As a web designer, or even a developer, you’re visiting probably well over a thousand websites a month. What kind of an impact does that leave on your perception of good design, or your criteria for what’s possible?
The W3C standards page is constantly expanding, growing and flourishing; due to the fact that the community is so involved with the development of the web, which means that we’re constantly seeing new design trends being introduced to the masses.
We would like to introduce you to ten showstopping web design trends that we’re going to experience in the year 2014, some of which are already making their appearance felt.
1. Flat UI
Flat is a mix of fun and smooth colors, combined with complete and total simplicity, which brings websites and web applications to life. Apple introduced flat UI design on their latest iOS 7 software update, Microsoft has been developing Metro UI for a fairly long time now.
We do believe that flat is going to just keep growing, and will manage to be among the top web design trends this year.
2. Responsiveness
You would think that something, that has been around for a couple of years now, would by now have expanded and become the norm for the majority of the web. Strictly speaking, it should be the standard – as there is no any other alternative to making websites mobile device friendly.
There is still lot of room for growth when it comes to responsive web design, and designers are surely to fill their pockets with that dough for years to come. Watch our for platforms that will offer to build a mobile website in five clicks, they’ve already arrived.
3. Minimalism
We looked at flat already, which enables us to think of minimalism as simple design, only without all the fancy colors. Simple web design has been emerging already, and one of the main reasons for that is the huge emphasis that is being put on content, and nothing else but content.
Straight to the point web design is going to be the future, people will not spend more than a minute to find something that has been hidden behind the garbage cans.
4. Video Content
You can only write so much, before people realize that they’re spending way too much time reading something they could have consumed from an interactive media type like video.
Because video content is becoming easier (&cheaper) to produce, we’re going to see a lot more of it, especially when it comes to introducing a business (or yourself) to the world.
This also goes for stuff like video backgrounds, take a look at this Spotify page and tell us you don’t want to go work on something similar right now.
5. “Branded” Typography
Fonts have evolved in the past couple of years, and with services like Google Fonts offering hundreds of fonts to choose from at no cost, there is definitely a trend setting for designers to use more personal and brandable fonts to get their message across.
“Brandable” fonts mean only one thing, the website using them is trying to get a message across that they’re independent, and do not depend on other’s opinion to run their business, it’s a strong message at that.
6. One-Page Scrolling
Why make the users look for stuff all over the place, when all of your content can be served from within a single page? The name it goes by is long scrolling, and what it means is that all of your websites pages can be viewed by vertically scrolling up or down.
This is already showing signs in the web design community, and we’re constantly running into a business that takes the full advantage of this.
7. Fixed Navigation
It’s hard to display this as an example in a snapshot, so please bare with me and take a look at this page to see the full example. Fixed navigation has been emerging quickly, there are a lot of creative uses to it.
We’ve seen websites that integrate social media, search and even purchase options within their fixed navbars, making the user experience more accessible and seamless. We will be seeing a lot of advancement in this field, not just in the year 2014.
In some cases, this enables the designer to drop sidebar design, as it can be integrated within the fixed navigation itself. Which leads us to…
8. Compact Sidebars
Gone are the days for the need to display a sidebar on every single page. Now, we are able to focus more on the full-width content of pages and have widgets like sidebars scroll-out from the side of the page when needed.
It wouldn’t be possible without some JavaScript, or jQuery – but even then, it’s quite simple to implement and it gives you more website space to work with.
9. Parallax
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines.
Some might think this falls under the one-page scrolling headline, but we do believe that there are plenty of websites that prefer single parallax images to capture the attention only one time. Parallax has been evolving, and will continue to do so in 2014.
The one area that Parallax has been really excelling in, is Premium WordPress Themes.
10. SVG Animation
Scalable Vector Graphics have been around for a while, but only now are making significant progress as more professional web designers are starting to pay attention to it. SVG’s are easy to scale, they’re small in size and as of late – a lot of JavaScript libraries are making appearance to make development easier and more efficient.
At Tesla Themes, we believe in transparency and so we’re closely following the latest web design trends that happen within the industry. We wouldn’t give you advice that we ourselves, would not follow or implement.
Image credits: flatuitutorials, gregoirevella, codrops, spotify, myfonts, naikom
Carlos
22 Apr 2014Nice list! I find that clients who rely on selling ad space on their website have issues going for a one page scroll website. It’s all about click-throughs for them.
tesla
22 Apr 2014Thanks Carlos, you’re probably right, but usually one page sites are used for apps, small agencies, presentation sites, etc.
prakash
22 Apr 2014This is very useful information for all designers
tesla
22 Apr 2014It really is, hope they’ll find it useful.
G.
