There have been a lot of changes in website design in the past year. What was popular a year ago, has definitely changed to what is today. What have I noticed? Here are a few things.
Banner sizes are getting larger – The bigger the banner, the better. Look at Nextfly’s homepage for an example. The banner takes up the whole top half of the website when you first pull it up.
Examples: Nextfly, The Grill 1 and The Grill 2. Find them in our portfolio.
More social media icons – Wow. It use to be just Facebook, but now websites have everything from the Facebook icon, to Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest and even Instagram. What’s next? A button for Vine? Maybe…Shoot. Calling it now. Vine icons EVERYWHERE.
Example: See the top of our page! Six icons. CRAZY!
Single Page Website Designs – A few of our clients including Central 9 school and R Technologies have already jumped onboard the single page website design train. Heading into 2014 we feel like we’ll see this more and more frequently as “THE design”.
Example: Central 9 Charter School. Find it in our portfolio.
Large backgrounds – Similar to larger banners, large background images are being seen more frequently. Years ago, large backgrounds too forever to load and didn’t work well with website design. However, with bearable website loading times and images that work well with design structure, large backgrounds are in!
Example: Stacey Ambler’s law firm website. Find it in our portfolio.
Responsive design – Responsive design was popular in 2013 and will continue to be heading into 2014. More and more people are viewing websites from their tablets and/or mobile phones and so creating a responsive, mobile design is imperative. With a mobile site, you give customers to easily navigate your site and get to what is important.
Example: Take the corner of the browser on Nextfly’s site and play with the size of the window.
Fixed navigation bar – Ease of navigation on a website is imperative and as more and more websites are becoming single page and more scrollable, navigation is getting lost. A great solution to this is having a fixed navigation bar. A navigation bar that stays static as your scroll through it allows ease of navigation and accessibility for users to dig further into your site.
Example: R-Technologies. Find it in our portfolio.
Navigation Icons – The use of icons beside menu items is a becoming a popular alternative and a quick visual identification option. They add a simple and. more importantly, fun and creative design alternative to the traditional text navigation.
Example: Detour Grille. Find it in our portfolio.
These are just a few things I’ve noticed heading into 2014. What am I missing? Tweet, Vine, Facebook us your thoughts!