Large hero areas
No matter whether it be a simple blurred photo in the background with a heading centered in the middle, or a more elaborate one with popup images and floating text, hero areas are quickly replacing sliders as the new attention-grabbers, and they are becoming ever more creative and elaborate.
Flat design
By dropping pretty much any design element one could, Apple brought about a new design trend with the launch of its new ‘flat design’ iOS7. The removal of shadows, gradients and all but the basics of a design definitely gives a mobile website a more aesthetic and simplistic design.
Mobile design
With the launch of the new Google search ranking system, the use of mobile design (responsive website design) is more important than ever. More and more people are using their mobile devices to browse the web and you could be caught in an embarrassing situation if your site isn’t mobile friendly.
Videos instead of text
Why read when you can watch? All over the web you will notice an increased use of videos to showcase everything from products to profiles. Videos are easier than ever to produce and even easier to share on your website or though social media websites. Videos are an effective way to reach millions of viewers without being restricted by language as videos don’t have to have any text at all.
Simplistic colour schemes
In 2014 we have a seen a lot of websites with very simplistic colour schemes to the point of only one or two colours. This not only helps achieve the flat design element as discussed above but also the mobile design element by not having a large mix of colours on a small screen. Some websites are even removing all colour from their schemes and adding impact through very small additions of colour amongst their website.
Drop the sidebar
No one wants flashing things, attention buying or crowding websites that draw them away from what they came to that website to see. The sidebar element is more for magazine style sites but even these are starting to experiment with dropping their sidebars and keeping their websites clean.
Edited images
Thanks to a new wave of applications like Instagram we have seen a surge of self-edited photography (at least this is what the average user thinks). What we really have is an increase in photo manipulation with filters, colour effects and other editing effects that can help create a certain mood or feel for your website.
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