2010 Web Design Trends
The other day I read a post on smashingmagaine.com (a great site on web design by the way), titled The Current State of Web Design: Trends 2010.
It was a pretty interesting article, filled with examples of some pretty great web designs. However, I’m not sure about what they consider “trends” of 2010. Here’s the high-level list, but I recommend you check out the article to see the examples.
1. Design for Delight
2. Keypress Navigation
3. Print Design Influence
4. Horizontalism
5. Rich, Strong Typography
Again, these all had some really nice and well-designed examples for each of the topics listed. I’m just curious what makes these a trend? Most have been around (and use has been growing) for a while now, and I really question that some will catch on in the near future (keypress navigation? Clever, but why?)
Please don’t think my questioning of these becoming trends is knocking any site that uses them, or that designers shouldn’t use them. What I don’t like about things being labeled as “trends” is that people tend to follow lists thinking they are going to get a jump on what might be “fresh and new”.
Webdesignerwall.com (another fantastic site for web design) created a similar list back in January. For me this list was a little more on point (although, again I wouldn’t label them “trends”). Their list was as follows, but again I recommend you read the full article:
1. Serif Fonts
2. Big Headings
3. Custom Font Embedding
4. Texturized Backgrounds
5. Minmalist and Grid
6. CSS3 New Features
7. Mobile Design
Again, while some of these items have been around a while, this list is a little more on point because it is based on technology that wasn’t always widely available (i.e. font embedding, CSS3) or technology that will force designers to work towards (i.e. mobile design).
In conclusion, two nice lists about design that I highly recommend you take a look at. Just take them for what they are, not they claim to be. Great examples of design, some examples that might even make sense in your projects (and some that probably won’t). In any case use what’s appropriate.
Then again, maybe I’m wrong and every site in 2010 will include all of these… we’ll just have to wait and see.
