Current Web Trends
Every designer wants to be up to date with the latest in the field, and it is also good to know about current trends in the market. In addition to the usual responsive website, a design should above all be unique.
In fact, web design is so dynamic, that things considered the fresh and modern couple of years ago nowadays might seem to be completely out of date.
Web designers need to know the technology changes available in order to exploit them but also, it’s important to know cutting-edge design trends too. We all know it’s a continuing process of gaining new skills and knowledge.
- Patterns, Lines and Circles; Geometric Shapes. Some have been talking about this since 2016.. but mobile helps with the popularity of circles where a user typically has to press with their round finger tips circular or oval buttons. In order to really understand geometric shapes, you first need to know about organic shapes. Pretty much everything in this world is an organic shape, meaning that it’s naturally occurring; imperfect, irregular or asymmetrical are two other ways to describe organic shapes. Geometric shapes, on the other hand, are uniform — they consist of straight lines and curves which look good on a web page..
- Bright Colours. We’ve seen the use of solid colours increase through the adoption of the flat design trend, but these hues are becoming increasingly vibrant following the release of iOS7 and the colourful iPhone 5C. Dazzling RGB colours are becoming more popular in the latest website designs, with saturation levels at an all-time high.
- Unique Pictures and Graphics. Graphic illustrations like Infographics will be gaining more popularity.
- Photo Content. More than 60% of users believe that the decisive factor of a purchase is using unique pictures and photos, so e-stores should give them maximum attention.
- Animation. “Best case scenario, the animation influences your users’ perception of your product’s technology, making it seem better than it actually is. Worst case scenario, your users have something fun to watch while they wait, improving the overall experience.”
- Extensions - Old and well-known PNG, JPG, and even GIF images are old hat. In the modern world, more attention is paid to the quality of images, and their accessibility. SVG looks to be the number 1 most popular extension. They are easy to scale and there is no loss of quality. Additionally, the size of SVG files is in many respects acceptable. This will be the best format for graphic elements.
- Software. A lot of people are saying that Sketch will displace Photoshop. Sketch even now makes it easier and faster to create a website layout. Its functionality has largely surpassed Photoshop, and in 2018 the difference will become very significant, as a result Adobe will lose part of their user base – web and UI designers. Big but – Sketch is only on the Mac…
- More emphasis on landing pages, less on a home page. As we refine content and opt to market and share it more, in 2017 we will likely see a rise in landing page designs instead of a home page design. While every website needs a home page, I think that as content marketing spreads, marketers will want to direct traffic to dedicated landing pages to better target their visitors and their needs. It makes sense: The idea of content marketing is to increase awareness and conversions, and what better way to increase conversions than to have visitors land on a page strictly made for them. These pages will be as well designed and thought out as others on the site, but target the visitor much more.
- Navigation diets. As being a mobile society, I believe that because most of us access the web through our phones more than our computers, the overall trend to make things easier to navigate has taken over and reformed our navigation on websites. Instead of overly complicated and long navigations, more and more sites are starting to simplify their navigation down to about four to five items. Keeping navigation to a minimum also helps visitors to focus on the intent at hand, instead of trying to find a way off the page.
- Duotone gradient imagery. There are various reasons these effects abound, notably allowing informational websites to use authentic photography without distracting from navigational elements or important copywriting. Duotones can establish a colour theme for an agency website, for example, and help to liven up what can sometimes be quite basic website designs.