7 Web Design Trends to Implement on Your Website

This year has brought plenty of new trends and techniques, but the dominant theme seems to be a continuation of trends we had started to see at the end of the previous year. There are more videos, vertical patterns, material designs and slide-style websites that keep on growing in popularity.

It is helpful to know what the current and upcoming trends are, because in that way you can always stay ahead of the competition and meet the needs of your clients. Many of these trends are coming from preferences and tastes of designers and users, and the thing that makes those changes possible are the improvements in technology.

Web design trends for this year will be focused around one thing, mobile. In this year we will see standardization and refinement of current trends and concepts that went from ideal to standard. So, read on and find out what are the web design trends that you need to implement on your website.

Material Design

This design is an alternative to flat design that combines some nice graphical elements. Material design was created by Google and it separates the elements by using the layers found in the image editing software. The elements can be stacked and removed as needed and it has a built-in animation that you would have to normally create manually. This is a design language that has specific set of guidelines which eliminate all the guesswork, and the result is same look on almost every platform. But because these standards are established by Google, they will have widespread support.

Card-Style Interfaces

The biggest element that has emerged from material design are the card-style interfaces. They are basically everything, from apps, to websites to printed pieces. These cards are fun to create, they keep all information organized in a container that is user-friendly and are engaging for users. Another bonus of card-style interfaces is that they work across many devices because they stack down or across the screen.

Typography

Because of responsive designs and increased resolutions it is now possible for typography to be improved, and this is why this is one of the web design trends you need to consider including. Typography is colorful and stands out, it makes a statement. Two biggest trends considering typography are handwriting and the use of serifs.

Handwriting is a little bit more personal and, if it is done correctly, it looks beautiful and adds a special touch to your website. The challenge is to keep this style readable and legible on smaller screens. This kind of typography can be used in logos, post titles, headers, menus and so on.

Serifs can improve legibility, they weren’t used until recently because of the lower resolutions, but since sizes and screen resolutions are getting larger, the layout designs are getting cleaner and they are leaving room for elegant fonts.

Illustrations and Sketches

These two bring a fun element to a website design, and they work for all types of websites. The illustration style has become popular when it comes to some smaller parts of website design, like icons and other interface elements. This is nice because it makes a website feel a little more personal, because the sketch style and illustrations look like they are hand-drawn, and can go a long way in creating a connection with your users.

Mobile UX

Typography is not the only thing that has become suitable for mobile resolutions and screens, there are also navigation, images, forms and other mobile-specific features. The thing that has changed is the use of images, and where they have been previously used, they will now be replaced by fancy fonts and CSS for effects. This will reduce the loading time of both the pages and server. Many websites are now using plugins to handle things like swiping and tapping.

This goes beyond just a responsive website regarding the size of the screen, but it will also react to finger size, screen type, amount of pressure that is used and etc. fields and buttons will now have enough distance between them and be large enough so they do not get hit accidentally.

More Images, Less Text

Readers and consumers prefer to look more at video and pictures and less at the text. This is what creates the balance between UX and SEO, because search engines prefer text that can be indexed. So, text-rich content should be moved to sub-pages, and the content that is image-rich should be on the homepage.

If you need to have text on your homepage, it is best to place it under the imagery, because you should always target the user’s first and then the search engines. Browsers are getting faster when it comes to rendering images, so the images can be larger and with higher resolutions then they have been before.

Focus On Social Comments

Even though WordPress has an excellent commenting system, many readers tend to leave comments on social networks than on the websites, so to capture those social comments, one of the web design trends will move towards the use of social commenting systems instead of the built-in WordPress commenting system. This will enable visitors to comment with their social media accounts and for those comments to be displayed on your website.

These are just some of the web design trends you can implement on your website. Make sure to find a designer that can do them properly by relying on reviews of best design companies. Remember that the popular trends are not always the best choice; you need to choose the ones that will represent your brand in the best way possible. So, make sure to combine multiple trending elements from our list to create a website that will be engaging and interactive.