Top 23 Web Design Trends to Follow in 2021 for Better Visibility, Engagement, and Conversions: Part I

The turbulent events, new challenges, and opportunities that appeared last year in the wake of the pandemic impacted every aspect of our lives. The digital world experienced a rapid, harsh, dramatic, and forced shift towards a more virtual world gradually adapting to the new stay at home reality.

The staggering scenario challenged web designers to recreate and make real-life experiences available digitally, thus preparing businesses and consumers for a fresh beginning. There were several digital developments leading to some phenomenal web design trends that completely changed the way people browse the web, shop, or communicate online.

So what new web design developments can we see dominating the digital design industry in 2021?

We expect to see web creators explore further avenues, both futuristic and extensions of some previous trends, to engage consumers with brands. From motion design, personalized user interface to immersive experience and interactivity, we look forward to a lot that will take the web by storm in 2021.

In this blog post and the next, Team Leidsens have put together a comprehensive list of some of the biggest web design trends in 2021. Take a look at these trending styles to make your new web projects and redesigns perfect for this year and beyond.

1. Motion Design User Interface

Motion and animation have been an instant hit in web design consistently for years. This year, the trend will get stronger with more creative explorations of parallax effects. Web designers should focus on creating an optical illusion across web pages by combining both real and surreal effects and using the effects organically.

A critical point to keep in mind, however, is to keep the effects minimal. Too much movement can be distracting and can cause disorientation for viewers. While creating web pages with parallax effects, web designers should be careful about the location, purpose, quantity, duration, and quality of the inclusions. One of the best ways to deal with these effects is to include only a few movements within a small area of the page, keep each of the instances small and contained, and avoid using them altogether at locations that contain important information for the viewers or that requires them to perform a task.

Micro-animations are also a great way to keep up with the trend without the associated risks. For example, e-commerce websites can enhance user experience by showing their visitors how the products look and fit on real people with micro-animations.

Similarly, designers can bring purposeful illustrations to life that respond to mouse position to make the web pages interactive and capture viewer’s attention exactly where the business need. Besides, you can get creative with the shape, size, and movement of the cursor to delight visitors and encourage them to click around. Make them bold and striking, up the game with animation, or simply make them change appearance as they hover over different design elements.

So, get ready to create a never-seen-before depth of web page designs with the use of moving foreground and background, and transform the visual experience into something as realistic as a theatre stage.

2. Personalized UI

From this year on, fully customizable personalized user interfaces will become a regular feature for websites. The trend is all about making the UI more unique and suitable to each of the visitors according to their individual identities, style preferences, tastes, and needs. Gear up for providing a personalized web experience where the visitors have more access to and control of the interfaces, be it choosing between different colour schemes, navigation, or enlarging typefaces for better legibility.

Web designers should experiment and create modifiable interfaces and digital assets for different types of visitors. Chalk out a complete strategy and determine the various UI options suitable as well as beneficial for the individual segments of the target audience.

However, a critical point to note is that the purpose of the website and its visual design should never be compromised at any cost while enabling user-centric customization. Remember, a personalized user interface undoubtedly will take the cause of digital accessibility to a new height but only when done right.

3. 3D Simulated Visuals

High-quality 3D simulated visuals have now become a rage as higher resolution screens are flooding the market. They are great to add depth throughout a website and enhance the overall user experience with a lot bigger impression.

There are several ways designers can incorporate this 2021 web design trend into their projects. You can make 3D visuals a part of the hero animation right at the centre of the homepage or combine multiple 3D design elements such as layered elements, 3D dimensional shapes, gradients, and drop shadows to make a single layout come to life.

The good news is 2021 will not be just about static 3D elements but that of interactive 3D elements too! This trend particularly will take websites way ahead of the regular average standard. Expect visitors to interact more when you add such elements in your website design and if done correctly, the brand message will instantly click with the visitors.

Online shopping websites can hugely benefit from embracing this trend. 3D simulated visuals can dramatically influence the purchase decision of visitors by providing a detailed closer look and understanding of the products from all angles. This year will introduce even more enhanced 3D visualization techniques and extremely high resolutions, taking product photos into a new creative dimension.

It’s high time for designers to experiment with everything three-dimensional from images, objects, scenes, illustrations to animations to merge reality and virtual reality in the 2D space like never before.