22 Apr 2014Really? This is just a list of what happened in 2013!
Things to watch out for implies that you’re going to identify and predict what’s coming next!
tesla
23 Apr 2014Hi G., what is your version of design trends for 2014?
Ilia Muriente
22 Apr 2014We did a study last year at this time and the trends were the same. Now it is public knowledge, which is great. We use great themes like Tesla’s because they follow the newest stuff out there, for our clients and they are loving us! 🙂
tesla
23 Apr 2014Thanks Ilia, some technologies are already known for a while, but they become trends when the majority is using them and it seems like these trends will persist and evolve in the next couple of years. Regards!
Robert
22 Apr 2014Thank you for this. It is extremely useful.
tesla
23 Apr 2014Thanks, glad you like it.
Kanishk
23 Apr 2014The information is great and also it’s helpful for the starters (I think). I am just 15 and and fully interested in this whole Designing World. Thanks for sharing!
tesla
23 Apr 2014You’re welcome, we’re glad that you are interested in this great industry.
Tristan
28 Apr 2014Nice list 😉
Where does the #3 illustration come from ?
Tristan
28 Apr 2014Found it: https://dribbble.com/shots/1367142-Simplest-analytics?list=searches&offset=0 😉
Don’t hesitate to add the links for every illustration 😉
tesla
29 Apr 2014Have a look at “Image credits” links at the end of the post, there is a link pointing to the author of this image, regards!
tesla
29 Apr 2014Thanks Tristan, we have included links to the images at the end of the article, regards.
Rickey Reign
5 May 2014I think you said it best Tesla when you mentioned that just because someone does something doesn’t make it a “trend” but more so when a large number of people are doing it. Very nice list in my opinion, I see so many sites and applications going with the flat designs and they’re even getting more advanced and creative with them now that a bigger number of people are using them. I’m also a fan of the parallax myself. great article.
tesla
5 May 2014Thanks Rickey, you’re right, so many site owners are adopting flat design, we think we’ll see it evolving very fast.
Davis Porter
8 May 2014I was surfing internet for latest web design trend cam across many blogs, website and reviews on many websites like landau design reviews, 99designs, thenextweb and many more. I found your article quiet useful. great work. Keep it up!
tesla
8 May 2014Thanks Davis!
kchristoph
8 May 2014Hello Tesla-Team !
Greetings full of sun from Hannover, Germany !
Last year I bought a tesla-theme-bundle with “MightyDeals”.
I’ve lost all files and all information about it.
MightyDeals: No chance to download once more.
What to do ?
Thanks ! – Danke !
wilburlikesmith
8 May 2014Hey Kchristoph, not really the place to ask. Try support…
KChristoph
9 May 2014Nice to see you wilburlikesmith !
Are you part of Tesla-Team ?
Have a wonderful time.
tesla
12 May 2014He is a part of our great community.
tesla
12 May 2014Hi and thanks for your kind words, we have sent you the instructions, regards!
Rexmondo
16 May 2014Great list! Users shouldn’t just visit your website—they should love your website. And these ideas help them do exactly that!
Emily Kelly
23 May 2014Wonderful article!!!!
Really useful for web designers. By using this, web designers can create trendy websites. Hoping more posts from you. Thank you….
http://ateeseurope.com/
Krishan
4 Jun 2014Really, this article is very useful for all web and UI Designer.
Vivek Choudhary
1 Jul 2014Great list!!!!!!!
This Article is Very useful….. Thanks
Levi
2 Jul 2014Good post. Just fyi.. your left hand navigation is not very intuitive. I almost missed that it was there at all. It is creative but it almost looks like an advertisement banner if you aren’t paying attention.
Rezan Ferdous
17 Jul 2014Parallax becoming much popular nowadays also sticky navigation bar helps to decrease bounce rate .
sangeeth
19 Jul 2014Nice list of design trends for 2014. Responsive and Parallax design is improving day by day in online business industry.
Aaliya Dhaha
29 Jul 2014Awesome list of web design trends! Between i loved the fixed navigation as it is getting viral everywhere!
Hydoho
11 Aug 2014Thanks for posting valuable information . Points are good and fine can we have more posts like this .
charlene
20 Aug 2014A lot of this is old, and Google does like Parallax one page or One-Page Scrolling sites
SriSAAS Wordpress
20 Aug 2014Quite of a few things like Responsiveness and possibly SVG animation are almost a necessity. Minimalism and flat design might just be trends that last for a few years.
KriShne Gowda NL
17 Sep 2014A good list, i’d like to add the page animations to this list, as it makes it more interesting.
CSS Gallery
10 Nov 2014Infinite scrolling (the technique when more images load up as the user scrolls down the page) has become a standard for image-heavy websites like Pinterest and Google+ photos. This happens because Internet is becoming more and more visual. While content still rules, pictures attract users’ attention. Most image-oriented websites on the web use infinite scroll to provide better user experience.
custom web designers
4 Dec 2014According to me web designers search a thousands of designs to find the latest designs which gives awesome user experience. This is the best resource to find which trends is good for you.
Thanks for sharing!