Web Design Trends To Watch Out For In 2021

I’m far too young to recall the fifties, but that’s when this thing called the internet began. I believe the first email ever sent from a lab in California offered a new libido medication, followed by a cute video of a kitten playing with a ping pong ball.

This year we’re seeing several new, revived or improved approaches, and so in this post, I’m choosing what I consider to be the top 6 web design trends 2021.

1. Fixed Header/Navigation Bars

This feature allows visitors to your site to scroll down the entire page while still having full access to the website navigation. It’s great for browsing a place with the option to leave and visit another carrier at any point and will see people browsing more of the pages your site has on offer.

2. Simple Landing Pages

Creating a slick landing page online is all about Showing off your products or services. The best way of doing this is to stick to a simple design, drawing as much attention as possible to your core products.

3. Infinite Scrolling

Facebook and Pinterest both do it, and a growing number of savvy web designers are too. Rather than slowing everything down by preloading a mammoth amount of content, infinite scrolling loads content in response to scrolling.

This means that you don’t have to break content over multiple pages, and you’re more likely to keep people on the page for longer. The more you scroll down, the more content is loaded below.

Infinite scrolling is a great feature to use on both gallery and blog websites.

4. Responsive Design

A few years ago, it was unusual for anyone to browse the web using anything other than a desktop browser. These days though more browsing takes place using portable devices than desktops.

From mobiles to tablets, screen sizes, screen dimensions, resolutions and technologies are immensely varied. To ensure maximum audience interest, it is essential to make sure your website can be seen by everyone quickly.

A responsive layout adapts the site’s appearance, including its design, content organization and navigation, in response to the type of device being used to access it.

5. Flat Web Design Trend

Flat web design for those of you who aren’t sure what this means is web designs without drop shadows, textures and gradients.

For the past few years drop shadows, textures and gradients have stayed pretty much on top of the web design trends lists but this year we are waving hello to a cleaner look with color blocks and typography playing a significant role.

6. What about color in web design trends I hear you say…

As a female freelance web designer working in the world of web I love the use of bright color blocking, If used correctly, it can make a website stand out in the crowd, but be careful not to go to far with it, keeping it simple works best with color blocking.

Dark colors like black, dark brown and dark grey are popular among web designers, they are often used to draw attention to important content. Darker colors have often been used to promote luxury brands but can also be used to create an edginess to your website.

I don’t see these six trends as being exhaustive by any means, and I don’t see them as being the only significant trends this year will see. My prediction is that responsive design will develop beyond being responsive and instead evolve into more adaptive methods than responsive designs.

By which I mean that rather than changing the site’s appearance in response to the technology being used to view it, the site will adapt to fit the screen in a way that retains the familiar appearance but offers a clean, readable view.