Web Design Trends You Can Try Right Now

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Editor X, a web creation platform for designers, has recently launched a minisite covering the web design trends of 2021 — and it seems like the web is going to look very different than in recent years. Web Design in 2021, an interactive report and showcase of changes coming to the digital screen this year. The future is here, right now, and it’s awesome opportunity to astonish your customers. Make 2021 the year you always wanted to live and throw the caution to the wind. Work with new tools and create wonderful product, embrace the latest website design trends and make yourself better.

In today’s fast-paced digital world, having a strong online presence is not an option but a necessity for any business. And as all of us know, a great online presence starts with a well-designed website that is capable to grab, engage, and sell. In fact, the first impression users form of a website is 94% design-related and 75% of users judge the credibility of your business based on your website’s overall aesthetics.

Hence, whether you’re a web designer who wants to deliver users the most contemporary experience or a business owner planning to launch or revamp their website, keeping yourself up with what’s hot and trending right now in the web design sphere becomes imperative for you to stay ahead of the competition.

With that in mind, we have researched and put together some of the latest and hottest web design trends that you can implement in your upcoming projects to make your websites look fresh and stand out from the crowd.

Let’s get acquainted with them, one by one!

#1: Vibrant, Eye-Catching Colors and Gradients

Colors are an integral part of web design and according to a recent study performed by the University of Loyola, Color increases brand recognition by up to 80%. While soft tone and monotone have been a prominent web design trend for a while, more and more users nowadays are craving high contrast, vibrant colors that have a sky-high saturation level. Some reasons why companies now more than ever are using bold bright colors are:

  • They improve readability and make your website easier to understand.
  • They make your site more visually appealing, ensuring your users would stay on the site for longer.
  • As a general rule, the longer a user stays on your site, the more likely they are to convert.

Moreover, ever since Apple and Instagram started to use Gradients in their branding, colorful gradients have become more of a standard than a trend in the web design world.

Examples:Sikkema, Whimsical, Jaszczuk

#2: Vintage Typography/More Serifs

Brands for a long while have been using serifs for print and sans serifs for the screen. However, this year, web designers have gone back to basics, shifting from the modern and thinner looking fonts like sans serifs to softer and rounder old-school typography styles such as serifs which offer a more vintage and relaxed feel.

One of the biggest contributing factors to the adoption of this web design trend is the availability of better screen resolutions across all devices. There was a time when Sans Serifs were the most readable on screens, but thanks to the advent of high-definition, high-resolution screens; using Serifs on your website is no longer an issue.

Examples:MailChimp, The New Yorker, Reform Collective

#3: Dark Mode

According to a recent study, 55% of American generation Z’ers (13-18-year-olds) and 47% of generation Y’ers (19-29-year-olds) surf the Web almost every night for at least one hour before they fall asleep. Means, millions of people are already suffering from eye strain caused by bright backgrounds and blue light emitted from their screens as they often browse the Internet in their dark bedroom.

With this problem in mind, web designers and UX professionals are now giving users an option to switch between light and dark modes. Initially implemented in text editors as a way to reduce eye strain and conserve the power of devices, the trend got even steeper when Google incorporated it in many of its apps, from YouTube to Chrome. While the dark mode is a relatively new web design trend, it’s quite popular and likely to be adopted even more widely in 2020.

Examples:Reddit, YouTube, Twitter, Cannes Series

#4: Micro-interactions

Micro-interactions are small animated interactions with one purpose: to create surprise and anxiety to the users through subtle visual effects so that they get compelled to take a specific action on a website. According to many user experience experts, they play a vital role in improving the usability and driving user engagement on a website.

Although Micro-interactions has been around for a long time, they are now being reinvented in a completely new manner. Unlike previously, where Micro-interactions were being used on clickable elements such as buttons and icons, they now come in form of more interactive incarnations such as scrolling animations, hover effects, chimes, and more – making your website feel alive, smarter, and fun to engage with.

Examples:Femme & Fierce, Montreux Jazz Festival, Affinity

#5: Voice User Interfaces (VUIs)

This web design trend is prevalent in 2020 as users these days are looking for the easiest ways to access content online. Reducing the time and effort involved in the interaction, Voice-command interfaces, or conversational devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home makes accessing web content significantly easier and quicker for the end-users.

