The picture shown above appears to be simple! Isn’t it? Yes, it is if you just have a glance at it. But if you have a look at it from a different perspective, you can say that it has got the right light, texture, pattern, focus, frame and what not. These are the features which are being considered by the designer to design websites. Let us see what 2016 has got for us in the designing arena!
Web design trends has taken a toll and is changing the way designs can be featured and distinguished from others. Advancement in technology available, accessibility to users, building of websites and creativity of designers have all led to the change in the world of web design.
The designers know what is trending nowadays and what is not, and they are able to meet the expectations and deliver the ideas as per the customers’ requirements. We use various platforms to access a particular website and we want the website to look as attractive and beautiful on every platform. Providing such design is a challenge which has been accepted by these designers.
Talking more about what is trending nowadays, here is a list of top 10 designs which we cannot miss in the year 2016:
Web Design Trends
Trend #1: Flat Design 2.0
Don’t go by the name flat design! It’s not here to make you a fool. Flat designs have wooed the minds of people in 2012 also but there were issues in that based on usability. 2016 has brought many changes which are going to make it more successful in terms of usability. It will provide a never seen UI with a better user experience for visitors. Signifiers are being used to make designs easy to be used by the people.
Flat design is into a phenomenon of skeuomorphism, which focusses on strict 2D usage with no drop shadows, textures, gradients etc. It is one of its kind. It also has minimalism feature which basically means that less is more, and bold and vivid colours to generate interest. People using it can also add personal touch otherwise the integrity can be maintained as it is.
The newer version of Flat, the version 2.0 which deviates from the skeuomorphism phenomenon and incorporates the much needed 3D design elements which enhances the look of a website. The best example of these changes and advancements is the website of 450 GSM where Flat 2.0 successfully added and intensified the beauty to the homepage using the 3D elements like shadows, highlights to bring the layers into focus.
Trend #2: Color contrast is the new black!
Do you think you really are a web designer? Do you have that sense of design, creative bent of mind? Designing is not merely dragging and dropping a few elements onto a webpage or adding a few texts here and there. The theme of your website and the colors used to bring that theme to life are the little things that make your website unique. The colors on a webpage is what keeps the users hooked to it and even directs them towards their destination.
One has to delight the customers pleasantly and give them an experience to remember forever. There is a huge importance of choice. A designer’s sense of choosing which colour to use at right time in right context is a major factor behind what a website finally looks like. Every colour has its meaning. A designer has to use right combination of colours so that it is soothing to eyes. Those who will master it will be benefitted in long run. Designing involves colour as one of the top most priority.
This design has made sure that colour mix has to be perfect. This design is meant to increase number of purchases for around 90% and more people. For example: Girls prefer to wear black dresses for party which makes them look thin.
Using the right colours for site designs will decide whether the customer will prefer buying it or not. If opted, the designs will be cherished forever.
Advantages which the customers will get from this colour coding will be: they will be quick to locate things (where to contact, where to check internal pages), the colours will let us know different and important parts of websites.
Trend #3: Tell your story with a Video
Using right combination of colours has been attractive enough but the use of right images have also been a fruitful effort from designers’ side. Mega images helps to increase the conversion rate of websites. For images used, there are nowadays feature of using videos also. Videos have 6 times more ‘frequency to get viral’ factor than pictures/images. People easily connect to videos emotionally and it has been the same throughout. Videos can be used as a story teller.
Videos are easy to understand and take you deep inside the character. It is much better way to promote than text. They are said to be more engaging. A video on the homepage which will give a glimpse of what the website is all about is a treat to watch. It does make sense to visitors to watch it and increase the click through rate. Even in shopping centres, navigation videos prove to be an effective way to guide the customers. People are bound to pay attention to videos. This is going to be the Next big thing in town!
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Trend #4: Flexbox- your new go-to CSS layout
Just putting beautiful colors, attractive images, viral videos will not help you in creating a great looking site. We have talked about images, colours, videos, but here we are talking about the web design layout trends. Flexbox has been impactful without being aesthetic always. This is now trending and is going to continue in 2016 as it has solved problems in terms of design and development of pages. Much improved interface and experience has been provided to visitors. Flexbox has solved many issues and have provided solutions in terms of:
- No more head banging to find and fit a grid into the required size as it happens by default in the improved Grid systems.
- With websites mostly being viewed on mobiles, the mobile-first web design and the most basics of problems with Header, footer and three columns is solved by Flexbox.
- Fluid width and fluid input button pairs are now a cake walk.
- Flexbox even eradicates the overflow and clear fixing problems when it comes to different sizes of Media objects.
- Footers can be easily put at the bottom of pages with thin content.
- Page elements can be aligned either vertically or horizontally without any hustle.
