As another year comes to a close, we find ourselves looking ahead to what the next year will bring in the world of web design trends. And really, sometimes these aren’t even so much “trends” that come and go, but rather the continuing evolution of websites and the user experience. Here are a few things we expect to see taking center stage for web design in 2017:
- Eye-catching and effective imagery. To stand out from the ever-growing crowd, websites must feature authentic and genuine imagery. What does this mean? No impersonal stock photos, for one thing. By now, most web users can spot a staged stock photo from a mile away. (If you need help with professional photos that showcase your business, we’ve worked with some pretty awesome photographers in Wichita!) Aside from using real photos, illustrations that have a hand-drawn or “sketched” quality continue to be a popular choice of visual. Cinemagraphs (photos that have a single, subtle moving element) and animated gifs are also effective at catching the viewer’s eye.
- Grids & modular framework. When you open up a novel to read, you expect the pages to be filled with words. You want to get lost in the story and be transported to the imaginary world created by the author. Websites, on the other hand, serve a much different purpose. The user goes to a website to find information–and find it fast. A grid-style or modular framework features bite-sized blocks of content which are easier to skim and digest. WordPress offers many modular types of themes which we can customize for our clients.
- Simplified navigation. Website design continues to lean toward minimalism, and this includes the primary navigation. Some major websites have gone as far as reducing their visible menu to a bare minimum of three items. Keep in mind that even if you condense your navigation into just a handful of primary funnels, these can still be expanded into larger drop-down menus with more specific options. We’ll also continue to see more websites using sticky navigation, which comes in handy for pages that require a lot of scrolling. Why is it called sticky? Because the primary navigation menu is locked or fixed in place, so it can still be accessed no matter how far the user has scrolled down the page.
It’s always fun to stay on top of web design trends and share what the future looks like. But in all truthfulness, we’re not here to create purely “trendy” websites. It’s not about forcing every newfangled design trend on your website, unless it makes sense and serves a purpose.
We want to listen to you. We want to learn about your needs and goals, in order to design a beautiful and functional web presence that best represents your business. So if a new or overhauled website is in your plan for 2017, let’s chat!
