Trends in web design change from year to year and also the components that make them up. Therefore, through this article, I would like to emphasize on the recent trends or progression that occurs in the field of web design in the year 2014 and is largely being demanded in the digital media industry.
Some of the important web design components are Responsive web design, Flat Web Designs, Video Content, One Page Scrolling Websites, Compact Sidebars in Web sites, Parallax Web Designing, Minimalism Websites, SVG Animation in Web sites, Larger Design Elements, etc… Now let us discuss all these components in brief.
1. Responsive Web Design
Responsive Web Design is a great craze in the web commerce. The market demand for portable devices such as smart-phones, tablets, etc. is ever-expanding and thus offering huge market potential. In essence, responsive website designing has become a standard and web/UI developers are keen on learning the coding requirements to develop mobile-friendly websites. A Responsive Web Design is one that gets adjusts according to user’s screen size or that runs on allied portable devices. Click here to see the example of Responsive Web Design Website.
Example of a Responsive Website:
2. Parallax Scrolling in Web Design
Parallax scrolling or effect is best for those who want to incorporate 3D effects on their website. Typically it is scrolling technique that helps in adjuring the illusion of the depth of a field to the web users. Such effect combines a great mix of effects on movement depth and 3d illusion in websites.
Example of a Parallax Scrolling Website with Tutorial:
3. Flat UI or Flat Designs in Websites
Flat User Interface or flat designs are the widely used designing language being used in several graphical user interfaces (GUI) in making of the websites. Greater emphasize on flat designs, simplicity & clarity will help websites to reduce excess clutter and focus on content & overall user experience.
Example of a Flat UI or Flat Designs based Website creation tool on GitHub:
4. Minimalism in Website Designing
Minimalism: Where Less is More!!! Minimalism refers to the art of bringing the important content in the front & minimizes distractions for the user. Presently designers are emphasizing on developing websites having large images, white space and concise text which focuses on user’s attention.
Example of a Minimalism Website:
5. Video Content in Websites
Short audio-video films have become a favorable medium for storytelling in the field of website designing. Videos offer long lasting impact on viewers in a website. Putting productive video content attracts users and allows them to stay longer on a website.
6. Fixed Navigation based Websites
Fixed navigation is basically a technique of keeping the navigation bar constantly visible for the users as they scroll down a website. Fixed position of the sidebar or top menu will be considered a logical approach on a website employing heavy content.
Example of Website with Fixed Navigation:
7. Typography based Websites
Another important component of web design is typography. The year 2014 brings some fresh and impressive trends changing the way the fonts appear on a website. Moreover, evolution of web browser has enabled users to consider allied combinations of fonts, the only limitation is one’s imagination.
Example of a Typography based Website
8. Simple Color Scheme based Websites
Presently simple color schemes or fresh colors are in fashion and used by the majority of web designers and developers to design a website.
Below given colors are majorly employed at the time of designing a website:
- Placid Blue (#3f5c94)
- Violet Tulip (#9295ca)
- Hemlock Green (#9eceb4)
- Sand Brown (#cdb48c)
- Paloma Grey (#a9b2b1)
- Cayenne Red (#e66665)
- Freesia Yellow (#ffd602)
- Radiant Orchid (#ae70af)
- Dazzling Blue (#076bb6)
- Celosia Orange #f47d43
Example of a Simple Color based Website:
9. One Page Scrolling Websites
One page websites are usually get scrolled till the end, therefore the content on such site has a greater probability to be read from cover to cover.
Example of One Page Scrolling Website:
10. SVG Animation in Websites
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) facilitate for web scalability. While responsive web designs enable the designers to create mobile-friendly websites for varied portable devices, resizing or scaling of images forms a crucial part of a website. In such a context vector based images come with a packet of heal as it offers the much-needed solution to the web designing problem. SVG animations (vector images) are relatively small in size and can scale without compromising the quality in a website.
Example of a Website with SVG Animation:
Conclusion:
In this article, we have highlighted the recent trends in web design industry for the year 2014. Though we have tried to cover all major components in this piece of writing, however, it doesn’t mean that we can’t go beyond that. “In essence, a good design should have a potential of serving both practical and aesthetic purpose. Designers should focus on providing optimum user experience (while creating a website) instead of applying a designing technique because it is trendy.”