On one hand technology in the web development industry is changing quite fast and on the other hand designers experiment with designs forced to make the websites they create unique and stand out from the crowd.

When influential designers create new techniques other professionals are likely to follow them. Some techniques become popular and create a buzz in the industry. It is important for designers to be aware of the latest trends in order to build websites that par with the international standards.

Here is a list of new trends in the industry which you can use to make unique designs and create perfect solutions for your clients.

Use of Bold and Vibrant Colors

Use of vibrant and highly saturated colors was considered a bad practice in the past and web designers didn’t recommend it. Recently, some well-known corporate websites and e-commerce websites used bold and vibrant colors on their website.

The website of a web design company in Chennai use bright violet color as the dominant color. This kind of color scheme helps the websites stand out from the crowd and capture the attention of the visitors. This becomes important for companies in the highly competitive market.

Use of Illustrations

Photographs are powerful to evoke emotions and can communicate something better than a thousand words can. But sometimes, illustrations can be more powerful.  It is an effective way to express complex ideas and emotions and tell stories effectively.

This makes illustration the best tool for the UI and UX designers to describe the company or its products or services efficiently. Moreover, illustrations are fun and eye-catchy. Artists can create illustrations that are tailored to the tone of the company, blend with the design of the webpage and communicate particular messages. An illustration can be used on any pages and any section including the hero section.

Additionally, the visual weight of an illustration would be less than the visual weight of a photograph. Illustrations can blend seamlessly with the background which makes it a perfect tool for the UI designers.

Minimal or Studio Shots

Minimal photographs emphasis a particular element in the photograph and it would have a solid background which would not make the website look stuffed. Studio shots of products or models against the solid backdrops have become a trend because it can help the designers to make the website look more clean and neat.

This kind of photographs can be used in full width without giving any background overlay. Moreover, since it has a solid background, additional elements can be placed on them and this gives the designers more flexibility in the UI designing. 

Layouts with Depth

Flat design is boring and it is considered less visual-friendly. CSS shadow properties help designers to give a depth to the design. However, until designers didn’t use this function much because there were browsers not supporting this feature. Now, most of the browsers support this property and so designers may use this feature quite often on their website. Subtly shadows can add dimensions to the designs and avoid the flat design.

A small shadow for elements can really enhance the aesthetic appeal of the web pages. Moreover, it can also be used to emphasize small sections in order to drive attention of the visitors to the particular elements on the page.

Some e-commerce uses a big photograph of their featured products on their web pages and gives it a shadow. This would make the product look like floating in the air and if it is rightly used, it can enhance

Gradient Background & Text

Although gradients were used by some designers in the past, designers didn’t appreciate it. But recently, there is a trend in using gradient background for the websites. Apple used gradient effect in it iPhone X and designers all over the world began to use this effect.

A gradient can create a dynamic effect on the website and if it is used wisely, it has several benefits. Most of the time a gradient would work better than an image and which would increase the speed of the website.

Symodd, a media agency, uses different gradient backgrounds in each section of their single-page website. This site doesn’t have even a single background image.

Floating navigation

Sticky navigation had been a trend for a while and now it is replaced with floating navigation. A sticky navigation stays at the top the viewport even if the user scrolls down the page, while a floating navigation is detached from the top and positioned like it is floating in the background. Floating navigation doesn’t have a full-width background but it would have a box shadow.

Its detached positioning and box shadow give the navigation depth and create the effect of floating. This effect has a visual appeal and hence more and more UI designers are likely to use this. 

Fonts in Handwriting Style

Designers look for new ways to make the desired impact on the website visitors. Recently, a few famous designers used fonts in handwritten style on websites to make it personal and informal. Probably, this would be followed by other designers and it would become a trend soon.

Different font style sends different messages to the readers. Some font styles are formal while some others playful. Typography plays a crucial role in the aesthetics of the website and sending the right messages to the website visitors.

Diagonal Sections

Diagonal lines are a departure from the boring blocky-layouts. Slanted lines dividing the sections can give a different dimension to the website. This gives more flexibility for designers to work with the layout and create unique UI. Moreover, slanted lines can be used to draw the eyes of visitors towards important elements by placing them strategically.

The creative use diagonal line for sections or small boxes can create unique shapes which would add vividness to the design. Slanted sections with fixed backgrounds can create a spectacular website and so more and more designers would use this because everyone wants to create unique websites.

Minimalistic Design

The website of a Denmark company named Praksis is a pioneer in minimalistic web design. This site has an achromatic color scheme and uses plenty of white spaces. Moreover, this site is not filled with texts and images which make it easy for the visitors to find what they want very easily.

