Our Favorite 2018 Web Design Trends

By current estimates, there are well over 1.3 BILLION websites indexed by search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGO. On average, a unique visitor spends less than 10 seconds on a webpage before retreating to the liminal space of a search engine results page (SERP). If you are a business dependent on online traffic, those numbers can look... just a tad bit disheartening. How is your website supposed to stand out from billions of alternatives? How can you keep your business from drowning in the depths of a functionally bottomless digital sea? The answer is straightforward. Digital marketing, SEO, and paid advertising on platforms like Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are each essential components of a business's success in 2018. These are proven tools which can dependably position your website ahead of your competitors and imitators. Individually, each will increase the online visibility of your business and your website. When deployed in concert, they have the potential to transform your business. The next task is to monetize website visitor and convert them into paying customers. As we mentioned above, you have very little time to do this. The first 10 seconds a visitor spends on your website are the most important. Website are proven to have a negative aging effect which means that the longer an individual spends on the site the more effective the site becomes at retaining them. If you can survive beyond the hypercritical 10 seconds during which first impressions are formed you stand a much better chance of converting the visitor into a paying customer. In digital advertising we have two primary ways to help your website survive this culling:  copywriting and design. Today, we want to review a few web design trends which have recently caught our eye. The most effective of these trends will likely be implemented across our client’s website in the coming months where we deem them to be effective and appropriate. Now, let’s look at some fancy websites!

Brutalism

Chaotic and confrontational with a retro flair amplified by a seemingly impossible blend of minimalism and maximalism, brutalist design, which draws inspiration from architecture, has exploded in popularity over the last several months. Websites employing this design trend don’t care about looking “good” in the traditional sense. Instead, they want to look provocative and engaging. They want to challenge the status quo of traditional web design while turning their back on polish, flow, and comfort.   Primarily, this is a design trend which speaks to a younger audience. An audience brashly choosing to reject the homogenizing standards and aesthetic of the generation that came before. Pictured below is the homepage of The Outline, one of our favorite websites employing brutalist design. As you can see, the design choice is bold and brash. This is a trend for business and brands who know their demographic and are not afraid to alienate anyone who falls outside of it. There can be great benefit to that. When every element of your website speaks directly to your target demographic and no one else, the chance of your message resonating with your audience becomes much higher. The trick with brutalist design is knowing precisely when and where to utilize it. To view more websites employing brutalism, click HERE.

Broken Grid Design

Grids have been a ubiquitous element of web design for basically... as long as websites have been around. In the early days, this was largely a matter of practicality. Building websites was hard! Design was hard! Strict rules had to be followed. Technology and coding limitations were unbending. Plus, grids are just aesthetically pleasing. They can create order out of chaos. Their comforting geometry can make you feel at home on any website you visit.And they also make every single website you visit look the exact freaking same. In large part, this is because the era of templates has created a fertility breeding ground for homogenous websites. When 95 percent of designers and developers are building from the same limited set of lego blocks, it’s no wonder 95 percent of websites bear a striking resemblance to one another. This relentless assault of website which could only be described as square is beginning to come to an end (thank god). Breaking out of the grid will absolutely help your website standout. When our brains are exposed to a consistent visual concept over and over again, a filter effect begins to take place. With a bland grid-based homepage, you could be forgotten about before you are even noticed. Pictured below is a section of our of our favorite websites, Kitchens Of Uber Eats, which has broken out of the grid to great effect. Do you see how much more dynamic and engaging the page is? As a designer, you have much more control over the viewer's eye when you break out of the basic grid format. This isn't to say that grids no longer have a place in modern web design. In fact, if you click over to the piece from our blogroll, you will have noticed that we still utilize grids ourselves. That is because they are very effective at presenting information in an organized, professional, and easy to digest way. It is crucial to learn where and when to deploy specific design trends such as broken grids.