The website designing standards and techniques change rapidly and what is followed a year before might be outdated one year after. With the help of developments in the web technologies, browser capabilities and new design concepts, web designers come up with new design principles.

According to Venkatesh, senior designer in a web designing company in Chennai, advancements in the material design and mobile browsing over the desktop browsing will play the crucial roles in setting the web designing trends in 2018.

Mobile First

Google officially confirmed in 2017 that mobile traffic had surpassed desktop traffic. Therefore, web designers will give prime importance to the mobile visitors and the mobile version would become the main version of the website.

A few industry leaders in the web development industry recommended a mobile-first approach in developing the website for last few years. This approach suggested to develop the mobile version of the website first and then add more and more content and features for bigger screens. Although the recommendation was from industry leaders, most of the designers didn’t take it seriously and continued to develop desktop version first and then making it suitable for smaller devices.

Now, with the most number of visitors from Mobile, there is no reason not to follow mobile first approach rather than desktop first approach.

Vibrant Colors

In 2017, some well-known brands made a bold move and used vibrant and highly saturated colors in their websites as backgrounds. Historically, web designers didn’t appreciate the use of vibrant colors as the dominant color.

As leaders in the website departed from that convention, more and more designers might follow them and use vibrant colors in their designs. There is a transformation in web designing from traditional box layouts and design and designers are incorporating principles of designing billboards or other ads.

Bright red, yellow and blue solid colors are used as the backgrounds in the hero section to make a bold statement and pass the subtle messages brands want to convey.

Gradients

Gradient color is another way to transform a flat deign into the dynamic. Gradients can be applied to texts, buttons and backgrounds. Background gradient has become a powerful tool in building beautiful UI and many famous websites have already used it. Earlier websites used only a subtle gradient effect. However, recently more dynamic gradients are used. A simple and gradual gradient effect is powerful and makes the use of images in the background obsolete in 2018.

Animations

The transition effect between sections in a page already there but it is not that much used. A smooth transition gives a better experience for the users. In 2018, the transition between the pages might become a trend. Similarly, the parallax effect is also there for a long time. This effect is also not used that much. In 2018, more and more designers will begin to incorporate animations and effects like parallax.

The speed of the internet all over the world is increasing and browsers have become more sophisticated. These give the designers more possibilities to integrate animation effects in the websites.

Out of the Box Layouts

Many designers have already broken the layout rules and experimented unique layouts for the web pages. Developments in the material design helped designers to try new and unique layouts for the websites.

Grid-based layouts were recommended to get the best aesthetic appeal. However, some designers have begun to use broken layouts and asymmetric layouts in their works. More and more designers will get inspirations from this and it may become a trend in 2018.

Decorative Elements in the Background

Subtle use of patterns and small geometrical shapes in the background creates aesthetic appeal. Moreover, these embellishments add extra attention to different areas and content blocks.

Skewed Sections

There are many websites having a non-rectangular section on their website. The background is not exactly horizontal and it will be a little slanted. Most of the websites achieve this effect using an SVG. The effect can also be achieved using transform property in the CSS. Skewed backgrounds give a different feel to the overall appearance of the website.

Illustrations

Illustrations can tell the story and it is used by brands to convey their messages. Along with the shift in the use of colors and new layout techniques, illustrations can play a big role in websites. It can make the website fun and user-friendly. Large web design companies have begun to hire experienced artists to create illustrations for their clients’ website. 

Illustrations have a less visual weight which helps the designers to give light look and feel for the websites. Illustrations on the website would be a great way to attract the customers for B2C companies.

Minimalistic Design

Minimalist websites with bright background colors and huge bold texts is a result of experiments in the UI&UX design. Minimalist design along with micro interactions can provide an excellent user experience for the users. 

Drop Shadows

Shadow is an important element in the design since it is the best way to give clues about the special relationship between various objects in the design. Shadows can add depth to the scene and transform a boring 2D design with 3D effects and it can play an important role in building aesthetically appealing websites.

The use of drop shadows on elements of a webpage can add depth to the design make it more interesting. It can be used to draw eyes towards something and emphasize particular elements in the page.

Drop shadows for the small images or boxes in the hero section of the main page can immediately attract the attention of visitors.

Shadows can be given to small boxes on the sides of the webpage to emphasize it without using accent colors. Similarly, when there are 3 or more boxes, and the designer wants to emphasize one for any reason, shadows can be used. Shadows can also be given to texts.

Bulma Framework

Bulma is a new CSS work based on flex-box. This is more powerful than the Bootstrap framework. This is a new framework still under development and more and more designers have begun to support this. Probably, Bulma framework would replace Bootstrap because of its possibilities. This is 100% responsive design and follows mobile-first approach.

Experiments in Typography

Designers had already begun to use unique typography in their websites for aesthetic reasons. In home page hero section, you can have texts in multiple styles, sizes and weights. This is purely for design purposes and never used where readability matters.

These are few trends that are expected in 2018. Some trends are from 2017 but it will become but it would become more popular this year.