The 6 biggest design trends you should keep an eye on in 2020

The World Wide Web has been around for over thirty years, and during that time, it has changed significantly from one year to the other, right up until this point in time.

If you’d look at websites designed five or three years ago, you’ll see how different everything is from today’s web, and don’t get me started on how the web looked like when it first launched… Those were bleak days.

Website design is like architecture for any society, it reflects the society from which it emerges, but web design styles have changed remarkably faster than their bricks and mortar cousins.

So what does the future hold for us? I for one would not survive another rise of Flash, there’s not enough alcohol or drugs in god’s green earth that would help me stomach another flash website.

Outline typography

Typography has always been an important part of the design, the right font could make the whole website come together, while a bad one will break it. And as such, designers have been experimenting with fonts more and more, and the trend nowadays is outline typography.

Think about it! What’s the worst part about having a large title within hero images? It might cover some important parts of it! So not only is the outline typography aesthetically pleasing, it actually serves a very important role. Not to mention that you can use a blend of standard and outlined typography for greater effect, much like the outlined and standard buttons.

Aggressive colors

On average, you’ve got four seconds to impress a potential customer before they decide to leave your website for good, or stick around a bit longer.

As of today, there are 1.5 billion websites out there, so your website can very easily be forgotten and lost in the noise.

The solution designers came up with, is to use bold shocking colors, to grab the attention of visitors and keep them intrigued.

Don’t be afraid to promote your product in a shocking or provocative manner. Make bold statements and stand out from the crowd.

Micro-interactions

Micro-interactions, are the details that you notice on a website while you interact with it. Not only are they fun little animations, but they also keep the users engaged, and help set your site apart.

We all want and crave attention to a certain degree, and what better way to feed that hunger, than to have a website you’re on recognize your actions, and interact with small things you do.

These interactions create a positive user experience and are becoming to establish themselves as a design standard.

Tactile design

Flat design has been a web standard for the past ten years, but nowadays, most designers are shifting away from it, because it’s time for a new king on the throne.

Some of the ways the shift has been happening are by implementing tactile design, which in short is adding more shadow and depth to images and buttons, to add depth to the page, and bring those elements to life.

The king is dead, long live the king.

Asymmetry

Asymmetry is something designers around the world have been dabbling with these past few years, and it’s emerging as one of the new trends that will only get bigger in 2020.

Using it offers your visitors a very unique experience considering it’s not a common design choice at this stage.

However, keep in mind that it won’t be intuitive for your users, and they might struggle with it a bit, so use it at your own risk, and only if you want to provide an out of the box experience.

Augmented reality

Now, this is by far, the most exciting new trend. It looks like we caught up to the future, and the future is looking good!

AR is a mix of reality and virtual reality, think Pokemon GO, but much cooler and with real potential to make our lives easier. It’s one of those technologies with infinite real-life applications and is the next step in the web’s evolution.

To have a website that can interact with your environment or yourself is truly the way of the future. A few websites have started to implement this, and I can’t wait for this to become mainstream in 2020.

There are way more trends than I’ve mentioned, as many as there are creative people out there, and I’m excited for what we’ll be seeing this upcoming year, because not only is change good, but the diversity in design and web celebrate our human nature, and keep us craving more every year.

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