In today’s digital landscape, a website is practically a business card.
Web 3.0 is knocking at our doors. Grabbing the attention of the fickle-minded user in today’s world of reels and other short-form content is a challenge but one that can certainly be made easier if you follow this guide to some of the web design trends that you might expect to see in 2022.
Personalization and Hand-Drawing
Adding a human touch to your website is a great idea if you want to evoke a sense of exclusivity. It is a welcome alternative to going the ubiquitous stock photography route. Consider design assets that enable personal expression, such as hand-drawn elements.
Sketches can help break down exactly what you are offering in bite-sized nuggets that will make navigation a breeze for the end user. And, after all, a little bit of whimsy never hurt anyone.
Making It Accessible
Accessibility in digital content has slowly been gaining traction. In 2022, it is important to ensure no one is left out.
A lesser-known benefit of accessibility features is their role in boosting the SEO of a website. For instance, adding alt tags for images (for the benefit of the visually impaired) can streamline the processing for search engines thereby making the image better optimized for search. The implementation of accessibility should definitely be reflected in the ultimate design of the webpage.
Complementary Colors
A simple trick for getting something to look good on your webpage: use complementary colors. Usually a set of two or more colors create a sense of harmony, popular combinations of which include teal and orange, red and green, purple and gold, among many others.
Another trick you can employ while using complementary colors is to up the contrast and create a faux neon effect, using arrangement and typography. In 2022, retro is in as a trend.
Asymmetry
Draw your viewer’s eye to the important parts of your website by making them stand out using a simple psychological ploy. Our eyes are incredibly adept at catching things that break a pattern. Asymmetrical design can create motion or balance. Commonly, designs that use asymmetry are used in combination with symmetrical items, so that the effect is amplified.
It could be something as simple as putting a word outside the line of the sentence. Mix and match, it’s easier than ever to build an off-kilter website that you can see clearly in your head with a web builder.
Be Brutal and Direct
Brutalism, as a concept, emerged in the late ’50s, in England, as an architectural trend. It prioritized practical and no-nonsense design over convoluted or artsy architecture. Think rows of tenement buildings and apartments, following a strict, logical layout.
Brutalist typography is trending in a big way, with the bold and brash aesthetic that you cannot ignore leading the way for web typography in 2022. Similar to the architectural concept, create a block of text that simply cannot be ignored when your webpage is opened. Pair this with asymmetry (as mentioned above) to create something truly memorable.
Cutting Down on Photos
Now, let’s go ahead and admit it: this is a bit unconventional, but don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. See, after 2021, it’s only understandable if 2022 is all about disrupting the status quo. And what better way to do that than by taking out the most ubiquitous element in any website: photos.
So replace your jpegs and pngs with a collection of well-placed and interesting-looking serifs and sans serifs. In this case, the attention is solely focused on the text and what you are trying to say. Layouts and colors accent the information and make the viewer forget the presence of any hero image.
Neo-Morphism and Glass-Morphism
On a largely flat design landscape in 2020 and 2021, neo-morphism made page elements stand out by using subtle drop shadows and lending extrusion which always stands out, aesthetically. A natural progression to neomorphism is the cheeky glass-morphism, where the elements take on a translucent, frosty look.
This is a forward-thinking approach as it blends the minimalist design that has been tried and tested for a while now, and mixes it with a neo-futurist look that is trending in modern art. Putting the information on top of the glass-morphed elements draws the eye towards it quite effectively.
2022 and Beyond
Currently, we reside in the golden age of design. Wherever you look, bold work is being done where the aesthetics are no longer encumbered by anything. Ideas are free-flowing and implementation is unconventional, like the expressionist painters of yore. It’s certainly fashionable to be unconventional and we hope that this collection of web design trends helps you stay ahead of the web design curve in 2022.
