One of the latest trends: “Flatten” the site.
With responsive design pretty much taken over the Web, expect “flat design” to continue to be a dominate design aesthetic throughout 2016. Not only will there be websites that launch with flat designs, those sites who’ve already embraced the flat design trend will look to make things even flatter.
Take for example Google’s logo. The company changed its logo to make it more flat (losing the bevels) and changed the font. They found that a cleaner sans-serif font for its logo helped cut the size of the logo file used on sites by more than half. Google also found that it was easier to read on smaller devices.
This includes updates to logos (like Google), icons, images, and other elements that maybe didn’t get fully flattened the first time. You can thank the drive and determination to get websites to load faster and snappier, weigh less, and get content to viewers more effectively.
We’re also starting to see more websites ditching the use of stock elements such as stock photography and icon sets over something that feels much more designed and personal to the site itself.
Some websites are opting for using their own photography for use on their home pages or blog posts instead of picking a stock photo. Other websites are ditching stock photography for videos, infographics, or even GIFs to help convey their message and add their own photography in areas of the website to help be more inviting and personable and less corporate.
Icon sets are another stock element that’s being dropped in favor of something more custom. There are thousands of sets out there, so it’s easy just to pick one and run with it, but for designers, they’re noticing that little extra touch to create custom icons can help set a site apart from others.
So if we recommend something for your site, these are some of the factors we take into consideration.
