Web/Graphic Design Trends in 2012

Design trends for this year are bold and aim to grab audience attention. The focus is still on aesthetics but functionality is also crucial. Web style is the procedure of preparing and developing a website. Textual content, pictures, electronic marketing and entertaining components are used by web developers to generate the website seen on the web technique.

Web developers use markup terminology, such as HTML for framework and CSS for demonstration as well as JavaScript to add communication to create websites that can be study by web surfers. As a whole, the procedure of web style can involve conceptualization, preparing, generating, post-production, analysis, and marketing. The website is sailed by using back links, which are generally pink and underlined but can be made to look like anything the developer needs. Images can also be back links.

The graphics should get through to the web users and grab their attention. On an average, a web user spends about 10 second on the page. So the message should be conveyed instantaneously making an impact as soon as the page is viewed. Here are a few design trends that will be popular in 2012.

1. Colors

Bright hues of red, pink and green are being used on the web instead of neutrals. Saturated rainbow hues that captivate interest are a must. However, only 2-3 colors are used on one page.

2. Typography

Custom fonts can be put together using CSS Typeset, Typetester, WhatTheFont and other tools. Font size has also increased to grab eyeballs. Textured fonts with depth, 3D effect, gradients, transparency and shadows are hip.

3. Photos and backgrounds

To grab user attention, large sized photos and backgrounds are used. Images should have a high resolution and icons are substantial in size. The page should look rich with animation just like a movie or video game. Retro and vintage designs from the past are making a comeback.

4. Animation

Keeping the animation subtle is important as it should take away attention from the main subject of the webpage. Movable images that go around the monitor in different speeds giving a 3 dimensional illusion are becoming trendy. Also known as the parallex effect, this can be implemented with technologies like HTML5, JavaScript, CSS tricks, jQuery plugins and even Flash.

5. Screens

The width of display has increased and pages should be made to fit different sizes of monitors. Viewers are accessing the web from different locations like mobiles, tablets and laptops of varying sizes. The coding should take into account the viewing medium of the audience. Touch screen is catching up along with horizontal scrolling websites that fit in the technology better.

6. Sliders

The entire site summarized in a small space is just what was needed to communicate better. Sliders are much easier to navigate through and enhance interactivity. jQuery plugins are used to embed them. This trend grew strong in 2011, and thus continue to gain traction.

7. CSS3 + HTML5

These two technologies will be used enormously this year. There are options like animated buttons, multiple backgrounds, box shadow, text shadow, rounded corners, mega drop-down menus, transparent images, etc. with CSS3. Also, animation with CSS3 comes out easy and understated. The ML5 has a whole array of features, some of which are social tools, typography, drag and drop feature, new APIs, etc. It is a lot more flexible, delivers faster, aids in creating layouts and helps to connect all type of data formats like audio, video, drawings, etc.

8. Social Media

Bridging the web with social networking sites to attract audience attention is imperative. It enables business and brands to get ample coverage and helps interactivity with users also. Twitter is bound to gain traction, while the company tries to monetize the service with hope to make it profitable. Google plus is projected to reach 400 million users by end of 2012. Facebook, in my personal experience, is starting to see a downturn. I have many friends that don’t bother getting on Facebook and instead use Twitter. The ongoing privacy issues are getting annoying and many users are getting frustrated with the new user interface changes every couple months.

Wrap up

Capturing user attention is important but while trying to do so, the webpage should not take away from the main focus of the message. Thus graphics also have to be simple and unassuming. So, now you have the prominent style used for web designing. In current ties, minimalism is the keystone in web graphic design.

What trends do you think will be big in 2012? We would love to hear your opinion and feedback, so please don’t hesitate to comment below. For more useful content please don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS-feed and follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter+ Facebook! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to comment, and help us spread the word!