5 Popular Website Design Trends Headed for 2018 

When the new year approaches, there comes an urge to revamp the things around you, including your company’s website. A popular question amongst businesses expressed to their marketing agencies, is which design trends are going to make their website stand out. As 2017 creeps into its final months, the digital team at Kraus Marketing decided to gather a few trends that are sure to grab attention in 2018.

Super-rich and Courageous Color Palettes
Are you looking to make your website pop? Do you want to breach the spectrum of colors that exist in the real world? Choose from a wide variety of colors that exist only in the digital world and learn to have fun with your website. Consider using these color bursts in headlines, borders, buttons, popups, and maybe even the background.

Remember, that although the colors may be expressive and memorable, you should always keep your target audience in mind along with the psychology of colors, when choosing which ones you use and how often you use them. For example, men and women tend to prefer different color schemes. Also, keep in mind what your business or product is trying to convey to your audience.

You can even apply this trend this to your company’s logo, however, keep in mind that it may not translate well to a print medium if you use such materials often. Spotify uses a bold color, but they are a heavily digital business. 

Bold and Expressive Typography
Minimalism is in for 2018 and you might want to jump on board. Let typography become a featured design element on your website. Just like the first design trend regarding color, feel free to get funky and artistic with fonts. Consider making them bold enough to replace excessive imagery.

This is a great design technique for websites that are heavily used on mobile devices. Images tend to weigh down a mobile site and its performance, but typography does not hold the same effect. The negative space created from eliminated images helps logos or calls-to-action stand out.

Grids
Do a lot, without doing too much. Using grids on your website shows visitors that you put thought into your website and that you are pay attention to current styles. Plus, they can display a great deal of information without making the site looked cluttered.

You have a lot of room for creative input when designing this feature, as they are typically user responsive. When a visitor hovers over a section of the grid, you can have text appear, images zoom, entire sections shift, and more. Talk to your web developers to see what can be done for your website in regards to grids.

Consider using white borders around each grid to play off the minimalistic approach. Certain industries such as architects or developers tend to lean towards white or negative space that looks clean and futuristic.

Open Compositions
Open what? Open composition is what web designers call floating or loose objects on a page. This keeps visual activity high and may increase user engagement throughout the website. It gives the illusion of the site’s content continuing beyond the actual monitor. It is a fun way to make your website stand out from the competition, especially since closed composition (where all website elements are kept within definitive boundaries) has ruled for so long.

It can be beneficial for you to use a combination of open and closed composition. This way you can direct traffic to some sort of end point, while also displaying an innovative look.

Cinemagraphs
Forget static images when you can have moving ones! Cinemagraphs, or simply moving GIF images, can add a whole new dimension to your website without having to alter much of the current content. Using cinemagraphs has been shown to increase the number of conversions on your website and could be the boost your business needs in 2018.

This is a great idea for companies who want to add video to their homepage banner, but are not looking to spend the money to do so. It requires less work and resources to accomplish, yet still offers a fresh take. They are also not as sluggish as pure video content.

If you are looking to update your website for 2018, Kraus Marketing can help. We have implemented or would love to implement these five design trends and more.

Kraus Marketing specializes in website design, marketing, and branding. Our team of creative professionals can create an updated, responsive website after discussing your business goals with you. Our websites are built on content management systems (CMS), such as WordPress and Magento. Contact our team for more information on how to move your website into 2018!