Must Design

In this post we will try to review the current status of web design scene and predict some trends for 2015.

Marty Note
Great summary of some "new to me" trends for next year such as video backgrounds and rise of website generators (still looking for a really good one of these, most suck).

Hope the stock photography and personal branding predictions come true.

An updated look at the hottest best web design trends of 2014 including a showcase of modern web design inspiration.

Marty Note
This @justcreative post hit many nails on the head when it was initially published and Jacob's update of Helga Moreno's post doesn't disappoint either. Things I REALLY agree with:

See Less of (PLEASE):

* Stock photography (no photos? ASK your employees / followers for help but please no more Stepford people in pics on websites).
* Flash (has killed more #seo and sites than you can shake a stick at and fact it is still alive is amazing).
* Capcha - spam sucks but so do capcha forms.

More of PLEASE:

* Content First (implied in Responsive or Mobile First Design is a new way of thinking about, tagging and presenting content).
* Interactive Exploring (BIG AGREEMENT see my post about Time is Money Online https://plus.google.com/+MartinWSmith/posts/RdjAjWoJTHw and tag this next to #gamification).
* Arresting pictures and Video (YES, your great content will be ignored or under-shared UNLESS it is paired with strong visual hooks and supports).

Great post by Helga for Just Creative and so TRUE to our experience of web dev in 2014 for leading ecommerce clients such as Moon Audio.com.

Pageless design frees websites from the outdated conventions of print design and fully utilizes the digital platform they’re built on. 

8 Compelling Reasons Why "Pageless' Web Design Wins (in the end):

* Tells a better story.

* Easier to "digest" or understand what to do.

* Emotionally more powerful.

* Higher Conversion Rates!!!
* Makes updating faster & easier.

* Lowers BOUNCE & encourages sharing.

* Looks great on all devices (mobile included).

* Lower cost to develop.

Marty Note
I confess to not being in love with the "infinite scroll" just yet. One modification we worked out for @Curagami, our Startup Factory funded startup, is to include a Call-To-Action at the top & Bottom.

CTAs help prepare the scroll. Remember "open book" tests? Putting a CTA on top of a waterfall of content helps prep a visitors mind. It "opens the book" for them. With this many impressive benefits I'm going to have to figure out how to start loving "pageless" design (lol).

I bet there are 5 (or so) similar modifications we can make to help us know how to create the paths and conversion we want by going "pageless".  

Currently, one of the biggest trends in the web design industry is the flat design style. In case you are not yet familiar with the term, flat design is essentially design without the drop shadows, gradients, and textures that have been common in web design for some time. Flat design uses solid colors and often typography figures prominently into the design. In this post we'll showcase 33 excellent examples of the flat web design trend. Hopefully they can provide some inspiration that can be put to use in your own work. Buffalo

Marty Note
Wow, you don't get much more money than Chuck Longanecker's 2012 predictions for web design's almost immediate future. 

Chuck is CEO of Digital Telepathy and boy does he have a copious amount of telepathy based on just how TRUE each of these trends is turning out. Talk about hitting the NAIL directly on its head.

We all need to get into Chuck's head (lol) because understanding how our design tectonic plates are shifting doesn't get any better:

* Lean Design (YES).
* Animation and more sophisticated HTML5 party tricks (YES).
* Less is More (YES).
* Multi-screen, multi-platform (YES!).

Great stuff every web designer and Internet marketer should walk and talk.  

2014 We Design Trends

1. Grid Layouts - Agree & Is Good!
Yes visual marketing + pinterest + mobile is making the grid ubiquitous. I created a Mondrian grid in 1999 when we launched FoundObjects.com (not gone sadly). Grids help share MORE information faster and in the same space than any other design element.

2. Image Captions - Agree and is GREAT
The area immediately under an image is HOT. Everyone looks there but few designers use captions to reinforce or explain the image. Paying more attention to keywords under images is a great idea.

3. Extended Form Elements with JQuery - Don't Know? Does anyone?
Can't comment on this trend as it is new to me and I don't program so its potential benefits are fuzzy at the moment.

4. Deeply Focused Landing Pages thanks to Mobile - Agree & Is Cool
Don't understand this trend except enough to say COOL and WANT ONE.

5. HTML5 Video Players - Agree and GLAD
Don't play your videos on YouTube only since you just make the rich get richer. Figuring out how to play videos "in your stack" is important and having your own HTML5 player is cool.

6. 3D vs. 7. Flat Design - I come down on Flat Design as the winner due to mobile.

8. Personal Portraits - Agree and Like

9. SVG Vector sweeps web as browser support escalates. Agree & Glad.

10. Fonts get cool thanks to server advance - cool and like but not a religion or anything lol.

11. Lazy Loading Animations - cool and can think of several uses.

12. Customized Image Galleries - cool and we need.

13. Mega Navigation Menus - Don't know but don't like idea, seems confusing where confusion can really hurt.

14. Expanding Search Bars - cool and will use.

15. Featured Detail List - LIKE and is cool and new to me.

16. Mobile First Design - Agree and am doing my first now with CrowdFunde.

17. HTML5 Canvas - cool and new to me.

18, Pixel Sprites and Browser Games - New to me but COOL!

19. Quick Registration via social - AGREE!

20, CSS3 Keyframe Animation - Cool, want one.

Charlotte website design and marketing firm Fame Foundry is a trustcasting agency dedicated to helping businesses grow.

Ten Web Trends To Look For In 2015

1. Responsive Wins.
2. Ghost Buttons (made with Divi). 
3. Emphasis on Type.
4. Large & Beautiful Backgrounds.
5. Scrolling BEATS Clicking.
6. Card Design Gets Better.
7. Flat Design morphs into Material Design.
8. Microiterations.
9. Interactive Storytelling.
10. Personalized UX.

Beautiful Unusual Navigation Designs for Inspiration. Selection of Awwwards websites with a strong presence of unusual navigation. An effective navigation design is crucial for a website

Yesterday an article on Medium, Snowfallen, caught my eye. It's about a technique for presenting longform writing online, by embellishing it with integrated

It almost seems that this year flat designs have taken over the world of graphic design by force, but especially in the arena of mobile apps with the first industry-shaking flat design being for the iPhone5. Reality is that flat design has been around longer than the emergence of the iPhone5, but of course it was Apple that helped to bring such cross-industry awareness to the design style.