There are a variety of web design trends floating around but we’ve carefully selected the 5 most important ones based off our web knowledge, experience, and research. With the golden age of the mobile phone and tablet devices on the rise, it’s important that people in the internet marketing industry are privy to the flow!
Mobile First
The biggest push in web design trends is for mobile-first design. It’s pretty self-explanatory in that it simply means that developing websites for mobile devices first makes the transition a little easier. It is a lot more simple to add desktop-friendly features later than it is to take away desktop elements for mobile adaptation. Also important is mobile design in general. Where do you spend most of your web time? Are you on an actual computer or are you scrolling on your smartphone? The ability to read well and fit aesthetically into the palm of one’s hand is crucial to the design of a modern, successful site.
Responsive Design
Jumping off mobile design, it’s important that websites be responsive. All this means is that a website can transition seamlessly between window and screen sizes without too much distortion. In addition to a responsive site, you should also consider adaptive content, which is essentially just the same thing regarding the size and appearance of text and images on all devices. The best way to work these types of sites is by creating a site around the content that the site will eventually contain.
Minimalism
Internet aesthetics are everchanging but a growing trend amongst web designers and web users is minimalist structure and content. With minimalist designs, your site’s users are less likely to be overwhelmed and distracted. Minimalism also transitions well to mobile devices. Neilsen‘s definitive characteristics of successful minimalist design websites are as follows:
- “Flat Design”:Flat design eliminates shadows and everything to do with the three-dimensional
- Nominal Color Scheme
- Utilization of Negative Space
- Powerful Typography
- Grid LayoutsGrid designs makes great use of category content and offers a clean way to break up the variety of material on a site
Background Images & Video
As a way to add a flair to minimalist structure, relevant and moving imagery works well. Images draw the attention of the viewer naturally–it is a quick and efficient (as well as effective) way to engage your users.
Movement
In addition to imagery, the best way to create an even longer-lasting impact with your viewers is by surprising them or engaging them in way that they’ve never seen or are that they are, at the very least, unfamiliar with. One way to do this is with GIFs or cinemagraphs. A GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format, is essentially a clip from a video, formatted to play on a loop. GIFs do not have sound and are used on a variety of social media platforms and blogs. Cinemagraphs, GIF’s more sophisticated cousin, is an image in which one small aspect is animated for a subtle and expressive effect with a dynamic impact.
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