Web design trends change very often, and adherence to these trends is important to the success of many businesses. This success relies on the many aspects of web design, the primary of which is user experience, which can be improved via good navigation, complementing fonts and colors and other improvements.
Good web design also affects how well a brand is perceived and allows to make a better connection with the brand by creating a relevant and appealing design, setting the right mood and working on creating good brand awareness. By choosing an effective web design that fits your needs, you can put yourself ahead of the competition.
Web designers (and web developers, for that matter), need to be aware of these trends to be able to create effective solutions for themselves, or the clients they are building websites for.
With advancements in technology, tools and available solutions online, it has become increasingly easier to follow trends. Let’s go over some great examples of web design trends in 2022 and find out what may work best for you.
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Top 10 Website Design Trends for Eye-Catching Websites
Good layouts, complementing fonts and colors, relevant icons and many other elements play a major role in setting the mood for the users, directing them to the desired actions and helping them navigate throughout the website.
But, implementing every web design trend on one website is counterproductive. Some approaches are great for certain websites, while others aren’t. Let’s discover which trends bring the most benefit to what websites.
1. One-Page Sites with Scroll Navigation
One of the more popular web design trends in 2022 is the basic and highly functional website. The more prominent example of this is the one-page website, which is perfect for one-purpose websites or portfolio websites. The design heavily relies on scroll navigation, instead of bloated menus and complicated internal link navigation. The information is easy to access and is structured to be presented in a logical way. The one-page web design usually employs a clean design without unnecessary elements that clutter the interface.
2. Minimalist Web Design and The Use of Space
Another popular web design trend is minimalist web design. Web designers create minimalist designs and use whitespace creatively to avoid cluttering a page with unnecessary details. It allows users to focus on the main message without being constantly distracted.
It is somewhat popular, for minimalist designers, to use images of nature, landscapes, or seasonal themes and to complement those images with light and natural color. This creates a soothing atmosphere, and it also highlights navigational elements, text, CTA buttons and other important elements.
Web designers who work on such projects don’t use sharp edges and leave plenty of whitespace between elements.
3. Mega Footers
While helping to de-clutter the website, minimalist design poses challenges when it comes to organizing important navigational and SEO-related elements on the page. To help in this endeavor, many web designers choose to create exceptionally large footers at the end of the pages, so that users will have the ability to access other pages on the website.
As a rule, web developers add useful information to the footer and use dynamic content for other sections of a site. It allows them to quickly update the information when necessary, which is important for e-commerce platforms, restaurant websites, and other similar websites.
4. Interactive Web Design
Another interesting web design trend involves the use of interactive elements on the website to engage the users and create a more immersive experience.
Interactive elements can be animated icons that invite users to click on them or guide them through a scrolly-telling experience. They can also include parallax effects that are responsive to the user’s mouse movements. Or, they can include image hotspots that reveal more text upon hovering or sliders that require the user to move them.
One of the more popular trends of this year is text scrolling, which basically reveals text and other visual elements as the user scrolls further down.
5. Scavenger Hunt Sites (or the Super Interactive Web Design)
Some web designers and web developers take the interactive web design approach to the next level. This often requires a good understanding of coding.
These websites vary somewhat, but their purpose is the same — to engage the user, and make them participate in a fun activity in order to reach their destination.
Some employ the use of puzzles, questions, or graphic keys. Others, use the website to create a miniature game that the user can actually play!
The well-established web design agency Three Sixty Eight creates scavenger hunt sites for companies from different niches, so you can take a look and get inspired. People love such sites since they allow them to get the necessary information in an entertaining way.
6. Code-Free Web Design
In the past, designing websites and then implementing the design to the websites relied heavily on people with coding knowledge (specifically HTML and CSS). While this knowledge can still be of great help in creating unique websites, there are many website-building and e-commerce platforms that allow users to design their websites without any coding.
The beauty of this is that anybody can design their website. Both individuals and companies can benefit from this approach and not only create their own unique designs but also save money doing so.
As an additional bonus, individuals who want to expand their website’s design and functionality beyond what their platform offers them can use third-party applications like Common Ninja’s, which are free to use.
7. The Return of Linework in Website Design
Linework was a popular website design trend several years ago and it’s making a comeback. The Linework approach uses lines for separating sections, headlines, paragraphs, and product galleries. Additionally, it allows designers to create a dynamic grid for the whole web page. Many web designers also choose to use linework illustrations to complement the overall Linework design.
When choosing the Linework approach, it’s prudent to pay attention to the line weight and to combine it with complementing colors, illustrations, fonts and graphics. If you are interested in this trend and want to see some examples, take a look at Blumenkopf.
8. Web Design with Experimental and Oversized Typography
One of the latest trends in web design involves using typography elements to emphasize text. It is done by using oversized font sizes and experimenting with the line width. As a rule, it’s recommended to use basic, sans-serif fonts without any decorative elements. When browsing through a website with such a design, users may feel as if they were reading a brochure or printed magazine. Here’s an interesting example from USSR Design Almanac.
9. Loading Speed Optimized Web Design
According to Statista, more than half the web users access the web through their mobile devices. This has brought up new design challenges as loading speeds have become increasingly more important for websites. The better a website performs, the more chances it has to appear on Google’s search results.
There is no one right way to go about this. Some choose a minimalistic approach with fewer images or other elements that take too much time to load, while others use various services to improve their loading speeds, including lazy image loading.
Depending on your website (whether it’s a portfolio website, an e-commerce website, a blog or anything else), you will have to choose the right approach for you.
Tip: Should you decide to use images on your website, we highly recommend that you pay attention to post-processing since the style of your photos should match the design of other elements. You can either edit your photos by yourself or outsource this task to professionals. For instance, the FixThePhoto editors can professionally retouch your pictures to fit all your requirements.
Conclusion
Web design trends are important. They provide insights into vital information, chief amongst them is what users prefer and how you can use that to your advantage. Not every style is appropriate for every website, and as such, some thought must be taken when choosing your web design style.
In addition to the visual appeal of your website, you should also consider the implications of having websites that are too heavy to load and may hinder the mobile user experience. Issues like this will most likely results in SEO penalties and counterproductivity.
Whatever approach you choose, know that Common Ninja offers a selection of tools that work perfectly with all website-building platforms. These will not only enhance your design but add functionality and interactivity to your website as well.
