Trends within Web Design
When creating a website, it is crucial to research trends in order to produce an up to date site that can contest against your competitors. Users who constantly use the web will have a visual eye for websites that follow trends as they are appealing and engaging. Therefore, it is vital that you integrate some of these features into your designs in order to maintain a fresh and up to date website.
As flat design became popular a few years ago, elements such as drop shadows also became prominent in these designs. The idea of a flat plan was to produce designs that appeared less severe and simple. Shadows became a part of this trend as they help to contrast with minimal design styles and flat design elements. There are different ways to apply a drop shadow to your designs.
Us Two uses overlapping text with shadows to produce a layered effect. This results in adding some perspective and visual interest.
Better has the shadows connected to the objects, creating the illusion of the objects sitting on a table.
The website Plasso implements shadows sparingly, but in a way that helps to highlight only the important content. They grace only the main call to action buttons and content cards, creating a very minimal but up to date design.
Another very distinctive trend of web design is the use of geometric themes. This trend includes the use of polygons to create layering and interesting content. A polygon is any closed-off shape with straight lines with normally 3–5 sides. Take a look at this website Anakin.
There is a huge use of geometry here, however all the shapes work nicely together and the overall visual identity of the webiste appears modern and fresh to users. There is the use of this trend of geometric shapes and then there is a more simple style which also works effectively.
Like the ESPN website above, some companies implement more subtle and simple shapes. This also works a great deal with minimal designs.
Typography is a powerful visual tool that is used constantly to communicate with users. It can present personality, a certain tone and emotion to a website all whilst conveying important content. Since device resolutions are getting sharper and easier to read, many websites have been implementing large bold custom fonts to make their designs more unique. This is also supported by the current trend of large letters and contrasting sans serif and serif headings in order to create nice contrasts.
Lush is the perfect example of a company using custom fonts to present a unique and personal style to their website. As you can see, they are currently advertising halloween products and have adjusted the typeface to work accordingly with this. The typeface works well with the use of white space around it, appearing visually pleasing to the user and creating an overall user-friendly website. The typeface also sets a care free and playful tone, which matches with the overall atitude of the company.
Today’s online designers tend to use the principle of ‘less is more’. Minimalism has become a popular design trend with the use of a lot of white space to create an uncluttered visual identity. This principle concentrates on the idea that you must start with rough content and then build just enough interface for users to identify their goal and navigate to it easily. A real benefit of this design is that websites have faster loading times and better compatibility between screen sizes. These simple designs are also attuned to mobile browsing, without damaging the user experience.
Apple is one of the most influencial and implemented users of minimalism. The idea is to use a lot of white space to draw attention to the sleek product’s design. The clear top bar, also featuring an abundance of space, helps the user to easily navigate.
According to a GO-Gulf study, 90% of users complete the same task on multiple devices, across all age ranges. As mentioned earlier, mobile browsing is now extremely popular and must be taken into consideration when designing a website. Rather than cramming a complex system into a mobile device, companies are designing more device-specific variations of their site. This has resulted in the establishment of the roll out burger menu, which operates by minimizing the menu for the small screen. Icons have also become much more useful in terms of space, with users having no problem in recognising them and knowing what they do. A few mobile alternatives for complex interactions are outlined below:
· Replace header videos with stills from the video, or if you need to include a video on your mobile site, use a link to YouTube.
- Simplify animated effects.
- Don’t use hover effects. Use touch buttons or gesture controls that can hide/show information.
- Replace dropdown menus with hamburger menus.
- Implement voice activation in some areas. This has become increasing popular with new devices.
- Re-evaluate colours and backgrounds. Mobile devices sometimes require more contrast to maintain readability.
Another trend is the use of illustrations. Illustrations can be used to create a fun and playful atmosphere to your website. Artists can make illustrations that are full of personality and can present a certain tone that is appropriate to your site.
Take a look at this web page for Crater Labs. The illustrations create a playful atmosphere and really help to add some personality to the page, making it unique and appealing to users. This is a great way to attract attention and create a user friendly site. While this trend is perfect for businesses that are energetic, it can help make brands that are typically perceived as serious and more approachable to their customers.
Web designers are faced with finding solutions to visual organisation problems. A popular way to approach this is with the use of a grid. Grids have become increasingly popular with web design, as they help to keep everything precise and in order. A main positive to using grids is that it builds clarity and creates a simple layout for users. Thus, grids help users to navigate easily through the content of a website. They also help with creating an efficient website as designers can quickly add elements to a layout as many layout decisions are addressed whilst building the grid structure. In general, you should always use a grid as it will produce an overall consistency to your website and create a structural harmony in the design.
As you can see, the McQuade website makes good use of a grid and the result is very visually appealing. The images look organised, yet the visual identity is not overwhelming or cluttered.
