Are you looking for ways to keep your website design relevant and inspiring?

The landscape of web design and development is continuously reinventing itself. Something that appears fresh and modern one day can appear dated — seemingly overnight.

And appearing dated is the last thing you want for your site. Having an outdated site design can leave a negative impression on your visitors. It can also lower the credibility of your site and reduce your overall traffic.

Don’t be fooled — retro and vintage design styles are great when used in the right way. But no one will make the mistake of interpreting an outdated site as an homage to an earlier time.

Stay In The Now

So, how do you make sure your site doesn’t appear outdated to your visitors?

Start by staying on top of the latest web design and development trends. This is the best way to ensure your site always appears up-to-date.

In this post, we’ll share the latest trends to watch out for in 2017.

Content is King

For the past few years, there’s been a huge emphasis on adding extra elements to attract our audiences.

These include things like sidebars, banner ads, headers, call-to-action buttons, social media buttons, popups, signup boxes, comments…the list goes on.

These extra elements have caused a huge amount of clutter on our websites. They also have taken up precious real estate from what should be our site’s main attraction: content.

In 2017, websites are expected to take it back to the basics and place a greater emphasis on creating quality content. This could mean downsizing distractions — or even getting rid of them completely.

Whatever route websites choose to take, there’s no doubt that content will get the spotlight it deserves.

More Emphasis on Landing Pages

Content marketers are learning the value of directing traffic towards landing pages instead of their homepage.

And it makes sense.

After all, what better way to increase your chances of conversion than to direct a lead to a landing page that specifically addresses their needs? It’s much more effective than a homepage that offers generic information.

Therefore, in 2017, we are likely going to see a greater emphasis on landing page design than on homepage design.

Hand-Drawn Elements and Illustrations

More companies are turning to graphic designers add a unique illustrated touch to their websites.

After years of minimalism and flat design, handwritten elements are a great way to inject personality into your site. These elements also add a warmth and friendless to your site. This makes it more welcoming and accessible to your audience.

Ultra-minimalism

While some sites are moving beyond the minimalism trend, you’ll notice just as many taking it to the extreme.

Ultra-minimalism completely defies conventions of what a site should look like, as it only includes the absolute bare necessities.

Geometric Shapes and Patterns

The use of geometric patterns and shapes really started to take off in 2016, but will continue to grow well into 2017.

Geometric patterns and shapes are making their way into websites in a variety of ways. These include geometric heavy photos, pattern-heavy designs, and encircled or geometrically-enclosed images.

This is yet another way designers are adding flair to sites that were previously dominated by flat design and minimalism.

Authentic Photography

Sure, going to a stock photo site and purchasing an image for cents is easy.

But using stock photo images on your site can be bad for design and terrible for business. Stock photos reduce trust and are often times completely ignored.

There are so many authentic photography sites popping up every day. This makes it easier and easier to find high-quality images that resonate with consumers. Because of this, we should be seeing less and less sites using cheesy stock photos.

Plus, studies show that images featuring real people increase chances of conversion. People like to see images that are candid and relatable, not ones that appear overly posed and polished.

Virtual Reality and 360 Degree Video

Video made a huge name for itself in 2016.

Now, site designers in 2017 are ready to take this trend to the next level. Incorporating 360-degree design can create a breathtaking and interactive experience for users.

And although VR hasn’t quite established itself yet in site design, there is great promise ahead. We saw a number of gaming VR headsets released in 2016. Therefore, it won’t be long until we see VR elements bleeding into web design as well.

GIFs and Cinematography

The human brains love visual information (as proven by the boom of video in 2016). Unlike written content, we can gobble up visual content in huge amounts without feeling taxed.

Many designers are taking advantage of this fact by including cinemagraphs in their web design and development plan.

Cinemagraphs are still photos that contain elements of repeated movement.

When done correctly, they can be visually striking. They add a nice surprise factor to sites without weighing down their load speed.

We can expect to see brands that are visually-driven experimenting with this trend in the coming year.

Navigation Simplicity

More and more people are turning to their mobile devices to conduct searches and browse the web.

Because of this, we should see a far greater effort to make sites easier to navigate. Instead of long navigations that are overly complicated, we will likely see navigation simplified to as little as four or five items.

Simple navigation helps promote a user-friendly experience in which the customer can focus on their intent at hand, instead of trying to find a way to get off the page.

Creative Heading Styles

Perfectly centered, all-caps headings will soon be an outdated trend.

Instead, designers are looking to move towards imaginative headings that challenge previous conventional guidelines. Adding unique elements to headings, changing up the layout, or even going without a heading, are all trends we should expect to see in 2017.

Web Design and Development: Wrap Up

We hope these web design and development trends have provided you with inspiration you need to breathe new life into your site.

With the right design, you can expect to see an increased amount of traffic to your site. However, design is only one piece of the puzzle.

In order to drive more traffic to your site, you also need to be focused on SEO. Click here to learn how our SEO tools and services can help your site grow.