Trends aren’t everything, but they can be fun and effective to incorporate into your website. Website design best practices are important whether you are looking for an update, a whole makeover or you are building your new most awesome website from the ground up. These best website design hot trends will give you some great ideas and may inspire you to take the step you have been waiting for, and really ‘up your game’ with your online presence. Here are nine of our favorite new trends for 2021 and beyond!
1- Refined Serif Fonts
Larger screen sizes and high definition monitors have changed the playing field for using fonts on your website. Because these new monitors and screens are so vivid and clear, serif fonts that were previously too clunky and blurred are now crisp and decorative. They also open up lots of exciting classic font options with clear lines and clean spacing.
Some of the favorite designer serif fonts are ones we know and love on Google, like Times and Georgia. While others are newer and rely on the clarity of highly pixelated screens to become well-defined and properly spaced for legibility. A few favorites are Wanderlust, Wensley and Kinfolk. All of them create a feeling of refined classical beauty.
2- Emojis
The explosion of the popularity of emojis is mind-boggling. There are hundreds of new emojis dropped every day. People love to use them, share them and receive them. As a result they are one of the hot new things in website design. It makes sense since so much of our everyday communication occurs through our keyboards. How can marketers look the other way when emojis’ popularity and ease of use and communication presents an excellent, fun and humorous platform for advertising.
These loveable little illustrations are now being used to express and elucidate the feelings of consumers and clients to products and services. They are highly effective communicators of feelings that many people would rather not say in words, but would still like to communicate in simple to understand and extremely expressive ways. Emojis’ even freely cross language barriers to connect people everywhere in our increasingly global economy.
3- Light Colors
In print communication light colors are easily washed out and fail to pop off the paper. However, the use of light colors on websites where they are backlit and vibrant is now becoming a growing trend. Light colors are easily and creatively contrasted with darker fonts to make the text easier to read. And even more fun, these colors are engaging to web-users when they are deftly, uniquely and beautifully combined and contrasted.
The use of light colors is also known to have a calming effect on people because they are not being accosted by the bright colors and deep contrasts so often used to make information stand out on the screen. These light colors also have a soothing or calming effect on visitors to your website. Which means that depending on what you are selling, incorporating one or more of these latest website design ideas to create a unique look can drive greater interest to your site, increase sales and grow your business.
4- Outline in Black
Outlining in black is nothing new to good advertising and publishing, but up until now it hasn’t really been a trend in website design. People are using this old print technique to liven up their pages and create a classy look to their best website design. Used specifically as borders and page breaks, these black outlines can vary widely in thickness. These outlines define the content and are often paired with color photography for greater contrasting of imagery and for product display.
5- Use Black & White Illustrations
This is another of the latest website design ideas that is growing in popularity due to the larger screen sizes, higher pixels and greater overall clarity of lettering and illustrations. Hand drawn or computer generated these black & white illustrations create a special feel that is both retrospective and modern. These cartoon-like drawings ease the burdensome text that dominates most sites while allowing you to create any image you desire for your best website design.
6- Creative and Out of the Mainstream Product Photos
Product photography is and will continue to be vital for your best website design. But that doesn’t mean that your product photos have to look the same as they always have. Product photos are no longer just following the mainstream. A trending website design best practice is to get creative with product photos.
Online shoppers have expressed uncertainty about what their purchases will actually look like when they get them and try them on. Enter 3D simulated visuals of products. These enhanced visuals offer buyers a much better look at the products they are interested in, the fabrics being used, the shape and cut of clothing, and are answering many concerns for online shoppers.
7- Half hover gallery, half navigation menu
Website menus have long been integral to navigation on websites. This new trend creates an innovative option for the traditional menu. This menu looks like a traditional drop down menu. The difference is that when users hover over the menu, a gallery of images pop up revealing menu content options that help users pursue further informational categories. These further categories will also have galleries of menus with new images that appear to guide you to sub-categories. This new hovering trend in navigation menus is creating fun browsing experiences for website visitors.
8- Artistic Use of Collages
With the growth of Pinterest and other social media sites that encourage people to create collage-like collections of their favorite things or theme boards, another of the trending website design best practices is the artistic use of photo collages to convey products and or services on your website. These tasteful and artistic designs combine multiple images to tell a single story about your business products, services and/or values.
9- Simple Geometric Shapes
A trend that has especially taken root with Millennials and younger web users is the use of simple geometric shapes in the creation of attractive informational billboards. This use of shapes as building blocks creates a retro feel, especially when paired with retro color palettes. Creative uses of these boxes, circles and triangles help to convey information clearly and logically.
Conclusion
Whether you are looking for all or some of these latest website design ideas to upgrade, spice up, build or rebuild your website you will likely want to work with design professionals and expert web designers to make sure your website is effective, attractive, user friendly and powers your business marketing. At zo.agency we are leaders in web design. We listen to your specific needs and wants and work with you to create just the right website for your business and your brand. If any of these exciting new trends are ideas you would like to incorporate into your website let us know! Or perhaps you have seen other new trends you would like to incorporate. We would be happy to work with you.
