For any entrepreneur starting a business, an appealing, user friendly and well-designed website is a must have. Effective web designs grab users’ attention and are essential to enhance both the website’s aesthetic appeal and the users experience.
As with any kind of creative, web designs are often changing as different styles and trends become more (or less) popular. Incorporating the wrong design can have a negative impact on your website’s traffic. Therefore, identifying new and appealing design trends is an important factor of building your website, not matter its purpose. The following are the top 10 trends in web design to expect in the next few years:
- 1. Gradients
Product designs driven by ultra-minimalistic elements were on trend for a long time. Designers used as few visual properties as possible and only highlighted essential elements including functional objects and key content. With changing trends, users have become bored with ultra-minimalistic designs, as websites started to look more alike due to hyperbolic white space and little to no colour elements. Now, to counter the ultra-minimalistic trend, gradients are beginning to take over. It is expected that gradients will be an essential part of web designs as they provide substantial depth across flat layouts. Not only that, but they render websites more visually appealing and can be aesthetically beautiful when used correctly.
- 2. Large elements and oversized types
One of the web design trends gaining traction is the inclusion of prominent and large elements. This can be applied to text, images, videos, and website icons. The design focuses on enlarging elements like bold and big typography, large size images and videos, and much larger menu icons. According to many web designers, oversized elements communicate clearly and are very eye-catching. This web design trend accentuates with the reduction in the number of other design elements from the pages of the website. This design trend should be used carefully, as overemphasizing large elements may be overwhelming to website visitors, and therefore could be counter-productive.
- 3. 3D components
3D elements and visuals are on the trend. Earlier, using 3D technology for web designing was a costly affair. However, advanced developments in 3D designs have reduced the cost significantly. Now, web designers can easily incorporate 3D effects on websites effectively and efficiently. Going forward, more and more web designs are expected to be driven by hyper-realistic 3D visuals to create an immersive and riveting experience for the users.
- 4. Incorporating Digital Illustrations
Visual and Web designs are witnessing a surge in the use of digital illustrations in recent years. These illustrations provide a connection with users and visitors and make websites stand out from the crowd. The world of digital illustrations is diverse and versatile as they can be used in various places, such as hero sections, for icons in the home bar or navigation bar, or feature elaborations and descriptions. In particular, two trends in Digital illustrations are on the rise – 3D illustrations and Hand Drawn Flat illustrations. Both of these are dynamic. ‘Hand Drawn Flat’ use handmade designs rendering an impression of refined craftsmanship to the website. Some of the websites using flat hand-drawn illustrations include Dropbox and Intercom, among many others.
- 5. Using vibrant and vivid colours
The use of vibrant colours by web designers is currently on the rise. Vibrant and vivid colours create visual interest for users to a layout. To increase website traffic, user attention is a key element and precious resource. Therefore, web designers have started using more and more vibrant colours to gain the attention of visitors.
- 6. Split Screen layout for content
The effect of splitting the web screen into two or more sections is an increasing trend at the moment. The effect provides an uncluttered look to convey multiple ideas in one go by putting a spotlight on certain information. In a split screen layout, you can utilise different effects and elements for each screen, making the entire page more dynamic.
- 7. Geometrical and Symmetrical shapes
Symmetrical shapes and geometric elements are robust yet simple elements used to create profoundly appealing visual configurations. Geometric and symmetrical figures are used to make visual dividers between different sections. Going forward, web designers are expected to be using geometric figures and shapes in more interesting ways. For instance, to create a futuristic look, web designers might use soft geometric shapes.
- 8. Broken Grids and layouts
Broken grids and asymmetrical layouts are on the up and coming list of web design elements. Usually, grids are used to layout elements on the website’s page in an attractive manner. For instance, the grids are on the left side of most websites wherein you can locate the alignment of logo, content, and title together. With broken grids, you can asymmetrically push elements on the website in a way to make it look flexible and broken.
- 9. Enhanced and Pre-eminent image and video treatments
Enhanced used of images means presenting images and videos with unique design layouts such as rendering them black and white, or putting a drop shadow, among others. These manoeuvres are used to make websites look trendier and more attractive. Oftentimes, these effects draw a lot of attention from site visitors. You can work both ways with enhanced image treatments; you can either draw attention towards an image or away from an image.
- 10. Overlapping elements
Overlapping different elements on a website creates a dynamic visual interest amongst visitors. It is an unconventional and unexpected method to display elements on the webpage. This trend is growing quite rapidly amongst websites as it improves the overall aesthetic of the website to a greater extent. It is also a unique method, and therefore will make your site stand out from others.
