We have come a long way from when serif fonts were hard to see on website monitors and screens and from the days of narrow hard to read a website’s minuscule font sizes. As technology has evolved, the way in which we interact with technology has changed. The way we use websites and computers in general has now changed with the swiping on our smart phones to voice recognition.  These advancements come into play from what we expect from design. This article will discuss the biggest trends that are now currently very popular and will continue to rise as the year moves forward.

Videos Take Centre Stage

When we are on social media whether it be Facebook or Instagram every third post now seems to be video. We love the element of story telling and seeing real people, real video imagery to relay our information. Websites that have a good use of whitespace either being displayed as memorable background imagery or to improve a user’s of a company, organization or product tend to grab users attention and replay their message quickly without the need to read. As the year goes on and likely more into the future we will continue to see a raise in high quality video production for the use of websites.

Blog & Graphic Websites & Imagery

Less is more and often times when we use less design elements, what’s left need to be bold and compelling to the audience. In terms of web design in 2018 we see some parallels to the use of simple photography, such as those used in the 1960’ ads. In web design banners we will often see the sales item with minimal text and showcasing the item. The same goes with people. Unconventional corporate headshots seem to be on the decline as companies look for ways to separate themselves and their people. We often now see more staff photos of people outdoors, interacting with customers or being more casual and relatable.

Unconventional Grids

As humans we like order by our nature so when we see grids that seem to have too much space it tends to bother us. As more and more designers adapt more unconventional grid style layouts and the general public becomes accustomed to seeing them it is more mainstream for large websites to use.

Page Load In Animations

As a web page loads in it used to be the time when every element of the page would look out of place for a moment before the entire website loaded up. Now with the trend of using page load in’s it gives the illusion of elegance and every item falling into place. Some load in animation we often see and will continue to see are fade transitions, slide in from the left, right, bottom or top of the screen, small to big load ins or often times a combination of several effects. As this year moves forward we are likely to see this accelerate and increase as more users now expect to see a more polished look from the moment they click onto a web page.

I will watch these trends and write a part two article half way through the year discussing more of my findings and thoughts on them. Overall the clean modern and original aspects of what we are seeing have been very visually pleasing and refreshing and I look forward to what trends come next.