Are you planning to build a website? Check out these modern and cool trends that will surely catch the attention of your visitors.

Source: Veintidos Grados

 

1. Asymmetric layouts

Many sites are symmetrical, which means all sides have the same “weight” in their design. While effective, they don’t stand out as well.

 

Why not try asymmetrical layouts? Asymmetrical layouts are visually captivating and effective in directing your audience to your focal points. In addition, due to the imbalance, asymmetry also conveys motion.

 

Design tip – when using an asymmetrical layout, make sure the design provides the user with a positive experience. For example, most people read from left to right, most of the important information should be placed on the left side of the design.

 

2. Mondrianism

Named after artist Piet Mondrian, this layout style is characterized by crisp and sharp geometric shapes that use primary colors. The sharp outlines make the web page clean and organized while making a statement with its bold hues, as bright primary colors seem to make the page pop out from the screen.

Source: Made by Ritual

 

3. Drop Shadows and Depth

Do you want a 3D feel to your website? Professional web designers can achieve this design using a variety of techniques. These include the interplay of shadows on text or images against a static background - giving an illusion of depth.

 

Another technique involves making the text or image content slightly opaque so it would stand out against a static background. Yet another technique involves superimposing 3D polygons over pre-rendered backgrounds. This is the same technology used in the popular 1998 game Resident Evil.

Source: Melanie DaVeid

 

4. 2D and 3D Parallax

Even the simplest animation of your home page can make your website stand out. Some of the more popular animation options are 2D or 3D parallax.

 

These techniques involve two or more layers all moving at different speeds, directions, or patterns. Sure, it’s not the easiest way to work on, but an animated landing page provides several advantages:

 

  • Visually stimulates users and makes the site more interesting
  • Effectively tells a story through movement
  • Communicates tone and personality better than photos

 

Find more inspiration for your website on Awwwards’ blog.

 

5. Hover-activated Action

By hovering the cursor on a particular icon, photo, or section of the website, the website executes a certain reaction. For example, hovering on an image may animate what is depicted in the image, make an icon move, slide a section, or make it flip to the next page like the page of a book.

 

Hover-activated actions are not just fun and eye-catching but they actually invite the user to actively interact with your site, not just passively view your pages. You can use this to your advantage like showing users what to do or how to interact with your website.

Check out this cool hover-activated website by The Black Sheep Agency.

Source: Dropbox Design

 

6. Saturated Color Schemes

In the past, web designers tended to stay away from pastel or muted colors. But with the advent of today’s 4K monitors, LED screens, and improved mobile display technology, designers can now play around with an endless variety of colors without worrying themselves about the loss of quality.

 

Pastel, neutral, and muted colors evoke a sense of calmness, tranquility, and relaxation. But more importantly, by being in the background, it emphasizes the photos of your gallery more prominently.

Source: Little Giants on WooCommerce

 

7. More Apps and Plugins

When you run and publish your website, you don’t want the theme to run in its stock version, or it will be just like all other sites that are using that theme. You might try adding special features to customize your site, making it more interactive and enhance user experience.

 

Wordpress, WooCommerce, Shopify, and other platforms have thousands of apps, plugins, and extensions to choose from. You can expect even more in the coming months, allowing you to truly make the most of your site.

 

 

8. Mobile Responsive

You may have encountered this statement hundreds of times - today’s websites must be mobile-friendly. This can’t be emphasized enough. Since 2017, the usage of mobile devices to browse the Internet has now surpassed traditional desktop, meaning most of your audience is probably looking for you on their phones and tablets!

Source: Scott Hurff

 

Thus, making it important that your site is mobile responsive. Click this link to test your site’s mobile responsiveness.

 

9. Accelerated Mobile Pages

Do you want your site to quickly load on your audience’s mobile devices? Enter Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), a new open-source web publishing technology by Google as a response to Facebook’s Instant Articles. AMP improves the display performance of ads and web content by allowing mobile browsers to load faster than the regular pages of your site but with fewer data.

 

AMP counterparts of your standard web pages can be crawled by search engine robots, so they will help in search rankings and SEO.

 

10. Upcoming Trends

As web design technology advances, we will have more design options to choose from. Here are just a few of the trends that will likely emerge a few months from now:

 

  • Gamification to engage users
  • Increased emphasis on usability
  • More videos and animation
  • Introduction of artificial intelligence

 

With so many new design trends emerging in the market, which one are you the most excited to try? Which website design templates do you want to base your website design on?

 

Get in touch with us and let us know!