While design principles remain infinite, design trends are part of an endless cycle of constant evolution. Bad trends are often showered with popularity and ridicule while the good trends slide under the radar. With an equal mixture of reflection, prediction, and west coast IPA, we do our best to expose the five best design trends of 2014.
Flat Design
By no means is this a new trend for 2014, however we don’t see this trend changing anytime soon. Flat design focuses on being clean, minimal, and simple. Do away with all the unnecessary shadows, textures, and special effects. Instead put your design energy into creative typography, beautiful color palettes, and content organization.
Parallax
This trend might be less familiar by name than “those sites with cool scrolling effects”. Parallax scrolling means elements in the background and foreground scroll at different speeds, creating the illusion of depth. We expect this technique to be used in really creative ways, and at the same time, being incorrectly overused to the point of potential hatred for anything “parallaxy”.
Responsive
As the world continues to become to more mobile dependent, the need for websites to be small-screen compatible grows. Responsive design is the technique of creating full blown websites that will scale from desktop to pocket size without losing any functionality. Your mobile visitors will thank you with higher conversions if you eliminate the need for zooming and side-to-side scrolling.
Animations
Lately we’ve seen some amazing examples of animation using HTML5, CSS3, and javascript libraries. We might deny it, but its always fun to watch a button move and change color when you click it. Mix these animation techniques with flat design and responsiveness and you’re immediately in the trendiest 5% club. Tell your friends, but unless they’re nerds they probably wont care.
Retina
This might be a bit soon to call it a trend, but as the tech companies cram more pixels into your screen, designs will need to grow in size to take full advantage of all the added pixels. The pixels may be too small too see with the naked eye but the end result isn’t. Expect to see an increase of incredibly beautiful high-resolution websites over the next year or two.
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