Minimalistic has become a trend in all kinds of designing and people appreciate it for its simplicity. Minimalistic design in the web design helps the companies to convey their messages effectively. For the users, there is no unnecessary content or features on the website to confuse them or divert their attention.

Website of Praksius: http://praksisarkitekter.dk/

Negative Spacing

Negative spacing with the minimalistic design is a trend recently emerged. Designers use clean backgrounds and leave plenty of white space on the canvas. This is a powerful way to not distract the attention of visitors and bring the focus to particular elements on the page. This also helps the users to comfortably browse through the website.

Earlier, companies wanted to include maximum information on their website to persuade visitors. Although everyone knew that too much information can scare the visitors most of the companies didn’t optimize their website based on that.

Recently, some well-known brands began to give lots of white space on their website and this may encourage more designers to apply more negative space on their website.

Transition Effect

Some influential designers already used font style transition and color transition on websites and this would become a trend in the web design industry soon. Effects like this are very easy to be misused and it needs lots of attention and skills to use this in the right way at the right time.

Some websites with limited pages use preloading function and provide a seamless transition between the pages.

In order to provide a smooth scroll-down or up experience for the visitors, some designers used mechanical transition throughout the page. A small scroll with the mouse would create a seamless transition from one section to the next section of the page. The content above or below won’t be cut down if the mechanical transition is used in the right way.

This is a very advanced effect if it is not used without a proper plan in UI design, it may cause poor usability.

Animated Background

Some B2C tech companies used sci-fi or futuristic animations on their website as background to communicate the right message. Subtle animation can give a dynamic appearance to the design which would make the website more interesting. Moreover, it can also be used to grab the eyes of the visitors and lead them to make particular actions on the website. The use of animation is likely to increase because it helps the website in multiple ways.

Progressive Enhancement

Mobile browsing surpassed desktop browsing recently and now developers would give emphasis to the mobile version of the website since it brings more traffic. This mobile-first approach in responsive design is called progressive enhancement.

The regular approach to responsive design was designing the desktop version first and then scales it down and removes contents to optimize the pages for smaller devices. This approach is called graceful degradation or desktop first design. However, there was a set of developers recommending a different approach to responsive design where the mobile version is designed first and scale it up for the larger screens. This approach is called progressive enhancement.

Although progressive enhancement approach was recommended by experts in the web development industry, professionals were not willing to follow them. Last year we saw a major change in the website usage pattern and now there is no reason not to follow the progressive enhancement approach.

In 2017, the number of mobile browsers surpassed desktop browsers and website designers are forced to give more importance to the mobile version and to follow the progressive enhancement approach.

To sum up, in 2018, we can expect the websites to be mobile friendlier than ever.

Responsive Logo

Some websites nowadays use variations of the logo on their website on different screen size to achieve better aesthetics for their websites. One popular website using responsive logo now is the website of EPL: https://www.premierleague.com/

Using variations of the logo helps the designers to put necessary visual weight for the header section and so this may become a trend in web designing soon.

However, all companies won’t need to use this effect; especially companies like Apple whose logo is simple and doesn’t contain any text.

Live Chat

Although live chat is there for quite for a long time, it was not much used. Probably most of the companies didn’t have the resources or time to manage the live chat, they simply neglected it. But now, the number of visitors on the website has increased and it may prompt even small companies to incorporate live chat on their website.

Live chat would be an advantage for both the visitors and website owners. Visitors don’t have to call the company or email them for more information when there is a live chat on the website. Additionally, visitors don’t have to disclose their email id or phone number to interact them.

Website owners can access the live activity of the users on their website through web analytics platforms and can interact with them based on the pages they have visited. Analytics would give users behavior in real time and this insight can be used to make a better relationship with the visitors.

While live chat is a useful function, website owners should remember that annoying your visitors may prompt them to leave the website and they may not come back again. It is not recommended for the site owners to intrude to the visitors.

Interactive Elements in the Team Section

A team section on a website is new in web designing but recently some designers added dynamic functionalities into the team section. The functionality to show the portfolio or social media feed of each team members as a pop up when the visitor hovers over the team member or clicks on it.

This feature adds extra functionality to the website to show the talent of team members on the website itself without making it look cluttered.

Some website also added the feature to chat with the team members on the website itself. These are emerging trends and this would become more and more popular in the upcoming days.

Conclusion

Nowadays, we see a departure from the earlier design concepts and do what once considered a taboo in the web design. These trends also may change over time and so designers should always be aware of the changing patterns in the art of web designing.

Although these are current trends, it doesn’t mean all designers should follow this. Designers should use them properly because inappropriate use would backfire. Moreover,