The year is almost over – the Christmas and New Year’s themes are already finished and ready to publish, so it’s time to take a look at what to do (and how to do it) in 2015. Exact trends are hard to predict, as new things can appear on the way, but here is a general look at what websites should look next year to be trendy and appreciated.
5. Expressive Typography
So long Times, adieu Sans! Thanks to the large collection of web fonts that can be embedded into the source of a theme, and the various ways to create custom font faces to use on websites, designers can (and will) reach new heights of expression using beautiful typefaces with ease.
4. Responsive to the extreme
The time of dedicated mobile websites or sub-domains is coming to an end. Instead of wasting time and resources to build a separate website for smartphones and one for tablets (I already hate the iWatch-ready themes) designers will go with a design that will behave well on any screen size and any resolution it might come across.
3. Video backgrounds
A trend I personally hate, but some designers use it with pleasure: using auto-play videos as backgrounds for a website. The only problem with this is when they forget to include a “Mute” or “Pause” button.
Using video or other rich content as a background for a website is a new trend, and certainly needs some polishing – but it’s already quite popular, and if used right, it can significantly improve the visitor’s browsing experience.
I think we’ll see much more of it in 2015.
2. Large images as background
Similar to the above, but without the annoying music. Using a large image as a background for an otherwise unused space – especially at high resolutions – can improve the first impression of a website a lot.
Using large images in the background, as part of the design itself, allows delivering a much stronger and more impressive message, emphasizing on emotion more than on information. Besides, it gives an impressive look and feeling to any webpage.
I think we’ll see lots of these next year.
1. Scrolling to the infinity
Today’s internet users have become lazy, or maybe it’s because the spread of the tablets and other touch screen devices used for browsing the web. Who knows? The fact is that people grow tired of clicking “next” or “older posts” or a page number when they reach the bottom of the page. They don’t want to click or tap anything – they expect the page to just go on forever.
Endlessly scrolling pages (automatically loading content as the user scrolls down) is becoming an everyday thing, so it’s time to forget about page navigation and links. Give the man what he wants: scrolling, into infinity.
+1. Flat
When the iOS 7 shocked its users with the new, Ive-style flat icons and gradients, design has taken a new course. As Ive explains, pople have grown comfortable with touching glass, and they don’t need buttons anymore – so why not just use flat wherever it’s possible.
This trend has achieved a lot of momentum in the last two years, and will most probably reach its maturity in 2015. Material Design, as it is called, is a mostly flat design using subtle gradients and overlays to achieve sense of the material world, yet making good use of the advantages of its flatness.