If you’re a smartphone user, then you’re probably already familiar with voice-enabled search assistants such as Google Assistant, Siri, and Cortana. However, if you’re a professional web designer, you should start thinking about bringing voice search functionality to the user interface of your website or application.

A recent report shows that nearly 65% of 25 to 49-year-olds speak to voice-enabled devices and assistants at least once per day. With a continuously growing number of voice-controlled devices and with more people than ever embracing Voice over Text, the way we interact with brands and how we navigate the Web is rapidly changing.

Where the famous Gartner report predicts that at least 30% of web browsing sessions will be conducted without a screen, on the other hand, ComScore estimates that over 50% of all searches will be performed by voice in 2020. Hence, as a web designer, you must be familiar with how users interact with voice commands and how to prototype a voice interface with keywords and related actions.

Examples:Voice Assistant, Siri OSX El Capitan, and Dropbox Files in Active UI

#6: Custom Graphic Design and Illustrations

A powerful illustration with bold colors speaks volume and is more versatile than an ordinary image. Even, statistics also say that the visual effect of a custom made illustration on the users is 7 times better than that of any stock photography.

With that said, more and more businesses today are looking forward to incorporating modern-looking illustration into their websites to make them even more interesting and lively. A few benefits of custom design and illustrations are:

  • They look unique and authentic
  • They can quickly portray powerful emotions through a singular voice
  • They make abstract and absurd concepts easier to understand
  • They make your brand more personal and less corporate

So, if you want to visually differentiate your website or web app from the competition, you should opt for customized web design packed with professional, hand-drawn sketches and illustrations.

Examples:Airtable, Avocode, Hey Influencers

#7: Brutalism and Maximalism

Most of us love simple, sober and elegant websites. But think, what would happen if you visit something rugged or unadorned? No matter what you feel, you would surely never forget that website, right? This is actually what Brutalist Web Design is all about!

Inspired by the poster arts of the 1950s to 1970s, Brutalism in web design is a style that intentionally attempts to look raw and haphazard, reflecting the aesthetic of early internet websites. With bright colors, bold fonts, blue links, and monochromatic Monospace text, Brutalism sometimes also refers to a bare-bones, almost naked HTML site.

Since Brutalism is one of the best ways to distinguish your brand from others, you can leverage this web design trend to create unforgettable experiences while all your competitors are going for a sleek, conventional design.

Examples:Drod, Mary Gaudin, Bergen

#8: Thumb-friendly Mobile Navigation

Responsive Web Design (RWD) isn’t a web design trend anymore! Given that there has been a rapid, continuous decline in the usage of 4” or smaller screen devices in past few years, web designers today are going beyond Responsive Design to make their website even more mobile-friendly. To be more specific, web design nowadays revolves around creating websites that are thumb-friendly.

Since most of the users use either their right or left thumb to interact with a mobile responsive website, putting your hamburger menu, navigation bar, and even contact buttons in the Thumb Zone make your site easier to navigate and improve its UX manifold. Wondering what the Thumb Zone is? It is indeed the most comfortable area on mobile touchscreen devices where your thumb can easily reach with one-handed use.

To help you better understand, here is a great graphic from Smashing Magazine showing the thumb-friendly areas of a mobile phone screen:

Examples:Wallet Screen, YONO and Watering Tracker

#9: Mobile-First Web Design

With Google emphasizing mobile-first indexing more than ever, mobile-first web design is the hottest web design trend of 2020. The term ‘mobile-first web design’ simply refers to designing a website or application for mobile devices first, and then design out for devices with larger screen sizes, such as laptops and desktops.

This is opposite to the traditional approach where web designers used to design for large screen devices first and then work down to smaller screens. With so many people using mobile and tablet devices to access the Web, it makes real sense for UI/UX designers to focus more on designing for small screen mobile devices first.

By embracing this new web design trend, you can ensure your website or application will be truly responsive and deliver users the right experience on the right device.

Examples: ABC, Apple, Airbnb, MTV

#10: Emotion in the Design

The ultimate goal of your website or web app is to establish a real connection with your users and that’s what Emotional Design is all about. In 2020, there has been a rapid rise in the emergence of websites that are based on the emotional appeal where every design element of the website provides a cue to users about how they should react. According to web design experts, emotional connections can be divided into four basic categories:

  • Joy and Sadness
  • Fear and Anger
  • Trust and Disgust
  • Surprise and Anxiety

So, ideally, to incorporate emotions into your website design, your choice of colors, text, and imagery must portray any of the above groups of feelings. Otherwise, your site may fail to captivate, engage, and retain users.

