Every year new trends arrive on the scene, be it a new kind of shoe coming down the Parisian runways or a new social media site. The same goes for Web design: New trends are always emerging. Here are 20 different web design ideas that are hot right now. Who knows? Maybe you are already using them and are the reason for the trend, you trendsetter, you.
- Responsive layouts. These are designed to match all forms of digital media, like laptops, iPads, and cell phones. The design is dynamic and fluid by nature, which gives it a great look.
- Retina support. Twice as dense as an average LCD screen. It will have the same number of physical pixels, but digitally twice as many pixels can be fit into the same physical space. That means Web designers would need to create two sets of images instead of just one.
- Fixed header bars. These are achieved by using the CSS position : fixed property (amongst other ways, but that is the easiest). The bar scrolls with the page, staying at the top of the screen no matter where on the page you are. This provides great user experience because navigation is easy to find.
- Large photo backgrounds. Popular because they draw visitors’ eyes and attention. They can also act as custom branding for the website.
- Opacity edits. The level of opacity and color is easy to set. This allows you to have the control to generate transparency in any modern Web browser without needing to use Photoshop to achieve the effect.
- Minimalist landing pages. Keep everything simple and just focus on your core product. This is exemplified by the Pictopro site.
- Digital QR codes. Although they are normally used in print, the QR Codes can actually be built right into the design of a website. This can be a great way to pass on information quickly.
- Social media badges. These allow readers or fans to quickly and easily share content on networks like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Other popular examples are StumbleUpon Badges, the Google +1 Button, Pinterest Buttons, Hacker News Vote Badge, and Dzone Vote Buttons.
- Detailed illustrations. Like the large photo backgrounds, these are a good way to catch and hold visitors’ attention. The illustrations can blend into the site and become part of the website branding.
- Infinite scroll. It isn’t a new development, but it is becoming more popular. It doesn’t work with every layout though. Two popular sites that use it are Pinterest and Tumblr.
- Homepage Feature Tours. Popular ways to do this are to have sliding image presentations or demo videos for new products on the site.
- Sliding Webpage Panels. Each page is loaded in succession by being pushed from left to right. Effects like sliding webpage panels don’t always work well for mobile users who are accessing your site but if you can do it with a responsive design technique, it will set you apart.
- Mobile Navigation Toggle. When using responsive design building, a solid navigation can be difficult. This is where mobile navigation toggle menus become vital. Readers have direct access to important links without your page being flooded and becoming unreadable. The links can drop down from the top, slide down, or push content over from the left or the right.
- Fullscreen Typography. This is web page text that fills the whole browser. If it isn’t fitted perfectly in the layout, it can be annoying. But if done right, it can stand out just as much as oversized photos do.
- APIs and Open Source. There is more open source software for Web page widgets, layouts, and dynamic effects. Open APIs allow designers to not just prototype layouts, but also create animations and effects on pages.
- Deep Box Shadows. These offer nice aesthetics for a site, as long as you aren’t overusing them. They can now be generated with a few lines in CSS.
- CSS3 Animations. CSS3 can transition property and related browser prefixes that will offer CSS dynamic effects, just like JavaScript. You can animate effects on the page based on different CSS properties. A good place to find unique examples is at CSS alerts tutorial on Codrops.
- Vertical Navigation. This can give a more textured effect to your pages. It’s simply a visual effect for something different.
- Single-Page Web Design. Clearly nothing new: it has been around since the creation of the World Wide Web. If you can incorporate other popular design trends into it, you can make a captivating website design.
- Circular Design Elements. Circles are popular with designers because they are clean, neat, and they typically will fit into any layout block. You can build patterns and fix your page elements into circular designs as well. This will give your site a chic, modern appearance.
Obviously I’m not suggesting you run out and apply all of these Web design trends to your site right now, because really that would be kind of ridiculous. Although I am curious to see what they would all look like being used together on one page, it’s
probably a bad idea. Just see what catches your interest and try a few new things out on your site. Spice things up a little bit!
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