too early to pin liquid glass down as either a revolution or a fad. Right now, it feels fresh, eye-catching, and undeniably nostalgic, but whether it becomes a lasting part of UI design or quietly fades like skeuomorphism will depend on how designers use it over the next few years.
Handled with restraint, it could add depth and personality to interfaces in a way that flat design never quite managed. Overdone, it risks looking like a glossy throwback.
For now, liquid glass sits somewhere in the middle: promising, playful, and still waiting to prove itself.
