Web Design trends in the 2020s are rapidly evolving. Recent trends in the last 10 years have made many websites mobile friendly. However, many small business websites have become visually nonunique, dull and look alike.
New Technology is allowing web designs to become less restricted in positioning. More print-like in look and design just as your favorite magazine covers & flyers.
Brief History of Web Design
In order to see forward, we need to take a look back to where it started.
As seen in the image above: The earliest internet web pages in 1992 were almost entirely text based. Years went on and pages integrated more images into their designs. This was before Web Design 1.0. The websites of Web 1.0 used cutting edge tables and borders layout as seen in the year 2000 MSN website. In addition, in 1996 CSS programming allowed html elements like links and text to be custom stylized and formatted.
Websites for the next 8-10 years kept building on more tables and sidebar layouts defining the quintessential blog site design. Since people typically read left to right in the western world, right orientated sidebar designs dominated for many years. This was until CSS first introduced grids in 2007 when the first Apple iphone was being announced by Steve Jobs.
When Myspace was dethroned by Facebook between 2007-2010, The Web Design 2.0 era of social media started. Nothing quite moved the needle in design for nearly 5 years in web design as Android and Iphone applications started to dominate the hard drive space on users phones. Bootstrap and blog layouts started to come around and imitate the simple stacked layout users were becoming used to with app design. Cleaner architecture for stacking visual elements on various screen widths that couldn’t be done before. Making writing and organizing website posts and articles easier. As well as a better user interface and experience.
Websites commonly started featuring bold headers at the top, allowing stronger brand and service communication. Making them resemble designs similar what we seen on a magazine cover. In addition, the support for the large amount of mobile devices that were coming online around 2008. Making websites user friendly for smartphone devices.
Cookie Cutter Design Trends
As seen in the image above, Designs became looking too similar. As bootstrap became more widely adopted as more smart phones went online, a high demand pushed websites of the day to support the growing number of cell phones accessing the web for the first time.
This allowed many businesses and web developers to quickly get a decent website up that looked good not only on wide screen devices like desktops and laptops but tablets and smartphones. Bootstrap first introduced responsive design that looked consistent across multiple devices. Also saved the average web developer days to weeks off of writing code to support mobile devices.
10+ years later in 2023, these designs are suffering from a lack of uniqueness.
As bootstrap sites trended towards mainstream adoption, Users became easily accustomed & sensitive to these designs by seeing them everywhere. GoDaddy and other visual website builder tools have integrated bootstrap and pushed the gas pedal on the death of web 2.0 designs.
Around 2015, Ben Hunt published a book titled “Web Design Is Dead.” which signaled a new era as many Web Developers got burnt out and left the industry. $100 Templates and themes basically killed the demand for sub-par designers who refuse to evolve. A custom web design costs much more because it requires time, knowledge and skills. Besides the design, it requires custom HTML, JavaScript, and CSS coding with sales copywriting that converts users.
It is no longer good enough to just have a website in 2023. You need a custom branded website that embraces the latest design trends & sales copywriting to stand out.
Free image, text positioning and multidimensional element overlapping are new innovations next to CSS grids.
Websites of the last decade might be mobile friendly but, they feature next to no visual dimension with a limited block-on-block stacked layout.
Did YOU know that 90% of consumers use websites & search engines for purchase decisions.
That means if you DON’T have a website, you are visible to about 10% of your market.
That’s reducing the potential size of your business by 90%!
A professionally done website is the best way to SHOW OFF & SEPARATE yourself from your competitors.
You built a unique business. It’s time you get the website your business deserves!
Want a FREE website audit or consultation? Contact Chris @ 732-664-0328
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