The Past
Images. Video. Colors. Text; wait what text? text-indent: -9999px. That is what the past few years of websites. The design philosophy was BIG in your face images. Even Bold Array was guilty of it (www.envelopments.com). Every single possible pixel on the screen needed to have some element of color, texture or anything that wasn’t white space!
& Today
We are starting to see a return to the simplicity that started the web. Websites are now looking at more of a text based solution with images acting as a supporting cast. The days of in your face images is becoming a thing of the past. Could this be a trend? Or are designers tired of slapping up images on a webpage and calling it “greatness”? Time will only tell…
The Next Trend -> Web Typography
A lot of great web designers are bringing back typography. Well, I wouldn’t say bringing back, but it was never really on the web. But they are taking the components of great typography from print and now applying that to the web. With the inclusion of web based fonts (type kit, google fonts) designers now have a large pool of fonts to choose from. Web standard based fonts are a thing of the past! Today there are thousands of fonts to choose from and through CSS3 these fonts can be styled in a manner that bring typography to life on the web. Exciting, it is!
Now don’t worry, images are not disappearing on the web. Images are maturing and being used wisely. Part of the decrease in image usage has to do with how the web has evolved. Mobile has played a huge part of this. How many people want wait 5 minutes for a 3MB jpeg to download so they can view the homepage? Not many. Hence typography has evolved to a more important role in web design and user interface than ever.
We could be in for great surprises as the web evolves into the next phase.
“Simple Design with a dash of Typography”
Email me when Josh Nolan publishes or recommends stories