Now that 2024 is right about underway it is time to get your latest fill of web design trends that are captivating users all over the web this year.
The standard of web design even in the last few years has taken noticeable leaps forward, and the elements that are being included in some websites today are nothing short of amazing.
Very much like the trends that influence the fashion world, website design takes cues from trends that are in fashion at the time.
Some may argue that trends will come and go, but ask yourself, do you really want to be stuck in the past with an outdated website that doesn’t impress?
Grab your audience’s attention with our round-up of the hottest web design trends that 2024 can look forward to.
Top 5 Hottest Web Design Trends Today
The best web trends are simple, stylish and inviting.
With that in mind, let’s have a look at our round-up of the top 5 web design trends that you should be using in 2024.
1. Black and White Tones
Colour is one of the factors important to a website. It defines the mood, sets the vibe, and ultimately dictates the visual experience & UX design experience that is felt by the user.
Website designers have been using colour for as long as the Internet has been around, and colour seems to move with the trends, changing all the time in relation to what is trending.
Many artists and photographers will tell you that black and white is timeless and transcends the winds of fashion altogether.
Whether this is true or not, one thing is for sure: black and white tones within a website is definitely popular this year.
Black is the new black – check out this great monochromatic website from thesum.com.
2. Organic Shapes
In recent years, web developers appear to be breaking free of ‘the grid’ – a concept that has held down the elements of a web page in a structured format for decades.
Designers are now playing with smooth, fluid lines and using organic inspiration to build websites easily that have less of a rigid and ordered feel, and more of comforting, natural vibe to them.
They emulate the imperfections and asymmetry of nature and can provide more depth to a web page and make elements pop off the page.
The overall goal is to make web designs feel alive, almost as if they were moving when people scroll through a page.
Soft shapes and fluid lines – This inviting landing page oozes comfort and ease of use.[/caption]
3. Micro-Interactions
Take your mouse pointer and hover over the Smarter Panther at the top left – you have just experienced a micro-interaction.
The sole purpose of a micro-interaction is to surprise the user and create an event that is interesting and inviting.
Micro-interactions are a fairly broad term, and can refer from everything to at website chat box to a social media interaction.
This year however, they are becoming more sophisticated and less in-your-face.
One of the main ways they are being implemented is through the scrolling action of a website, like this examples here:
Fluid scrolling – this website from Social Monitor comes alive as you move through pages.
4. Thumb Ready Web Design
We all know how important it is to make your website mobile responsive, but in the last year alone, it is starting to take the lead in terms of platform design.
This means that even on the desktop version of a website, we can still see the familiar ‘Hamburger’ stack menu icon, which facilitates the complete navigation for the website.
It has become so commonplace on mobile responsive versions of websites that it is now used on desktop versions because of the familiarity and space-saving benefits.
Check out this example here from CNN’s desktop site:
Mobile browser familiarity – The desktop site for CNN features the classic ‘hamburger’ menu.
5. Minimalism
Minimalism within a website is not strictly a new trend, however, it has definitely been ramping up in use on websites.
This one is all about keeping it simple, creating less clutter on a webpage, and giving your audience a better experience by cutting down on the amount of time they have to spend looking for what they want.
This trend is defined by the use of whitespace that can be seen on a lot of websites at the moment, as well as clear typography and bold contrasts to make it obvious what is on the page.
Minimalism is quickly becoming the go-to choice for the aesthetics of a website’s design and will remain a timeless classic in our eyes.
Three pages of simplicity – We love this minimalist website from welovedaily.com
Case Study – LibraTone’s Web Design Journey
LibraTone are a premium audio manufacturing company that make sleek, stylish products aimed at the high-end audio market.
Naturally, they have a slick and functional website to match, and it’s interesting to look at how it has changed over the years, but in order to do this, we have to go back, wayback.
To do this, we have to use an internet time machine of sorts, known as Wayback Machine, which takes snapshots of websites from all over the internet and stores them for all to see.
Here we have an archived screenshot of Libra’s website that we pulled from Wayback Machine.
Back in time – 2017 screengrab of LibraTone’s website
From this snapshot from 2017, we can see that they have used a minimalist approach with quite a few icons and text boxes to accompany their products.
They have used dark pallets on a clean, white background that gives it stark contrast and edginess.
Now, let’s fast forward to their present-day website.
With the times – The website is now clean, simple and great to use.
If we look at this recent snapshot of their website, we can see that the minimalist theme has been taken even further, with great use of whitespace.
There are fewer icons and less text, with more focus on showcasing their products and the lifestyle that they are selling.
The colour scheme has been brightened a bit, and the yellow and blue colours that are prominent on the homepage now continue into the other pages, setting a brighter and more contemporary feeling.
What Can We Learn
There are a lot of themes to be considered even from this single example. A website can encompass colours, shapes, space, fonts, images, animations and more in its design.
However, you cannot simply add equal measures of every element and expect it to look good.
Design concepts must complement each other in order to achieve an effective feeling and aesthetic within a site.
We have to remember that times change, and we can see from this example that even in just a short space of a few years, website design trends have changed a lot.
Keep on top of your website and make sure you don’t fall behind in your web design Glasgow approach.
