Top 10 Leading Web Design trends

2020 was a difficult year. Due to COVID-19, most people were stuck at home, and the demand for optimized, content-rich, and eye-catchy websites was very high. That’s why, in the past year, developers scaled web design unlike ever before.

Advanced Developers around the world worked on different website designs to demonstrate their exceptional talents and skills. They have put a lot of effort into ensuring that the designs are digitally fluid, realistic, and artsy.

Since then, designers and several web design firms have gone highly creative with their website designing skills and have brought many new eye-catching features that are advanced technology and push the limits of imagination. Here is a list of top trends web design trends for 2021 that you can use to design your website. 

1. Muted colors

The basic idea of muted colors is to use colors in low saturation. The colors are dull and subdued in appearance. They are perfect for situations where the intended effect is for the user to completely focus on a particular image or a written piece. This sort of pushes the object, making it pop from the surface.

Blogs, NGOs, and other websites use this designing trend a lot, especially where a subtle background is required. Some of the tools you can use to generate muted colors for your website are Colormind and Adobe Photoshop.

2. Abstract Art

Abstract art is a technique that consists of using different shapes and images with multicolored impressions to create a final composition. It uses an abstract visual language that can comprise different simple shapes, forms, and colors.

Usage of Abstract art composition is useful to represent websites of creative and artistic focus such as video making, food, merchandise, art, and similar. You can add abstract art compositions to your website with Adobe XD, Adobe Spark, Adobe Illustrator, and Figma.

3.   Retro Fonts and Style

Retro fonts have regained their popularity in recent months. Many websites are now using retro fonts to emphasize their content and give them a different vibe. In fact, websites with retro fonts look more vivid and vibrant.

You can also add retro style to your website by adding vintage colors and effects with normal fonts. Bold outlines with dark/tint colors can be used to create this effect.

4. Multimedia Combination

Multimedia combination means using a mix of video, audio, animation, and graphics to enhance a website. The main purpose of using multimedia is to improve the accessibility of content for people who might have low-speed internet. Thus, the website provides more than one way to interact with it. However, if the user’s internet speed is too slow, the website can slow down significantly, and have a negative effect.

You can use Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Figma, and Elementor Pro to add multimedia experiences to your website.

5. Parallax  Animations

Parallax animation is the effect of depth and speed created by moving images. The background images move at a slower rate than the foreground, allowing the user to focus on the displayed content. You can use parallax animation as an eye-catching tool to seek the user’s attention.

Parallax animation allows the foreground to pop out, giving the website a 3D effect. But you have to make sure that there aren’t too many animations on your webpage, as they can distract your users and cause dizziness.

6. Horizontal scrolling

Instead of vertically scrolling the website to find information, you can use horizontal scrolling to create a skew effect website. Horizontal scrolling isn’t a very common feature, mainly because people aren’t used to browsing the web in that direction. However, web developers around the world recognize its uniqueness and ability to create a distinct website.

You can also use it to scroll pictures on the website, like a slideshow. You might need some hovering objects and pointers to ensure visitors aren’t confused with the horizontal scroll effect. You can add horizontal scrolling with your website features using Figma, Text Premiere Pro, WordPress plugin, Adobe XD.

7. 3D visual

3D visuals can give a popping effect to websites. You can use it in combination with parallax animation to create a moving visual UI.

The embossed look is used by different website genres such as gaming sites, satellite view platforms, tracking tools, education websites, and automobile portals, among others. You can develop websites with 3D designs by using Webflow CSS, Adobe XD and Adobe Dimension.

8. Cursor

Web designers have created new ways with which a cursor can interact with websites. These days, the cursor can move like a pen, create different visual effects, and change when it’s used on different pages.

The pen function can also be used to create signatures and write like on a notepad. This allows users to click and input, unlike traditional website cursors where only click is possible.

9. Augmented Reality (AR)

Augmented Reality means creating a virtual layer on top of reality for the users to interact with. Thus,  Augmented Reality allows users to correlate features of the website along with objects of the physical world.

This feature/environment allows the user to go beyond fonts and the usual effects to create a remarkable standalone UX for the end-user. For example, instead of going to an electronic store to get the feel of a new laptop, you can use the AR website to interact with the laptop.

Vuforia, Wikitude, ARKit, ARCore,  are the best tools you can rely on for adding AR to your websites.

 10. Neumorphism

Neumorphism combines flat design elements to create a soft UI for users. It’s a visual representation that combines background colors, gradients, shapes, shadows, and highlights. It provides the user an intuitive experience with hyper design.

You can use it to create websites with hidden buttons or with players with hidden settings. Even though the settings are coded onto the website, they look like you have to tilt the website to get to them.

You can add Nuemorphism to your website and applications through tools such as Balsamiq, Adobe XD, Figma, Sketch, UserTesting, Applause, and Overflow.

Conclusion

There are various web designs available that you can use, each with its traits and features. Retro fonts, parallax animation, 3D visuals, and Neumorphism all use the effect of uniqueness to draw attention. Other design formats such as scrolling transformations, 3D colors, and Gaussian blur, among others, are also used by developers worldwide to create distinctive websites.