Web Designers had an exciting last year, which showed lots of new ideas on the horizon. Even though some sank, others managed to create a permanent impact. So let’s summarize what are the current trends that we MUST follow:
1) Content First
Web designs in 2014 have become even more content-centered. With minimum distracting elements, you need to focus all your efforts on better content presentation. Content is king, it has always been and always will be. It is the reason why users visit your site, subscribe to your newsletters and follow you on social media.
“Content First” is all about giving the website’s content first priority over every other aspect in the design process. Say goodbye to Lorem Ipsum. When designing “Content First” it is about gathering your client’s assets and laying them out within the design in order of importance, optimizing the content for a web audience and ensuring that the messages and features which the client wants to get across to users, are consistent across all devices.
2) Flat Design
My personal favorite! I will not surprise anyone if I note that one of the biggest web trends of 2013 has been flat design. Embraced by Apple’s iOS7 and used in updated logos for both Instagram and Facebook, this gradually popular style is well on its way to replacing the cumbersome days of 3D, as well as realistic design. No wonder – all over the web you’ll find tons of tutorials, elements, pretty sets and examples showing you how to create your own flat-style web design.
So what exactly is flat design—and why should you care?
Flat design is all about keeping it simple, clean and modern. One reason designers have turned toward this “flat” aesthetic is a push from new technology and its need for a simpler user interface (UI). Flat design elements lend themselves to cleaner app interfaces, responsive design and better overall interaction with visual data, such as infographs. They also facilitate easier pictorial communication across different languages and cultures. What else can you ask for?
3) Responsive Design
Responsive web design has been around for several years now, but it really became rather popular in 2012, when we saw a more extensive usage of this adaptive, fluid approach to designing web layouts. This trend will definitely become a standard this year, no question about it. Simply because there isn’t a more suitable alternative to making websites mobile device friendly. Customers will ask for it, developers will be obliged to learn the coding requirements and then push for it afterwords. The reason is simple: demand.
In the field of Web design and development, we’re quickly getting to the point of being unable to keep up with the endless new resolutions and devices. For quite a lot of online projects, creating a new version for each resolution and new device would be beyond the bounds of possibility, or at least irrational. That is where the responsive design comes in place.
Of course, there is still a lot of room for growth when it comes to responsive web design, and designers are surely to fill their pockets with that dough for years to come.
4) Storytelling Design
This methodology implies that users are told a story through brief, compelling copy, coupled with strong imagery, as they scroll down the page. Better way to say it? Try to make it fun, suggest experts. The most important part is to let website visitors discover who you are by letting the whole story unfold before their eyes, so to speak.
5) Better Typography
Web fonts have drastically evolved in the past couple of years, and with services such as Google Fonts offering hundreds of fonts to choose from for free, there is definitely a trend setting for designers to use more personal and brandable fonts to get their message across.
This year publishers and bloggers alike will not only leverage magazine-like layouts with flexible multi-column grids that adapt and respond, but will also utilize services such as @font-face and TypeKit, to explore fresh font pairings and individualize themselves.
6) Mobile First
A book called Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski spread this idea some time ago. The new approach is to first mock-up how your site should look as a responsive layout on mobile screens. Eliminate all the excess fuzz and keep only the bare essentials.
From this standpoint it’s much easier to scale up your design to wider screens. Thus navigation menus become wider, content is lengthened along with a possible sidebar. Mobile-first design places a higher priority on the mobile UX which then becomes a baseline for the entire layout.
Definitely a concept one should try.
7) One-page scrolling
Why make the users look for stuff all over the website, when all of your content can be presented from within a single web page? One-pagers are usually scrolled to the end so your content has more chances to be read from cover to cover.
8) Fixed navigation
Fixed or also called “sticky” navigation bars are a prevailing trend in some of the most stunningly beautiful sites across the web. This type of navigation has been emerging quickly as there are a lot of creative uses to it. It allows ease of access to a website’s core functionality, regardless of where a user may be in the midst of a page’s content. The advantages to fixed navigation bars should be obvious. They quite simply make browsing a website far easier.
We’ve seen websites that integrate social media, search and even purchase options within their fixed navbars, making the user experience more accessible and seamless. We will be seeing a lot of upgrades in this field, not just in the year 2014.
At, WebHostFace we believe in experience and so we’re closely following the latest web design trends that happen within the industry. We wouldn’t give you advice that we ourselves, would not follow or implement. All that being said, the most important sentence we can conclude with is: Don’t design for the designers, design for the people.
