The design of your website can really make or break it. You can have the best content on all of the internet, but if your site’s design is ugly or hard to use then you can kiss that traffic goodbye. Cutting-edge design is key for enhancing your UX and UI as well roll on through 2017; don’t get left behind with a lackluster layout.
Duotone Images
High-resolution Duotone images are all the rage right now. Duotone images are pictures (usually photographs) that consist of 2 main (often contrasting) colours. The effect may have been achieved via clever lighting or post-production processes. A quick glance at YouTube, Spotify or galleries on Behance will show the popularity of this trend. Blue and Pink duotone images have been especially trendy recently; their eye-catching aesthetic and ‘80s neon nostalgia make them impossible to resist. That is actually a nice segue into our next trend…
Retro Nostalgia
It’s not hard to see that retro designs are creeping back into fashion. Instagram’s entire business model is built off of making modern camera technology look old and dated… the irony. You only have to look at the styling of films such as Guardians of the Galaxy to see a strong ‘80s revival or the popularity of old-timey restaurants and diners that are bringing the ‘50s back to life. Old-fashioned (but nonetheless cool) fonts, colours and images are making a big comeback in 2017. Just try to keep your time periods consistent, or it may get a tad confusing.
BIG BOLD TYPOGRAPHY
See how we wrote that in capitals? That’s because big, bold fonts are cool. Well-designed writing inevitably helps to enhance your UX as people try to navigate your site; Spotify is another great example of this. There’s no point in designing a stylish website only to fill it will shoddy Comic Sans.
Animations
Animations are no longer just for kids; more and more businesses are realising that animation is a very effective tool for getting their point across. We live in the internet age of endless distractions and limited attention spans; we can all benefit from attention-grabbing animated explainer videos that have bright colours and funny voiceovers. Maybe we are still kids after all?
Microinteractions
Microinteractions are pretty self-explanatory; they’re what sites such as Facebook thrive on. Microinteractions are minor functions built into your website’s UI that allow users to have small and instant interactions with your site. This could come in the form of liking posts, sharing blogs or leaving comments. Buzzfeed even gives you a “LOL” and “wtf” options… which is cringeworthy or clever depending on whom you ask.
SVGs
Scalable Vector Graphics really do make a web designer’s life a lot easier. Their vector-based image design allows absolute unending scalability, as opposed to their pesky pixel-based counterparts. It’s no surprise that SVGs are continually trending in web design; you could render them on a computer screen the size of the Eiffel Tower and they’d still look the same. They also don’t require HTTP requests, which makes your website inevitably faster.