Examples:Dice Berlin, Sproutsend, and Emotional Designs by Gleb Kuznetsov

#11: Design for Privacy, Safety, and Transparency

Even though Privacy is a fundamental human right, it is still one of the most confusing and least understood topics of the Internet. However, with the introduction of several privacy laws such as GDPR and CCPA in recent years, designing a website or web app with users’ privacy, safety and transparency in mind has now become more vital than ever.

Especially when Google recently was fined a record $57 million by the French data regulator CNIL for lack of GDPR compliance, designing for privacy becomes even more crucial for both legal and economic aspects. So, as a web designer, it’s your responsibility to ensure that your design is privacy-aware and doesn’t violate any data privacy regulation.

Examples:Wrike, Atlassian and Disney

#12: A Strong Emphasis on Accessibility

Web Accessibility, the practice of ensuring that websites and applications are accessible and usable by people with different disabilities, has long been an integral part of web design strategy in mature organizations.

However, with high-profile cases like the pizza-chain Domino’s lawsuit and others struggling through the courts, it’s now more crucial than ever to ensure your website or application is accessible to everyone and anyone.

Moreover, with 26% of adults in the United States having some form of disability, creating accessible websites and applications is a web design trend well worth paying close attention to.

Examples: Deque, Nomensa, Parramatta Park

#13: Design Systems

In the simplest terms, a Design System is a collection of reusable elements guided by a set of design rules and standards. In recent years, these systems have climbed in popularity with more and more companies leveraging them to make their brands scalable and cohesive.

Regardless of the type of web design, Design Systems today are the foundation for everything related to design. When implemented well, they not only reduce inconsistencies in design but also speed up the design process by facilitating communication between developers and designers.

Some popular companies that have developed game-changing Design Systems are Shopify, Trello and Salesforce.

#14: Artificial Intelligence & Contextual Technology

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the technologies that has significantly impacted a wide range of industries, and web design is no exception. You can use AI in web design in two ways:

  • Artificial Design Intelligence to automate different aspects of web design, such as via Chatbots.
  • As a Contextual Technology to make your websites and applications feel more ‘human-like’ so that they can deliver more targeted and personalized experiences to users.

Either way, you can leverage the potential of this newcomer web design trend to enhance your web design work in 2020 and beyond.

Examples: Amazon, Netflix, ELSA, Scoop.it

#15: More Depth and Almost Real-like Design Elements

Although VR (Virtual Reality) is still in its infant stage, its influence on web design can be seen evidently. To make their designs look more realistic and lively, web designers these days adding more depth to their designs as well as using a variety of other design elements which eventually tends to bring out a more natural feel to their projects.

This includes everything from three-dimensional elements to illustrations to moving shapes to anything that users can virtually feel. In fact, the mash-up of real-like 3D design elements Flat interfaces is leading to the re-evolution of Flat Design, aka Deep Flat or 3D Flat Design.

Examples:BCdesign, Ringba and Stripe

#16: Augmented & Virtual Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies are here for a long while; their impact can now be easily seen in web design and development landscape. The use cases for these technologies are primarily in eCommerce websites as stores and brands alike are implementing AR and VR into their websites to allow them to virtually try out different products, such as clothes, jewelry, makeup, furniture, paint, etc.

IKEA, for instance, already has these technologies in the form of an app, called Ikea Place, which allows users to place furniture around their house via a smartphone camera, to preview what they would look like.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UudV1VdFtuQ

Likewise, there are several companies selling glasses, such as Specsavers and Lenskart, which allow you to try them virtually before you buy them.

Image Credit: SiteJet.io

However, this is just the beginning, and the best is yet to come!

#17: More Focus on Data Visualization

You have some complex data, but how would you show it to your visitors in a simple, fun way? Data visualization is probably the only web design trend that can help you do this. Allowing you to effectively present complex information in a completely distinct manner, this innovative web design technique makes your data easier to understand and more interesting for your users.

To make Data Visualization work most effectively, you can easily turn your complex data into a visually compelling story, where users are taken through the beginning, middle, and the end to the story. Depending on the platform and the intended purpose of your website or web app, you can use Visualized data in the form of scrolling panels, an animation, a still image, or an interactive game.

