5 Web Design Trends You Need to Know

Agency News

January 28, 2021

How often do you update the design of your website?

A full website revamp is recommended by a general rule of thumb is every 2 to 3 years.

This keeps the design fresh, relevant, and on-trend!

With all the cool features you are likely adding to your website, it is also important to make your website appealing and that the flow of information is intuitive to your website visitors.

In this blog post, we present the 5 latest web design trends to help transform your website into an eye-catching #1 lead generation asset.

1. Making Your Website 508 Compliant

This is more than a trend. If you are not making your website accessible to every visitor, it might result in both discriminatory and legal issues. Here are a few different areas you can check to ensure your website is more accessible to visitors with visual imparities:

Content Adjustments

Make sure your font is readable, scalable, and that there is a text magnification function. Along with the font size, make sure visitors of your website have the ability to adjust line and height ratios, text alignment, and letter spacing.

Colour Adjustments

For any digital asset, including your website, it is important to check your website’s colour contrast and saturation level. Through greater contrast, text on the page becomes more legible to those with vision impairment.

Accessibility comes first. By making your content available to everyone, all your visitors can better experience your website, spending more time consuming your content and ultimately engaging with your brand and your product or service.

Example 1: Ostara

A display of Pace Creative’s work for Ostara using the key web design trend elements.

Example 2: Coal Association

A display of Pace Creative’s work for Coal Association using the key web design trend elements.

UX/UI Adjustments

On top of your website being accessible, how does load time and page speed affect your design?

In our fast-paced digital age, time is money. How your audience interacts with your page and how it responds affects the positive user experience (UX). Typically, users expect websites to load instantly. If it takes your web design more than 3 seconds to respond, your overall bounce rate increases by 32%. This would negatively affect your overall SEO performance since Google gives higher ranks based on page speed.

2. Storytelling: The Biggest Web Design Trend

Your website, especially your homepage, is your digital business card, sales deck, and first point of interaction with clients in the digital space. So, if your homepage does not convey the story of your company, products, or services, it needs some attention.

However, it is one thing to simply include these critical pieces of information on your homepage and website. How you communicate is something else entirely.

Storytelling is an incredibly effective way to share critical information with your visitors. When done well, storytelling compels visitors to interact with your site – often without even realizing it. And they often remember it better, too, when the information is shared in a memorable way.

One tip is to integrate a full-height homepage hero section to reduce distractions. This is a great web design factor that adds depth and hierarchy to your page. This helps your page gain a more visually appealing impression to users and guides them on navigating and taking immediate action to your B2B website.

In tandem with perfectly crafted content, carefully considered visuals and graphic elements can combine to create a powerful user experience. But more on that later…

Strategic storytelling, when combined with quality content and visuals, creates positive emotions and memories of your brand. So, before jumping straight into web design, take time to give thought to your web content, imagery and how they work together on your site.

Here are examples of website that include current web design trends that successfully convey a story in a holistic way:

1. Using small design elements to connect different sections together: CharliAi

A display of Pace Creative’s work for CharliAI by incorporating small web design trend elements to connect the website’s visual elements together.

2. Introducing colour backgrounds and design elements to tell a story in a subtle way: CharliAi

A display of Pace Creative’s work for CharliAI by incorporating colour in the background to enhance website storytelling.

3. Colour Use in Images and Text

With good a colour palette and colour strategy, your images can help tell your story and highlight the most important content.

Adding some vibrant colours to your text background can also help highlight key messages and create a clear visual structure of your website. Well-chosen photography with some colour elements can also help tell a story while also drawing visitors through the page organically.

Example 1: Waterstreet

A display of Pace Creative’s work for Waterstreet by incorporating various coloured text to highlight key messages.

Example 2: Grifols

A display of Pace Creative’s work for Grifols by incorporating coloured text to highlight key word importance and hierarchy.

4. Asymmetrical Layouts

Traditional web layouts are so passé!

Asymmetrical web designs are becoming more common today. These designs, with a lopsided feel help concentrate a users’ attention on the most important content and helps separate navigation or sidebar content from the more critical information. Not to mention, these designs can add some personality to your website! Instead of using templated, generic web layout, consider using one of the latest web design trends and create an engaging and captivating website that inspires visitors to stay and interact with your content.

Here’s an examples of an asymmetrical layout that you can consider in the design of your own website:

Example 1: Candeo

A display of Pace Creative’s work for Candeo by incorporating the web design element of asymmetry.

5. Purposeful Use of Images

Your images should represent what you are trying to sell to so that it resonates with your current and target audiences.

But before jumping into a search of ideal stock images, it is important first to identify the general theme of your images, and where and how you will use the images on your website or elsewhere. By being more strategic, you can select images for use online, and also in future marketing materials.

Once selected, an effective tip is to place images with overlapping sections. This practice can tighten up your messaging and create a continuous flow of the story for a cohesive storyline. Check out a couple of examples of this below.

Example 1: The PYURE Company

A display of Pace Creative’s work for Pyure by adding purposeful imagery to enhance website engagement, storytelling, and hierarchy.

Example 2: Sudden Technologies

A display of Pace Creative’s work for SuddenTechnologies by adding purposeful imagery to enhance website engagement, storytelling, and hierarchy.

As UX research and design continue to evolve, take a quick look into the next anticipated trends that’ll give your website a whole new perspective.

Innovative Web Design Trends:

  • Micro-interactions
  • Bold & Kinetic Typography
  • Personalization
  • Minimalism/Maximalism
  • Mobile-First Design

Taken into consideration our top five web design trends for 2025 and beyond can help your website stand out in front of viewers and drive more revenue.

P.S. Are you in the retail business and looking for creative ways to market your product? Check out our blog post on How to Build a Storytelling Website.

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