If you’ve been meaning to launch your new website but haven’t gotten started with your project yet, I have good news for you. You can learn about the latest website design trends for 2017 before you start your next project and stay one step ahead of your competitors.
Website Design Trends in 2017
As you know, website design trends are constantly evolving and what’s new today is old tomorrow.
To make sure your new website stays ahead of the curve by educating yourself on the latest trends in the industry before you begin your redesign process.
What follows is an overview of the latest trends in website design for the coming year.
Content is King
Having a cool looking website is no longer enough to guarantee success for your website. What visitors want is substance, in the way of compelling and meaningful content. Therefore visitors are looking to be educated and not sold. And website content is only compelling to the degree it helps users solve their problems. So, the key is to put yourself in your visitor’s shoes and try to find out exactly what questions they are asking and then go about answering those questions.
Big, Bold Type
The scarcest resource in this frenetic day and age is not time but attention. Because of this, the ability to grab a user’s attention and get them to take a moment and focus on your message is crucial to a website’s success. To solve this problem, innovative designers are making their key messaging impossible to miss by increasing the font size of central messaging to the exclusion of other design elements. So, keep your eye out for big, bold headlines and strong calls to action. And think about incorporating this trend into your website’s next design.
Fewer Pages, More Emphasis on Landing Pages
People don’t like to read these days. They scan. Quickly skimming over content to self-identify with the most relevant section relating to their needs. Because of this, landing pages are a useful design tool to visualize website content into an easily consumable mode allowing users to quickly digest information with minimal effort.
Animations – GIF, CSS, SVG, Background HTML Video
People like things that are cool. And done properly animation effects can add a lot of life and sophistication to a website’s design. As you’ve probably noticed, gone are the days of flash animation and instead, CSS, GIF, and SVG is providing mobile friendly solutions to animating website designs.
Less Flat Designs, Return of Gradients
Have you noticed that websites all look the same these days? If so, you have the ‘flat design’ craze of the last few years to thank for that. Thankfully, Google’s material design last year shows an appeal for more depth of view via subtle shadows. Also, gradient colors are also resurfacing this year. Both of these are attempts to combat how flat design has homogenized website design.
Use of Striking, Brighter, Courageous Colors
Web safe colors are things of the past. Since displays on desktop monitors and smartphones are now more than capable of displaying the full visible color spectrum. Because of this, many designs are now veering towards striking, bright, and courageous colors. And they are no longer limited to classic color theory, complementary colors, etc. So think about how you can use bright, vibrant colors in your next design.
Decline of Stock Photography Usage
Have you noticed that all websites are starting to look the same these days :-)? Another reason for this the widespread use of stock photography and challenge of finding original and unique images when designing a website. Because of this, designers are very careful in choosing stock imagery they use. A lot of designers now use custom images from hire photographers. Also, hand-drawn art is emerging as another trend used by designers these days.
Content Delivery via Videos
Thanks to higher internet bandwidth there are fewer limitations on video and streaming websites. Now websites can add HTML5 videos to their homepage design without loading or display issues. Streaming video is one of the hottest website design trends of the year. Expect to see more and more video display on websites in the coming years.
Long Scrolling Pages
Gone are the days of websites needing to be designed above the fold. As more web users are now using mobile devices, the idea of putting all relevant information in the top-most area of a website is obsolete. Also, this is because smaller screens like smartphone browsers have made users get used to scrolling through pages.
Innovative scrolling and parallax
Ever been on a site where as you scroll down a section of the page and the picture on the background stays stuck while the text moves. And then as you continue to scroll the picture then move again? Yeah, that’s called parallax scrolling. It can be a pretty cool effect and remains a favorite among web creatives about the long scrolling pages of today’s websites.
Customized Google Maps
Finally, embedded Google maps are now customizable to match your website’s colors. Map items like pins, structures, terrain and other map elements can also be customized to add even more life to your site’s design.
Conclusion
In summary, website design trends come and go. Some get adopted long-term while others are short-lived. Because of this, it’s important not to jump on every trend. Choose the designs that make the most sense for your website’s needs. For the other trends, try them out and if they don’t make sense, forget about them. The key is to strike a balance between having a site that looks unique but also looks similar to the latest and greatest going on in the web.
Looking to implement some of these trends into your new website’s design? We’ll put together a mockup of your new site before you sign or pay for anything. To get started with your custom website click the link below.
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