Examples:Zef Cherry, TasteAtlas and Wind Map

#18: Ultra-minimalist Navigation

Next on the list of web design trends 2020 is ultra-minimalist navigation, which refers to the end of mega menus and emphasizes keeping the navigation hidden by default. With the help of hidden navigation, not only can you save a lot of space in your design, but it also can make your design look less cluttered.

The idea behind streamlined navigation is that users who come to your website via organic search are less likely to start on the homepage. Additionally, extremely minimalist navigation creates a more direct path to the area of the site where you want your visitors to interact most with your design. As a general rule, the less a user thinks about moving around, the more time they are likely to spend immersed in the website. So, consider incorporating this web design trend in your designs.

Examples: Bikebear, Uniel, Masi Tupungato

Posted on 3/16/2017 in UX and Design

By wakefly

The trends for web design are ever changing. We’ve been witness to skeuomorphic design, overused stock photos and flash splash pages. Luckily, trends are changing. Web design has become more sophisticated, not just taking into account the look, but also User Experience (UX). Within these new web design trends lay mobile-first design, SVGs, the use of web fonts and more. Below are 8 web design trends you need to consider implementing in your website now.

If your website is not responsive you’re already doing it wrong. Mobile and tablet devices now account for about 51% of internet use worldwide, according to statcounter.com. If your website is not mobile friendly, it’s likely that your SEO rankings are suffering. Google demotes websites in its search rankings if the website is not mobile friendly. Not only is having a mobile design important but web designers are now designing websites for mobile first, rather than starting with desktop. So it makes sense that the design of a website caters to those devices that people are using the most.

For most simple graphics or illustrations on a website, the png is being used less and replaced with SVG. SVGs are favored because the graphic will not pixelate, it will look the same at any resolution, crisp and sharp. Whereas, png, jpg, gif, or tif are raster images that can become pixelated. The difference is obvious when you see the two examples below.

All too often web designers will create a design using a specific system font only to learn, after it’s too late, that the font does not render well in some web browsers. This is why many designers have taken a liking to web fonts. Web fonts are designed to display well in all browsers. Most of them are sans serif, like Roboto, which rasterize better than system fonts. You want to make your visitor enjoy their reading experience on your site. Choose a font that is web friendly and doesn’t have distractions like the ornaments on serif fonts. Lastly, most web fonts are cost-effective, if not free like Google Fonts.

Web

One color design trend that has made a comeback is gradients. For a while, flat design was all the rage while gradient color use was looked upon as tacky. It wasn’t until just recently that they are once again being widely used for logos, such as Instagram’s new gradient logo. Another company that has also adopted the gradient trend to incorporate into their logo is Pandora Internet Radio.

A second color trend that seems to be everywhere right now is duotone, which is famously used by Spotify. Duotone is the use of only two colors in an image. One of the two colors is used for the shadows, the other is used for the highlights and looks like the below image. Not only is Spotify using this retro color trend but other companies are using it on their banner images on their websites, like Adison Partners and Host, see below.

Static banners are finally starting to replace carousel sliders. I’m so happy about this. Why? Because, honestly, no one looks at all of them and they can also negatively impact your SEO ranking. In fact, only about 1% of site visitors click on a homepage carousel (2). Additionally, they can slow loading time on mobile devices, making your visitor frustrated enough to leave your site and increase your bounce rate. The new direction emerging and replacing carousel banners are static visually pleasing banners, videos and cinemagraphs. Good examples of using cinemagraphs can be seen on Ann Street Studios and how videos are used at Axiometrics.

More websites are leaning toward “real” photos of real everyday people. Something else that is heading out the door is the abundant overuse of stock images. In addition, flat icons are on their way out too. Meanwhile, companies are using authentic illustrations to add a bit of personality to their websites. Below is an example of an authentic use of illustrations by Solo.

Lastly, more creative website designs trends are emerging. It seems as though companies are really trying to diversify themselves and not stick to the cookie cutter web designs everyone was so used to following. With illustrations being used within backgrounds and layered text and animations, it feels like we’re finally breaking away from a standard web design format. Some examples of out of the ordinary designs are Melanie F and Le Mugs.

As a busy web designer in 2017, I am excited to see these new web design trends emerge. They allow us to have more creative license, personality and to be able to step outside of the box allowing us to capture and keep our audience’s attention. Not an easy task in this ever-changing digital world we find ourselves in!

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