It seems that 2021 will bring technology and automation to the next level. Already in 2020, we have seen many corporations use AI and AR to help their customers; predictions for 2021 reveal many more companies have plans to use such technologies in a greater way. You might say what has this got to do with website design? Well, as technology has evolved over the years, so have web designs. Experts are forecasting chat bots will become more human and many websites with integrate with other in-house business systems like ERP systems to automate processes and streamline tasks.
The design world has made some very bold moves over the last 5-10 years so it’s always exciting to see what may be next!
The reasons behind dark themes are more than just “they look and feel modern” (although this is true!). Two of Google’s reasons for rolling out dark themes on Chrome and other apps such as Google Meet are to save phone battery life and also to reduce eye strain, in fact they say: “Give your eyes a rest by turning Google Meet dark mode”.
Even towards the end of 2020 we’ve seen more and more website designs use the dark theme. For example, the iPhone 12 Pro release on the Apple website uses dark mode and creates a very impressive overview of the phone with the metallic colours boldly highlighted against the dark background.
The design is a minimalist style giving maximum emphasis to the phone’s feature. Dark mode allows other design elements to be highlighted easily, it’s no wonder we are going to be seeing more of this in the coming year.
Easy on the eye, simple shapes, maximum use of white space and striking colours or dark mode. Minimalism design produces websites that are memorable and easy to navigate around making it an almost timeless option for your website design.
Minimalist style has grown significantly in recent years and it doesn’t look like 2021 will be an exception to this. It appears to be one of the few trends that is likely to be around for many years to come.
The complete contrast to minimalism. This can be very powerful, but the words “Anti-Design” still make me shudder like a fork grating on a china plate! If you are a Gen Z then you’re probably all for the “Anti-Design” movement, which is predicted to be used more in website designs in 2021.
This movement is composed of very raw and ‘in your face’ bold elements that can be slightly horrifying. It often uses asymmetric layouts and has little or no white space. This is also referred to as a maximalist, the more is more approach.
However, this rather brutal type of design is very eye-catching and attention grabbing.
The use of Illustrations is increasing…. with larger companies, even supermarkets and insurance companies incorporating custom illustrations into their website designs and marketing materials.
Custom illustrations allow organisations to really bring their brand and designs to life with quirky but meaningful elements. Ocado the online supermarket recently created a personal ‘thank you’ video for their customers that used a great combination of photographs and hand-drawn style illustrations. Professionals are forecasting this trend will blossom further in 2021.
Overlaying elements and mixing images or photographs with graphics and illustrations has brought out the creative side of many brands this year.
Advances in technology enable designers to simply create and draw on a device such as an iPad and from that same device easily upload to your website or social media. This also means brands need to ‘step outside the box’ more to be differentiated from their competition.
Mixing medias is a great way to stand out from the crowd and create lasting memories with your website users and clients.
It isn’t necessarily the best concept, to keep up with the trends as it will mean your website design becomes outdated very quickly and will constantly need design tweaks to keep up with the trends. It’s a good idea to discuss this with your website designer as they should be able to advise on what trends may be short lived. Or do some simple research, take a step back and look at the trends over a 5- or 10-year period to help you easily identify those which are likely to fade out in the short-term future.
At Guzzbury Studio – website design services, Southwest, we believe that keeping up with some design changes and trends is necessary, but you can’t possibly incorporate them all!
Get in touch with us to request your quotation
