The biggest trend we’ll talk about this month has its roots in the Worldwide Developers Conference on Apple Platforms when Apple presented its vision of what their future operating systems will expect. This time there is a certain design element. Did you catch it?
This is what this month’s web design trend is.
1. Highlight and underline text
There has always been an unwritten rule in website design that simpler styles are used for text. Bold characters are acceptable, italics are acceptable from time to time, but underlining is rarely used.
This design trend connects this concept with text elements that use highlighting or underlining for keywords. And it works pretty well.
To make this trend work, you need a lot of contrast and a design style that matches the underlined or highlighted elements.
The trend works thanks to a clear intention. Highlighted words are obviously important for the overall design sense or what visitors should get from the content.
2. Clear geometry
Geometric shapes in website design began to appear as trending elements in a variety of forms. This iteration is quite simple: using clear geometry as part of the overall aesthetics.
Geometry can be combined with illustrations, photographs, text, and also looks great in the background or foreground. What’s great about forms is that they are universal and work with many other design templates.
But at the same time, the most difficult in forms and design is the fact that a clear geometry requires some space and thinking. Just adding a few triangles or rectangles to your design for no reason can look pretty weird.
3. Shadows and gradients
Have you noticed all the gradients and subtle shadows in the icons on the images for previewing iOS 14, or did you just look at other changes (for example, widgets) on the iPhone screen?
We have been watching for a long time as more and more designers include shadows and depths in icons, but a similar step in design from a major player will quickly bring the trend to the fore. Each of the icons moves from a flat style to another, with a gradient background colour, as well as a large number of shadows inside the icon elements to give depth.
Don’t worry, the design is still very similar to Apple, but it looks a bit more like skeuomorphic style icons from earlier versions of iOS.
It’s nice that the elements of colour and shadow are contained in each icon. This creates more visual interest and depth for each element without obvious clutter or futility. Gradients are also very simple and use a darker version of the primary colour in a monotonous element.
Whether you like it or not, the gradients and shadows seem to stay with us for a while.
How often do you turn to major brands and companies for design inspiration? While many web design trends begin as experiments with small sites, large players can really shape what is becoming popular (or not).
Apple’s move to icons with lots of shadows and gradients is a prime example. We have been watching for some time as more and more of these elements penetrate inside, but this style is about to become very common again.