4. Organic Shapes and Geometric Design

Organic shapes meaning asymmetrical or fluid shapes are a big web design trend in 2021. They don’t involve harsh lines, straight lines, or angles just like the natural shapes of hills, rivers, lakes, or edges.

Though organic shapes will rule graphic design and web design, the year won’t outcast geometric shapes completely. Among geometric shapes, circles will emerge to be the most popular one this year. It comes with many implied meanings such as motion, perfection, wholeness, infinity. It also helps to draw attention or focus to a certain design area by creating a distinct contrast with the other design elements.

On the other hand, geometric grids have been gaining traction for some time and will continue to trend this year with few tweaks. Bolder and cleaner layouts with navigation and content blocks using geometric grids, both symmetrical and asymmetrical, will be something new to watch out for. Grid layouts will continue to don crisp lines, square and rectangle shapes to lend a straightforward and solid structured presentation.

5. Minimalism

Well, this isn’t a new web design trend but it’s going to get some new features in 2021. Also known as flat design, this year will see more colourful minimalism instead of the older white, black or grey spaces. Some popular brands have already been experimenting with colourful minimalism by featuring a bold background colour and minimal design elements with crisp and neat text in simple fonts and minimalist typefaces. The designs are simple, easy yet attention-grabbing.

The best part of minimalist design is that it aims to simplify not only the visual design but also usability and functionality. Focus on creating simple and functional designs with limited colour palettes, clean text, basic shapes, and adequate empty spaces if you want to adopt this web trend.

Also, an inclination towards turning flat icons into realistic objects through selective drop shadows will be on the rise in 2021. Designs for text boxes, buttons, and search bars will ape physicality through such effects and introduce us to a new age of minimalist realism.

6. Experimental Typefaces

Another trend gaining popularity in 2021 is experimental typefaces. Unusual and/or custom fonts that are anything different from the familiar type-related techniques will become an essential part of the website and mobile app designs. It will range from character sets, colourful font pairing, animated elements to fabulous elaborate artwork pieces.

Experimental typefaces can be incorporated into projects to create a visual theme or convey brand objectives. For example, an animated swirl of words in a particular shape adding value to a product is an attractive way to make banners and hero images eye-catching. Designers can think of different ways to combine conventional with unconventional typeface ideas in new formats.

However, there are some points to keep in mind when working with experimental typefaces. Consider using it for only key elements, pair it up with only legible secondary typefaces, and keep the other design elements as simple as possible since experimental typefaces can draw the majority of visual emphasis.

7. Scrolling Transformations

Thinking of doing something new with page scroll? Get hold of horizontal scrolling! It’s making a great comeback in 2021 and we expect there will be a lot of experimentation.

Web designers can use horizontal scrolling subtly to highlight both primary and secondary information. Show important parts of a large image with zoom in effect or make relevant content appear simultaneously by including horizontal scroll progressively.

But consider a few factors before including it in your web page design. A horizontal scroll serves best for photos and secondary texts or to emphasize a significant text block. So, determine what content you would display in there. Always allow alternative navigation so that visitors are not bound to go through the horizontal content. Also, be thoughtful to provide clear visual signs when using a horizontal scroll and add relevant buttons to view more for content that needs to be watched or read further by the visitors. Make sure to keep the scroll motion short yet well-paced so that you can effectively highlight the featured parts of the website.

Another exciting trend that is rapidly becoming a fundamental part of web designs is scrolling cards. Been around for a while, an eye-catching arrangement of colourful scrolling cards add incisive action to a web page. This year will see these layouts become more popular in new scrolling directions, whether horizontal or vertical, to present information and visuals.

8. Retro Typography

Retro fonts are finding their way back in web and graphic design this year. But, they won’t be used in the same old style. Rather, the vintage typography will go through a lot of new stylization and creative reimagination. We expect there will be a lot of blending of the old and new bold fonts, colours, and imagery to give the retro typography an ultra-trendy spin. The idea is to tap into the nostalgic sense of the visitor but giving them the feel of the very moment.

Designers have to be careful though to ensure letters look clearer and are highly legible when experimenting with heavier, illustrious fonts. There should also be adequate space around the words as well as the entire text so that each letter is clearly distinguishable and the text area looks clutter-free.

