2015 saw some fierce & bold, subtle and classic web designing styles, playing with space, fonts, colours, animations & more. As we step into the new year, we’d like to highlight the web design trends that blew us away in 2015 and are here to stay for 2016.

1) Minimalist Homepage

Minimalism is the single most important principle of web designing. Although this may be difficult to accept that the homepage contains little or no content, the design is clean, classy & attractive. From simplifying navigation to hiding icons, the reduced clutter helps focus on a single, powerful image or video known as the “hero image”. This has become a trend possibly because of larger screen sizes on devices today and higher screen resolution that allow for stunning displays and thereby much improved user experiences.

2015 saw a lot more websites follow this design. A big thumbs up from us!

2) Creative Scrolls

We love that the scroll has taken on more of a ‘role’ than just the vertical slide. The scroll has been used as a horizontal scroll, a colour scroll, a feature scroll, a tour scroll & so much more than what it started out as. We can attribute this trend to the boom of smart devices with touch screens in the recent years allowing for ‘swipe’ in the manner that the user may prefer rather than the conventional vertical scroll.

Do also take a look at Swiss Airlines‘ website too. We love how the scroll gives you a feel of flight take off while taking you through the features of the airline.

3) Innovative Page Layouts

2015 brought about a trend that introduced innovative page layouts. No longer are designers afraid to play with different layers, shapes, asymmetry, and angles. The trend helped move away from the standard front facing images, flat layouts to more asymmetrical and “edgy”. The screen rotation feature, the zoom feature, the HD display on smart devices probably cajoled designers to experiment and explore even allowing for more, realistic images. Images took quite the forefront in designs in the past year owing to image heavy sites like Pinterest, Flickr, Tumblr & Instagram in the recent years.

4) The Preloaders

We all dislike the ‘load’ icon primarily because it is those very seconds that makes us wait, get bored while we wait and wait some more.  And although greater bandwidth and connectivity have reduced the load time, 2015 set the trend for visually appealing & engaging preloaders.

5) App-like Designs

Hidden navigation, cleaner designs, menus stacked under a single icon of 3-4 lines (also known as a “hamburger”), sidebars disappearing to make room for more content, all became quite a fad in 2015 when designers began taking into consideration the mobile-viewing market. More and more website designs mimic app designs due to the growing familiarity with app interfaces.

6) Ghost Buttons

From screaming, loud call-to-action buttons to transparent to translucent, less-obstructive, seamless, no-fill buttons, the evolution has been obvious in 2015 designs. These buttons compliment the minimalist design feel, making it a perfect fit. Like the app-like designs, the ghost buttons too became a full blown trend after apps became increasingly popular and users, familiar, all owing to the smart devices/ smart phone boom.

The trends in 2015 shifted the perception of websites from boring, cluttered, load-heavy to sleek, interesting & worth visiting, reviving the platform for marketing, show-casing & making the brand’s online presence worth it.

We’re excited for all 2016 has to offer. Look out for an upcoming post on the path-breaking designs that are touted to create quite a stir this year!