2014 has come to an end and we are entering to the year 2015 – a year of many new and hot web design trends, perhaps it will resurrect some trends that were popular a few years ago. Every year, web design grows and changes with more and more delicate, modern and unique look.
We make a survey and collect awesome design trends that hopefully will rule 2015. So scroll down to see the design that will blow up in this year and enjoy the result.
1. Parallax scrolling
Parallax scrolling is one of the popular and fashionable trends we predicted for 2014. The magical beauty of the parallax scrolling is to apply 3D effect for background of the page moving and scrolling down slowly and smoothly at different paces.
This effect successfully serves its purpose in different fields. Designers use parallax scrolling to animate elements or properties of the page. Users have ability to create and experience flexible webpage of 3D that adds depth and looks quite sharp with their effectiveness and convenience.
Websites with parallax scrolling became quite popular in 2014, and this trend continue to blow in 2015, so be ready yourself for the incoming flood of websites using the parallax scrolling effect.
2. Flat design
Instead of gradients, reflections, drop shadows and beveled edges, which are drowned/gone in the past, flat design is known as “a king” for the biggest trend from 2013 to now which is clean, elegant and minimalistic.
Flat design tries to convey the idea of a notepad through a synthetic, catchy and fun visual that creates a truly unique appearance and works well along with varied sizes. It makes things free from distractions, eliminating heavy background images, swirls, grunge that makes everything cluttered. Moreover, it focuses on the text, making everything readable from big screens down to mobile.
We predict that this design will dominate the websites in many years later and certainly pleasantly surprise and attract your visitors.
3. Full Screen Background Images & Videos
If you’re a designer or work alongside them, you’ve undoubtedly heard that Full Screen Background Images & Videos is trending right now. Today, browsers can seamlessly support to run video that enhance a website design. Also, the help of HTML 5, CSS 3 and different JavaScript make appealing videos and animations load and play smoothly and easily.
A short delightful video background that is playing without pauses draw attention and curiosity from visitor, keep them stay longer with your site as video is a dynamic medium. Imagine, in a few seconds of a flawless video, you will travel around the world to different cities, through various kitchens, living rooms and bedrooms by way of boat, canoe …
A video is especially useful to reveal unique agencies' workflows, company walkthrough, twist to a product or company message and create a distinctive brand identity.
4. Split screens
Split layout design is becoming more and more popular amongst websites which is loved by designer and user. The page is divided vertically into two or more part to display separate areas of content. These two primary elements of equal importance often rank and contrast with light and dark color schemes. The hierarchy and structure of this type of design allows the user to make a decision and select the type of content they want to see first.
The split screen is more used for companies that have two valuable products, services, or angles they want to promote. It is a lovely way to present and convey an important duality or core strengths from companies. Although this design probably isn't suitable in all fields, it has its place and is increasingly applied in design and business.
5. Hidden main menu
For many years, menu bars have dominated in the web design but in this year, visitors can see hidden menus actually when a website is shown on a desktop or smart phone with moderately small screens.
The design trend has inspired many designers to hide their main menus behind buttons and tabs. These menus will only become visible when the visitor hovers the mouse over the icon and clicks the appropriate icon. This help keep the design of the site clean and functional.
6. Typography
When visitors open a website, they may not care much about the colors, images or videos, they immediately look at the text. This calls typography which usually grabs our attention first, helping you to give an experience for users to read a word or click a button. In other word typography is a type of communication - the personality of the website - tells the user who is behind the website and what you’re about.
A good typography should place emphasis on a beautiful visual treatment and speed performance entirely
7. Storytelling in design
Building and designing a website with visual story telling is a powerful tool that establishes an emotional connection between your brand and your customer effectively. By adding stories not just through content, but also via specific web design elements, layout, and navigation, your product company becomes memorable, approachable, and relatable and also makes customers choose you over any competing company.
Your story in brilliant design through images and interesting copy will illustrate the story and draw the viewer in making them more interested so they will want to find out more by reading the copy. The storytelling web design should be simple, narrative that can convey a fun fashion and an emotional connection.
Take some inspiration and maybe one day you will tell your story through your website.
8. Card
Card design is continuing growing in 2015. Pinterest social network is the pioneer in this design trend, Google, Twitter, and Facebook also displayed their content in the form of cards. It is perfect for mobile devices and responsive design to appear in all kinds of shapes and size including information such as a title, a user name, a picture, and various icons. Sometimes there might be a brief amount of text, for example a product description, services, news, and philosophy of business…
In a sense, card design is highly functional and effective to convey content and description that enable visitors to get an immediate glance at your products, which makes your design glanceable, user-friendly. With information shared on simple and clean cards, they allow users to quickly and easily share bursts of content across social, mobile, and email platforms.
We'll certainly be seeing a lot more of them applied in websites all over the world the years ahead.
9. Responsive web design
Making a site “responsive” to shift sizes seamlessly that it works on desktops, tablets, and smartphones is a big trend these days. More people are using their mobile devices to visit and purchase from websites that make responsive design to be a huge thing this year.
A responsive design simply means that all of the content, images and structure of the website are built and displayed remaining the same on any device. When a user surfs a site on their desktop, they are getting the full view of the site. But when they visit the site on their smartphone or tablet, the site will retract to fit on the smaller screen.
Responsive web design has been a beautiful trend since 2012 and, for 2015, it is nothing less than a mandate for competent and competitive web design.
10. Ghost buttons
Why called “ghost buttons”? They appears empty and transparent as ghosts at the same time they grab users’ gaze at once that have basic button shape like square, rectangle, circle, diamond … with no fill and are bordered by a thin line.
Ghost buttons are becoming more and more widely used on many websites. They are minimal, stylish and very easy to create, very appealing to the eye and usually they are applied with a cool and simple hover animation.
Not only used on web but also on smartphone screen, ghost buttons are something unique you can offer your clients that tend to hold a visitor's attention because these buttons work so well from an aesthetic point of view, and they allows you to have a better "control" to your visitors' navigation of your site.
“Ghost buttons” is a great trend to end our collection of the top web design trends in 2015. The trends come and go, not staying forever but they are significant factors inspiring you to assess the fundamental structures applying to web design projects to make them look cool and stylish.
What other web design trends do you expect in 2015? Let’s discuss in the comments section below.
Thanks for sharing ;)