Trend #5: Material Web Design Trends
Material Design! Have you come across this term before? If not then, we would first focus on what it does mean? Material Design is the one with the big G behind it. Google brought Material design into picture when it used it in its most famous of websites- Gmail, YouTube and Google maps
It has some eye catching features and capabilities which are listed below:
- Minimalist
- Grid-based layouts which are very prominent to see
- Lighting and shadows
- Padding
- Vivid colors
- Responsive animations and transitions
Just the fact that Google is behind Material Design makes it a revolution. Material Design is a great mix of the new and the old and the blend is so technically mind blowing that no wonder Google was the one that came up with the idea. Just like Google, Material Design is here for the longer run.
Materialism involves usage of classic web design principles with innovation of tech and science. If any web design trents company can do this, it will definitely get what it deserves i.e. customers.
Material design is related to physical design principles, and not flat design. It has its bases in paper and ink.
One of the best examples of Material design is Android Gmail’s user interface:
Trend #6: Minimalism and Flat Design 2.0
Minimalism is related to three words: Less is more. It has no clutter, it uses white spaces and totally focusses on what is important. Flat design goes very well with this concept. Flat 2.0 which we have already discussed adapts to this design perfectly.
Interaction of users with the website is the major concern. They play shadows, movement and light which gives combined visual treat to visitors.
These are different with print based designs like grids, negative spaces, vibrant colours and images used.
Flat designs which started in 2012 had no drop shadow effect or colour gradients but the 2.0 version of flat designs have started incorporating them. It will have minimal textures and subtle gradients.
Trend #7: Interactive Immersive Experiences
Each experience creates its own story. Yes, it’s very true. Experiences can be generated and can be narrated in form of stories easily. Humans willingly tell stories to peers about what their experiences. HTML5 canvas, CSS3 conversions and animations, JavaScript APIs like WebGL and Greensock, as well as the influence of hardware acceleration, has made storytelling on the web more immersive and communicating. It has been enhanced like never before.
Now, since m-commerce has evolved a lot, people tend to browse on their phones rather than on laptop or PC. Browsing the web on mobile devices has made users more accustomed to long scrolls. Designers are now capable of providing interface which tells story and makes users engaged with the content. Users feel inquisitive and scroll down to complete the story.
Trend #8: Vibrant Custom Illustrations and Iconography
Images can do wonders but if the image is pixelated than it spoils the aesthetics of a website. The standard image formats like jpg and png can result in giving a disastrous look to the image. They don’t work well on the web i.e. on high pixel density monitors.
Wider browser support for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and easily implemented icon fonts are answers to this problem.
Trend #9: Typography that Makes a Statement
Visitors if landing on the page which they want to get information from, great design, branding and correct information has to be the basic purpose to serve to the customers. Typography looks into this feature. Google fonts and Typekit services have made the custom fonts available and to be used on web. They are not limited and so as the brains of designers. These are also used by flat designs and minimalism. Further, more artistic fonts are going to be used to create websites.
Trend #10: HD Visual Assets
HD background images and videos on websites are growing stronger in the coming years. A wide support of HTML 5 video which is able to serve high resolution graphics to devices has added to the advantages of using this feature.
Artistic effects on images which gives a dramatic impression can be created easily with CSS code. Thanks to CSS3 background blending.
Cinemagraphs are still images with little bit of animation. This additional flower has actually drawn attention of website users. They are basically incorporated in live photos on iphones. They are supported by HTML5 canvas.
Trend #11: Less Rigid Grids
Pinterest has been using the grid based layout.
Minimalism, flat design and popular frontend frameworks like Bootstrap have all contributed to the success of these structured, grid-based web design layouts. Grids narrates story and make interaction easy with customers.
CSS3 shapes have helped building future for such web design layout. Standard rectangular box shapes are now just an old version. Working with edges and contours have enhanced the elements on web page.
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Future Designs
The year has set the stage in the web design trends and development world. Designers are actually keeping an eye on what different is going around and how they can inculcate that in their designs. Everything they will do will leave an impact on customer’s mind. Designs are like passing fad only. Every time it keeps on changing. Designers either enhance the versions of previous designs or new things comes up like flexbox.
The browser support is a must for the website layouts to prosper. Creativity has no limit but these things sometimes bound that extra mile which designers want to go.
We need to see which has make the customers to visit the website again and again: whether it will be colours, images, videos, layout, animation or the any new upcoming feature lined up to surprise us.
Recommended Article
Here are some articles that will help you to get more detail about the Web Design Trends so just go through the link.
- Important Points on HTML5 and Flash
- 10 New Features of Effective Web Designer Portfolio
- 10 Tips to Become a Successful Freelance Web Designer
- 10 Powerful Steps to Effective Webdesign Planning
- Want To Know About Web Design Interview Questions
- Graphic Design Interview Questions: Want to know the helpful questions
