LATEST WEB DESIGN TRENDS TO STYLE UP YOUR WEBSITE IN 2022

Website trends continually evolve with every passing day; however, there’s one question that you must be asking yourself after every few months! Is my business website good enough to hook a visitor in less than 5 seconds? If so, you’re safe. If not, it’s time to look into the latest mainstream styles that your audience is looking for and gear up the website with the emerging web design trends of 2022.

What was working yesterday is not working today and what’s working today may not be there tomorrow. However, the case is not valid for every design trend or style. It’s quite unusual yet true that some of the conventional styles that have been in the mainstream web design trends such as the vivid level delineations and pervasive moderation are not going anywhere, and will stick around for another few years. So, the best strategy for business owners and entrepreneurs is to keeping weighing the performance and design trends of the website and hit the weak spots that aren’t working, change it and stay ahead of time.

1. Dark Mode

Dark mode, when introduced, didn’t click right away and people were quite ambiguous about its appearance on small screens, however, it is turning out to be significantly prominent in the mid of 2021 and will surely stick around in 2022 and beyond. As more and more big brands like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and Apple have come up with their dark mode options, small companies seem to have built faith in it and are now coming up with their dark mode functionality. The only thing that designers have to be careful about with Dark Mode is that they don’t have to clutter it with too many design elements on a single screen. It has to be clean, spacious for eyeballs and crisp with every single element presented on the screen. The best part is that dark mode soothes the eyeball and put less strain on the overall site experience.

2. Voice-Activated Interface

Voice-Activated Interface was introduced a few years back but people were not aware of its efficiency and efficacy. As the trend has grown common over the past two years, people now prefer voice-activated interfaces to type long sentences on search engines. With this emerging trend, the need for a voice-activated interface has become inevitable and is considered the future of websites. Automated chatbots will soon be replaced by voice-activated chatbots.

3. Human Touch

After a long stay of pixel-perfect flat vectors and graphically defined visuals, the trend of hand-drawn design elements has taken over in the year 2020 and is expected to stick around for a few years now. It is observed that freehand visuals, banners and backgrounds enable human connectivity, trigger emotions and lift human interaction especially with the audience who is tired of robotic technology sweeping away humans from their jobs. These freehand drawn illustrations give a sense of human responsibility and touch behind the business.

4. Immersive 3D Graphics

Immersive technology or volumetric graphics have always attracted the masses but many stayed away from adopting it as it is an expensive technology and involves a lot of effort, cost and gadgets. Even the development, execution and implementation required significantly good money for investment. It is after a few years that this technology has become common, cost-effective, and more pervasive in society. One of the main reasons is that the use of hyper-realistic 3D imagery is now supported in most mobile devices, motivating more and more designers to apply VR/AR technologies in their web and mobile designs. The imagery spans across the entire screen while making it more realistic and engaging for the gamers and other end-users. Alongside, the gaming industry has been increasingly incorporating 3D elements and 360-degree gaming views to add a realistic approach and beauty to 3D games. It doesn’t seem to go anywhere in the next few years, so make sure your business website has it for your good. 

5. Micro Animations

If you think that videos have gone dead, that’s not the case at all. Videos are still the king of content but micro-animations have sneaked in and had gain popularity for two main reasons, it is light and loads up quickly and the other reason is that colourful animations enhance user experience and prompt users to act and convert more rapidly than any other visual element. The geometrical-shaped micro animations or freehand drawn animations work out wonders in hooking up the potential visitors on the site.

6. Delicate Shadows, Thin Layers and Drifting Elements

Breezy shadows combined with floating elements and thin geometrical layers create a 3D impact that further translates into balance and sophistication. With elements coasting on top of one another, this concept is generally applied with images, shapes and typography for a more formal brand image, composure and forward-looking design fascination.

7. Mixing Graphics with Photography

Using real photographs mixed with illustrations or graphics captures the spirit of the brand. The style of these visuals can influence how people interpret the photo – cartoon swirls are better used for something more playful, and geometric swirls for something more complex. High-quality photos already look great on their own, but adding cool graphics will show off your creative flair.

8. Solid Frames

Brands are now gravitating back to solid frames, single-coloured backgrounds and bold combinations. The concept of clutter is going away, solidifying the sense of neatness, defined outlines and more balance in the overall design approach. The year 2022 will be the year of balance, order, neatness and discipline.

9. Light, Flashy and Neon

With a futuristic approach to colours, it is observed that light, flashy and neon colours have gained more attention and offer a great sense of radiance to the upcoming digital art. It is pretty bold to use neon hints with flashy colours but it kicks in, pops out from the screen and catch-up great attention. This combination is trending more and more as we head towards the start of 2022 primarily in duochrome web or mobile layouts. The unique part is that it works great in dark mode especially when the overall approach of a designer is minimalistic yet bold. Let luminous colours shine out this year!

10. Ultra-minimalistic Navigation

As much as the digital audience has a shorter attention span, brands try their best to keep the entire experience more engaging and less distracting. It has led to more voice scripted web content with less to zero textual content. With minimal words and more visuals, the overall experience has gone ultra-minimalistic with quick navigation and the easiest customer journey. To make it even more approachable and quick for the users, it is best to add more statistics than lengthy text content.

11. Frosted Glass Effect

By the end of the year 2020, new experiments like the frosted glass effect over the flip grids and blocks have gained momentum over plain flip grids, pictures or blocks. The blurred appearance of the elements and objects behind the frosted glass stirs inquisitiveness in the audience visiting the website and hook for a little longer than usual. It stimulates the desire to explore further and understand what’s behind the show!

12. Photo Art

The photo art effect is one of the most unrealistic digital art, yet, the most interesting approaches to grabbing customer’s attention by showing dodgy photos and images to the visitors. This specific kind of photo art stimulates the imagination, provokes the potential consumers to think vividly, stay on the website longer and possibly perform as per the suggestive conversion.

13. Realistic Textures

Realistic textures are making a comeback after a long time. Ethereal gradients and pixel-perfect isometric elements are quite a last season and have been taken over by grainy and real-life textures. However, it is better to keep it minimal as overdoing it kills the purpose. It may snatch away the user’s attention to the cover rather than the copy or the brand itself.

As much as the web design agencies and designers are approaching for latest web design trends and implementing them in their recent brand releases, it looks definite that the upcoming web and mobile interactions would be clean, crisp and quick. The overall digital life will be much faster. It’s time when businesses must gear up their brand websites and get ready to encounter more visitors, leads and conversions on digital.

Webroyals has been recognized as one of Top 10 Web Design Companies In Texas by DesignRush.