After a challenging few years, users are yearning for nostalgic throwbacks, inclusive design, and feel-good graphics. Get ready for a “Back to the Future” ride and check out this year’s latest and hottest innovations in modern web design trends.
To move forward, you must sometimes look backward – it’s clear that’s what plenty of web design services were doing this year. While we’ve seen some futuristic designs take flight, many of 2022’s best web designs manage to bottle some 80s and 90s nostalgia in their newest innovations.
Between retro typography, bright colours, and visuals with a simple, handmade feel, these design trends can tug on your users’ Gen X or Millennial heartstrings and turn UX into a relationship-building moment.
What’s the biggest web design trend in 2022? You tell us.
Take a peek at our favourite designs and get some inspiration from these new trends in web design.
#1: Inclusive Design
Inclusivity is far more than just an empty buzzword — it’s a movement to create equal access for all, and designers are taking it very seriously.
Inclusive web page design is a complex component incorporated into every site element, from market research and target audience strategy to tone, language, personalization, and graphics. The goal is to accommodate users of all genders and experiences.
With retailers like Zalando, the Gap, and Lululemon featuring gender-fluid models throughout their websites and creating gender-neutral product lines, inclusivity is quickly becoming the norm for web design in Toronto and beyond.
Via Zalando
#2: Horizontal Scrolling
With 99% of website designers sticking with a classic vertical navigation design, switching to a side-scrolling layout is a great way to make your site stand out and delight visitors.
While the horizontal scroll lends itself particularly well to image-heavy portfolios, it’s executed perfectly on sites ranging from interactive maps to online galleries and catalogs. This fluid experience helps drive users to keep scrolling, if not for the content’s sake, then for the novelty alone.
Via Home Société
#3: Retro Web 1.0
The latest web design trends will leave you dripping with nostalgia. Rewind to simpler times with bright colour schemes, visible tables (more on those later), and classic typefaces like Courier.
More is more with these retro web design and development trends. Look for classic filters, retro typefaces, pastels, and bold, big typography headlining each page.
Via Figma
#4: Parallax Scrolling Effects
We’ve already talked about horizontal scrolling, but other scrolling effects keep your visitors stimulated. In 2022, we’re seeing one of the latest website design trends taking over the internet, using a combination of animation, vertical scrolling, and horizontal scrolling to create a rich 3D experience.
Parallax scrolling effects create action and the illusion of depth by moving elements at varying speeds adding variety to your site design and a unique, memorable experience.
Beware when using parallax. Though it can be a fantastic site element, too much movement can cause harm for people with vestibular disorders, like dizziness and disorientation.
Did we choose this example for The Goonies reference? Maybe.
#5: Neo-Brutalism
Not a stitch of the uber-popular minimalist esthetic exists in neo-brutalist design, which embraces eclectic and outright-defiant site structure.
But don’t let its asymmetrical and rugged visuals fool you – brutalist designs are simple and functional when done right. Though this responsive web design trend rejects polished mainstream expectations, we’re seeing corporate giants like Bloomberg adopt it.
With raw typeface constructing site segments, default computer fonts, and unstyled html, the overall feel as you scroll is self-aware honesty. If you’re a risk-taker that yearns for a bold site design, this may be the answer to your UX dreams.
Via Hawraf
#6: Text-Only Experience
In striking contrast to neo-brutalism, one of our current website design trends prioritizes a clean design aesthetic, removing all imagery. In some cases, navigation sections are shirked to keep you focused on a few simple lines of text giving users essential company information.
This approach utilizes enough white or blank space around your text to create a streamlined, app-like web experience that guides user focus exactly where you’d like it to go. Minimalist websites offer a calm experience many visitors may connect with a form of escapism.
#7:Handmade Graphics
Another retro entry our web design Hamilton company has seen cropping up more and more is a rejection of the cutting-edge graphic design for some doodles and scribbles that will take you back to 6th grade.
Imperfect, handmade artwork gives websites a cutesy feel, with analog textures and messy cutouts front-and-centre. When you want to build a UX with a human touch that feels organic, not manufactured, this design aesthetic can help.
#8: Visible Borders
Many modern website trends aim to blend and blur away lines until you feel like you’re scrolling through a soft, pillowy cloud. While that softened illusion makes for a great experience, visible borders are one trend that aims to do the opposite, acknowledging and highlighting the visible grid developers use to code their websites.
Visible border layouts make a no-nonsense statement while attractively distinguishing one site section from another. Like other 2022 affordable web design trends, this look can give sites a retro feel, albeit a much more understated touch of nostalgia rather than an in-your-face throwback.
Via De Soi
Let’s Get Started – Website Design Hamilton
Ready to try a new design trend and give your visitors the ultimate experience? Our website design agency in Brantford, Hamilton, and beyond is ready to help. Contact us to learn more and get a free cost estimate.
