Website Design is very much like Fashion, trends come and go. So the job of a web designer can be a very frustrating task, as a website you designed a few months ago can soon become out of date and left looking rather old and dated.

Website Design is very much like Fashion, trends come and go. So the job of a web designer can be a very frustrating task, as a website you designed a few months ago can soon become out of date and left looking rather old and dated.

As a result, web designers have to keep their eye out for the latest trends but more importantly what the next big trend is going to be in order to keep their websites looking new and fresh for as long as possible.

We are now well into 2010 and so far this year it’s clear trends are changing quickly. With more designers and developers becoming aware of the powerful new features of CSS3 (Cascading Style Sheets), and to some extent HTML5, we are constantly looking for ways to utilise these new features to produce creative, impressive designs. With this, the differences in a website’s design between browsers continues to expand and what was once considered voodoo is now considered the norm.

So what are current trends?

Typography

Typography in web design was often frowned upon by usability experts, claiming that any deviation from the standard web fonts and font sizes will render the site inaccessible. The idea of mixing custom fonts and varying font sizes together was considered unthinkable. In reflection, web design has taken a complete U-turn on this and typography is now being used as a critical design element of websites. Designer & Writer Jacqueline Thomas explains:

“Fonts are meant to be explored, twisted, and moulded to fit your purposes. With the correct placement, a website that utilizes typography as its main design element will be more interesting to a reader than overloading the same site with tons of photos.”

Custom Fonts

What was previously a difficult task and considered inaccessible; there are now a multitude of ways to use custom fonts on websites. From font embedding services such as Typekit and Font Squirrel, to text replacement techniques such as Sifr or Cufon. This use of custom fonts is now considered standard practice.

Text Shadows & Letter-pressing

It would be very hard to look through a collection of inspirational websites or CSS galleries without finding websites using Letter-pressing techniques and text shadows to add depth to websites. By simply adding borders to the top of elements or adding inner shadows it is possible to create the illusion that text or an element has been ‘pressed’ into the design. By flipping it around and using drop shadows and borders on the bottom of elements, the illusion that text and elements is raised out of the design. This is a very subtle technique that can be employed to enhance the design of website. The trick is not to overkill it and use it on every bit of text and element on a page but to be selective.

Textured Backgrounds

“Textures, textures, textures. The design community, both print and web, seems to be going absolutely texture mad” Skellie, PSDTUTS

A previous trend of large abstract background images is out and subtle textured background is in. As Skellie explains with very little effort, a texture can dramatically change the mood of your work. From paint brush strokes to scrunched paper and wood to metal, the list of textures is endless and they can be found anywhere.

This is one of my favourite trends that has developed, as the slightest little texture added to a website can make a big impact on the look and feel of the site.

A Massive Textures Showcase

Illustrative Designs

The use of illustration in websites can make a website look very ‘clean, bright and modern’. They tend to be very warm, welcoming and inviting which is what you want from a website. At the end of the day you want people to come to your site and have a nice experience. Illustrative designs were once only considered suitable for personal blogs and designer showcases; however they are now being implemented by professional and corporate websites.

40 Brilliantly Illustrated Web Designs

CSS3 Techniques

As mentioned previously, CSS3 techniques offer web designers and developers a myriad of new ways to construct pages. However, these techniques are currently on supported by modern browsers such as Firefox, Safari or Chrome, thus meaning any enhancements added using CSS3 techniques will only be visiable to certain users.

CSS3 gives developers and designers a whole new level of control to the elements on a page. We are now able to animate the movement of elements using only CSS. Currently this is only available in webkit browsers such as Safari and Chrome but is still a very exciting prospect. Other design elements, which previously required a cornucopia of images and additional mark-up such as rounded corners or opacity, can now be completed using a single line of CSS3.

(This examples are currently only supported in Safari or Chrome)

I am very much looking forward to a time when CSS3 becomes more widely adopted so that all the little design tweaks and enhancements we are currently employing become available to a wider audience.

As with every field though, trends come and go. It will probably not be long before these trends are considered yesterday’s news. So what do you think the next big thing is going to be?