5 Major Web Design Trends Shaping Websites in 2015

Brent: I’m Brent Weaver. I’m hanging out today with Alina Senderzon. She’s a Design Principal at ZURB, here in Campbell, California. Welcome to the program.

Alina: Thank you.

Brent: Alina, talk to me about some design trends that you’re following in 2015.

Alina: Well, obviously the responsive web is a big trend in general, since last year. But we’re seeing it a lot more this year as well. It’s gonna be a big trend. A lot more sites are gonna go responsive, we think. Along with that, we’re definitely seeing a lot of simplification happening in design. Things have to be very well considered and very streamlined for them to be looking good across devices.

Brent: When you say simplifying, what does that exactly mean? Just less stuff on the screen, fewer pixels, cleaner lines?

Alina: There’s definitely that. You’ll see a lot of big photography used. Typography is becoming a big trend for web in general, which is funny. The first website out there was just type on a page. So I guess we’re making a full circle right now with typography, having this renaissance in web design with different kinds of fonts being available. So that’s becoming really prevalent. Designers are really taking advantage of typography and those cleaner lines in general, to make their layouts.

Brent: How do you take these trending ideas like the big photography, fonts, responsive, and actually apply that in a meaningful way, on a regular basis with your clients? How do you implement the trends gracefully with the projects that you work on?

Alina: Obviously you can’t just replicate the same design over and over. That would be really boring and horrible to have a really uniform web world. So you try to find unique moments of something that you can build on to create some kind of branding for that website. Sometimes it might be an interesting typography treatment, just in a couple places. Or it might be as simple as a unique HR element that is unique, that goes across the site. You have to keep it clean and simple, but you need to find those unique moments to sprinkle throughout the site.

Brent: What are some of the blogs, resources, or people that you follow to help you to set the types of trends that you’re implementing in the work you do at ZURB?

Alina: Well, I think it’s important to have a well-rounded background and see what’s happening in the design community, in general. I’m a big fan of Fast Company Design Magazine. I check that out almost every day, just to see what’s going on. Inevitably, you see some really interesting things in architecture, or in infographics, or somebody’s designing a really unique, wearable device. I think if you are exposed to a lot of those different influences, you have a much better chance of coming up with something unique for a digital world.

Brent: How would something like architecture influence digital design?

Alina: Well, I think, in general, designers are influenced by whatever they see. It might be some kind of a texture. It might be some kind of a pattern, some kind of a ratio, even. Just seeing color palettes and things like that might inspire something for your next project.

Brent: I’m gonna ask you to predict a little bit. Let’s say, a couple of trends you’ve talked about today, simplification, responsive. Is there any trend that you think is on the horizon, that you think is gonna become big? Something that maybe our audience should start to key in on now, that might become something that is widely used, let’s say next year or the new year after that. Some kind of trend prediction from you.

Alina: If we know anything, if we can see trends in general happening in fashion, or architecture, anything like that, we know that things come full-circle. Some of the trends that we have probably left behind might come back in different ways. So the skeuomorphic look that was very popular has gone away. But I think it might come back in a different way. It might be something in the interactions, something in motion. So, it’s gonna come back. It’s just not gonna be the same. It’s not gonna be the leather notebook.

Brent: Very nice. Well, Alina, we appreciate you talking to us about trends today, and hopefully we’ll have you on the program again soon.

Alina: Thank you.