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The year 2013 was revolutionary for web design & development, and 2014 has arrived with innumerable opportunities. There is a range of exciting stuff that 2014 has in store for those who live, work and produce the World Wide Web. So here is a Fullestop Review about the trends you may expect in web designing world in this New Year:
If you love making typographies, change the way you create them because 2014 will not allow you to keep utilizing the same methodologies. One of the main trends we can expect to see in 2014 is fonts with personality. These are fonts that can stand on their own. Start searching for different fonts and add them to your arsenal before the designing world starts rejecting your serif fonts.
Apple has introduced the concept of “Flat Design” and everyone has copied them right away. The iOS7 is a new bird in the world but it has already changed the designs accordingly. A flood of sites are coming online everyday with new flat designs. The trend was started last year but we do not anticipate this trend ending in 2014.
Websites with the Large Hero Area or the intro area are running rampant and this trend will continue in 2014 as well. Sliders were the tale of the last decade. Stop using them, they may kill you! Either place a simple blurred photo in the background with some text on it or a more elaborate one.
Responsive web design is burgeoning these days as more and more users have started opening websites on their mobile phones. Designers are working hard to make their websites mobile friendly. Implementing social media integration, email subscription, fast loading and long scrolling sites give responsive benefits to a website.
Watching is always easier than reading! More and more websites these days started focusing on videos instead of text. The better part of using videos is that they are easier to share on social media. Also, you can track the number of views your videos get. The only problem videos create is increasing the loading time of a website, particularly when the site is opened on mobile.
Long scrolling sites were out of trend a few months ago. But with improved technology, the sites with increased white space and responsive web design have back in action again. The only thing which matters here is that the space occupied should be occupied in an informative way, with good quality content. Visitors generally don’t prefer reading but if you organize your content well, it may benefit you.
A debate about design is incomplete without talking about colour. 2014 has opened the doors of success for websites with simple colour schemes. Here, simple means just one or two colours. In fact, sites with a single colour scheme are much more appealing and successful than those with a blend of many colours. People love spending time on sites that have cool and soothing colours.
Year 2013 promoted “Content is King” philosophy and 2014 seems to continue it. Content will still remain the most vital part of any website; take it either by reader’s perspective or by search engine’s perspective. Putting content on a site doesn’t mean stuffing it with one paragraph after another. Simple content here means short burst of content, just like Twitter. Most of the successful websites have very little content on them, but it’s well optimised and well organised.
This particularly stands for blog or magazine-type websites but dropping the sidebar allows more visual impact with content. This can be either achieved by placing less yet informative content, or by breaking a page in many sub pages. The truth which remains constant is that no one likes pages with sidebars. This trend will surely survive in 2014 and many forthcoming years.
Using a simple image is very easy and it has been utilized for a very long time, but now it’s time to make a change. Simple images are no more in trend; you need to manipulate them to give an extra effect. Many websites use blurred or colour overlaid images which appear different and unique.
These are top-ten trends that we can expect in this year. The points ask the designers to get ready to make the changes. Older techniques still work well but keeping the pace with fast-moving world is very much required.