9. Dark Mode

While the previous year saw this trend taking a hold of the industry, it will hit more screens in 2021. It’s a practical solution to restrict blue light exposure, impacts of glare, and strain to the eyes as we tend to spend more and more time looking at screens.

But dark mode won’t stay limited to a user preference as a device feature or browser function. Dark colour palettes will be leveraged more now for user interfaces and overall website designs as well. This is going to add a lot to the aesthetics as the dark colours can provide a perfect backdrop to highlight the design elements on the screen by increasing contrast.

Many fashion, tech, photography, and portfolio websites have already been embracing the trend by combining textured black, grey, and dark purple backgrounds with elegant serif typefaces.

Designers, however, should first consider how dark mode will impact the brand and whether it is appropriate for a particular brand at all. You need to think if it is suitable for the brand products, objectives, brand message, and web content before working on it.

Brands can also opt for creating website designs in both light and dark colour schemes and add a dark mode toggle to their websites to allow visitors to customize their user experience. Designers should be able to create the same visual feel with both the colour palettes, take care of the contrast and font sizes, avoid highly saturated colours, focus on establishing colour hierarchy, and ensure accessibility.

10. Illustrations

Custom illustrations are popular for making website and graphic designs stand out. This year illustrations will explode everywhere, including social media. With plenty of businesses, brands, and creators inclined towards integrating digital hand-drawn design elements into their asset designs, we expect illustrations to become quirkier, more diverse, distinctive, and inclusive.

Cartoon illustrations will be a huge trend in 2021 providing brands an opportunity to represent with a more personable approach. We are excited to find a vast array of 2D and 3D character illustrations. Besides, black and white illustrations will also continue to remain popular because they have a very real feel of a hand-drawn element and suit most design aesthetics for all types of websites and industries. These illustrations can be simple flat drawings or texture-based and also include some animation to make them more interesting and impactful.

So, whether you are building your brand’s website from scratch or thinking about a rebranding, consider including custom illustrations to add a welcoming feel and a crafty touch to your web and graphic design across all your digital assets.

11. Design for Cause

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the digital behaviour of consumers in many ways. While some businesses struggled to keep themselves afloat by restructuring their operations for serving online orders, some brands turned to build websites and online presence to avoid shutting down their brick-and-mortar ventures. The fight for survival had a common aim though – to make lives easier for their respective customers.

In addition to improving online experiences, another popular trend that set in last year was social campaigns and protest graphics calling for justice. So, creating thoughtful and impactful designs that address the emerging issues were a major task for web designers last year.

This year, we will continue to see web designers designing around issues for brands but the game will be different from what happened last year. In 2021, designers will have to help brands connect with their customers on a deeper level through troubled times.

It’s a proven fact that consumers choose to support a brand and its products when they find their values and principles represented in the brand’s voice besides feeling connected with the products. Experiencing the change in consumer behaviour and what triggers them to support and choose one brand over the other, businesses have realized that they need to take a stand for a cause that their customer base believes in.

Brands in 2021 will, therefore, focus more on designs that reflect their values and resonate with sustainability, social movements, community issues and involvement to emerge different from the competition. We expect designers will have to create unique integrating visuals that reflect unequivocal messages of solidarity, diversity, inclusivity, and support to boldly declare what a brand stands for.

What does that mean?

There will be a steep rise in distinctive design assets enriched with interactive digital spaces that pair 3D simulated visuals, videos, stock photos, rich illustrations, icon sets, custom typefaces, and powerful content to create awareness of various causes catering to real, diverse customers. Joint causes and shared values will remain in focus to deliver great user experiences. It also means that website production will be more accessible since resources and methods of web design will increase.

In 2021, brands can’t afford to ignore critical web standards or keep their website designs outdated because that can sharply drop the conversion rate. It’s important to stand out and embrace the biggest and latest web design trends to win the race in the online ecosystem that is expanding every moment.

There’s a lot more to this list. We wrap up the first part of our comprehensive list of 2021 web design trends here and hope you will find this list not only inspiring but helpful to approach digital design in a more accessible and inclusive manner.

Stay tuned and check out our next blog post as we discuss the other emerging trends in web design for 2021!