The ever-changing landscape of websites will forever seem to amaze us. We think 2020 will be no different.

We’re seeing designers reinvent the scope of website design we’re all used to. Playing around with various styles experimenting with new techniques. At iirth, we always stay ahead of the curve when it comes to design, this means getting to the drawing board early and predicting the biggest website trends for 2020.

Oversized Fonts/Bold Fonts

We expect a big change from web designers towards the increasing use of oversized and bold typography, with many famous brands also taking the leap in recent times. We expect more and more websites to feature typography in a similar style. We have to say it’s a really appealing style and we can understand its popularity given its versatility.

Clean, minimalistic, bold typography is eye-catching and this is the purpose of a website to grab the users attention. It allows extra screen real estate because you don’t have to cram too much in on the screen to make it work. Bonus – it looks great on any screen size, whether it is desktop, mobile or tablet.

Minimalism

Tieing in with our last point – minimalism is a trend that is here to stay… and stay for a while. Less is more and that’s been proven over 2019 with digital design using minimalistic styles. Clean UIs offer much more to the eye than face value. Designers have adopted this and more likely than not a lot of websites you visit each day have opted for it.

Minimalism also can stem into elements such as the style of navigation which we’ve seen become increasingly popular over time. More and more websites are ditching traditional sticky navigation for a more clean look.

Minimalistic navigation allows:

• More screen real estate
• Accommodates smaller screen sizes
• Allows bare minimum use of text and more imagery
• Accommodates small attention spans (Yes…. it’s true)

Dark Mode

We couldn’t make a “Biggest website trends of 2020” article without mentioning one of the hottest aspects of design currently. The heading might have given it away, but yes we’re talking about Dark Mode or Dark UI.

With a vast selection of devices from both iOS and Android systems now using dark mode, we can’t help but predict more and more websites to inherit this style. Dark mode offers a visually stunning style that retains a clean look and helps make colours and secondary accents pop. It does it all this whilst staying easy on the eyes.

Dark themes are also great for OLED screens, which helps save power and also extends the lifespan of said screens. 

Emotional Design

The design needs to have an impact. It also needs to have an emotional impact. We think 2020 – more and more companies will be making the shift from neutral design to emotional design.

The emotional design allows the use of humour and adds an element of design that we think most would appreciate. It allows brands to communicate naturally and deliver an extra layer of information. From happy and unhappy faces when successfully and unsuccessfully logging into sites, respectively. We’ve already seen some form of emotional design and we expect it to grow this year.

Imperfect/Hand-Drawn Designs

After years of pixel-perfect designs, imperfect hand-drawn designs seem to be the trend. These pair hand-in-hand with emotional design, which adds a new layer of appeal for users. They add positivity and can brighten up a website’s design. Various design elements, including icons, can all benefit from imperfections. (What a weird sentence to say.)

Scroll-Generated Websites

Websites are not only becoming a source of information. They’re evolving into an immersive visual journey for visitors. Scroll-generated websites are just one way where the user is fed easy-to-digest content based on their progress of scrolling on the current page. It offers the user control and power. Couple it with great animation and visual effects – its a recipe for success.

Scroll-generated websites offer a dynamic way to view a webpage and leave a memorable mark in users minds. We expect a lot more websites to follow suit – offering their users not just a website, but an experience.

Soft Shadows/Floating Elements

Design is all about creating depth to allow elements to stand out above the rest. 2D elements are the norm, so when designers spice it up by making them look 3D it creates quite an appealing look. Flat design is now able to overlap and float over itself which gives it a brand new perspective.

It can be used on both images, text and shapes. So the possibilities are endless. We’re excited to see how designers take this design trend and apply their own touches

Get in touch with us today and find out how we can help with your website needs.