Must Design

Like the World Wide Web itself, the world of website design is constantly in flux as technologies change and design standards evolve. What worked in 2013 may

Beautiful Unusual Navigation Designs for Inspiration. Selection of Awwwards websites with a strong presence of unusual navigation. An effective navigation design is crucial for a website

2014 Web Design Trends - Marty Note
Not a secret we are seeing flatter more responsive design in 2014, but I liked the format of the way Script Tutorials explained each trend with examples and wireframes.

2 of these ideas, Video Backgrounds and Interactive Infographics could be huge. Video backgrounds was a new idea to me even halfway through the year.

Flat web design has been a huge topic in the web, even Apple is adopting flat web design style and you need to make sure you upgrade your site too!

10 Reasons Visual Content will Dominate 2014 What marketing strategies will we focus on in 2014? What will we leave behind? This article takes a look at the rise of visual content - and why 2014 will dominate in 2014:

1. 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual. Visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text.

2. Videos on landing pages increase average page conversion rates by 86%.

3. Visual content is social-media-ready and social-media-friendly. It’s easily sharable and easily palatable.

4. Businesses who market with infographics grow in traffic an average of 12% more than those who don’t.

5. Posts with visuals receive 94% more page visits and engagement than those without.

6. 60% of consumers are more likely to click on a business whose images appear in search results.

7. Clear, detailed images carry more weight than product information or customer ratings say 67% of consumers.

8. Visuals show your products without telling people about them. This allows viewers to make their own decisions without feeling pressure from your business.

9. Visuals express ideas quickly - in a snapshot. This breaks through the overwhelming clutter of online content.

10. Visuals are becoming easier and easier to create as photo editing tools become more accessible

 

We asked 12 entrepreneurs which website features small businesses should avoid (or get rid of) at all costs.

Yesterday an article on Medium, Snowfallen, caught my eye. It's about a technique for presenting longform writing online, by embellishing it with integrated

There are a many aspects of good web design, and whitespace is certainly one of them. Whitespace is the empty space around design elements such as images, text,

Buy and sell handcrafted, mousemade design content like vector patterns, icons, photoshop brushes, fonts and more at Creative Market.

It almost seems that this year flat designs have taken over the world of graphic design by force, but especially in the arena of mobile apps with the first industry-shaking flat design being for the iPhone5. Reality is that flat design has been around longer than the emergence of the iPhone5, but of course it was Apple that helped to bring such cross-industry awareness to the design style. 

Buy and sell handcrafted, mousemade design content like vector patterns, icons, photoshop brushes, fonts and more at Creative Market.

Mobify is a mobile e-commerce optimization platform used by leading online retailers to deliver exceptional responsive shopping experiences.

Pageless design frees websites from the outdated conventions of print design and fully utilizes the digital platform they’re built on. 

8 Compelling Reasons Why "Pageless' Web Design Wins (in the end):

* Tells a better story.

* Easier to "digest" or understand what to do.

* Emotionally more powerful.

* Higher Conversion Rates!!!
* Makes updating faster & easier.

* Lowers BOUNCE & encourages sharing.

* Looks great on all devices (mobile included).

* Lower cost to develop.

Marty Note
I confess to not being in love with the "infinite scroll" just yet. One modification we worked out for @Curagami, our Startup Factory funded startup, is to include a Call-To-Action at the top & Bottom.

CTAs help prepare the scroll. Remember "open book" tests? Putting a CTA on top of a waterfall of content helps prep a visitors mind. It "opens the book" for them. With this many impressive benefits I'm going to have to figure out how to start loving "pageless" design (lol).

I bet there are 5 (or so) similar modifications we can make to help us know how to create the paths and conversion we want by going "pageless".  

What are two of the coolest colors in web site design? And do you think we've assembled a collection for you that will knock your socks off? Take a peek >>

A common misconception is that black is thought of as a color in the same way that red, blue, purple or even green are. In actual fact, black is the complete absence of all color...

Fantastic CSS3 Website Designs for Inspiration. Selection of Awwwards winning CSS3 websites. CSS3 is a powerful tool for web designers to enhance the appearance of a website.

Currently, one of the biggest trends in the web design industry is the flat design style. In case you are not yet familiar with the term, flat design is essentially design without the drop shadows, gradients, and textures that have been common in web design for some time. Flat design uses solid colors and often typography figures prominently into the design. In this post we'll showcase 33 excellent examples of the flat web design trend. Hopefully they can provide some inspiration that can be put to use in your own work. Buffalo

Flat design is a concept that was pretty popular a couple years ago and it's back with full strength this year, causing some interesting buzz around the so

Marty Note
Wow, you don't get much more money than Chuck Longanecker's 2012 predictions for web design's almost immediate future. 

Chuck is CEO of Digital Telepathy and boy does he have a copious amount of telepathy based on just how TRUE each of these trends is turning out. Talk about hitting the NAIL directly on its head.

We all need to get into Chuck's head (lol) because understanding how our design tectonic plates are shifting doesn't get any better:

* Lean Design (YES).
* Animation and more sophisticated HTML5 party tricks (YES).
* Less is More (YES).
* Multi-screen, multi-platform (YES!).

Great stuff every web designer and Internet marketer should walk and talk.  

2014 We Design Trends

1. Grid Layouts - Agree & Is Good!
Yes visual marketing + pinterest + mobile is making the grid ubiquitous. I created a Mondrian grid in 1999 when we launched FoundObjects.com (not gone sadly). Grids help share MORE information faster and in the same space than any other design element.

2. Image Captions - Agree and is GREAT
The area immediately under an image is HOT. Everyone looks there but few designers use captions to reinforce or explain the image. Paying more attention to keywords under images is a great idea.

3. Extended Form Elements with JQuery - Don't Know? Does anyone?
Can't comment on this trend as it is new to me and I don't program so its potential benefits are fuzzy at the moment.

4. Deeply Focused Landing Pages thanks to Mobile - Agree & Is Cool
Don't understand this trend except enough to say COOL and WANT ONE.

5. HTML5 Video Players - Agree and GLAD
Don't play your videos on YouTube only since you just make the rich get richer. Figuring out how to play videos "in your stack" is important and having your own HTML5 player is cool.

6. 3D vs. 7. Flat Design - I come down on Flat Design as the winner due to mobile.

8. Personal Portraits - Agree and Like

9. SVG Vector sweeps web as browser support escalates. Agree & Glad.

10. Fonts get cool thanks to server advance - cool and like but not a religion or anything lol.

11. Lazy Loading Animations - cool and can think of several uses.

12. Customized Image Galleries - cool and we need.

13. Mega Navigation Menus - Don't know but don't like idea, seems confusing where confusion can really hurt.

14. Expanding Search Bars - cool and will use.

15. Featured Detail List - LIKE and is cool and new to me.

16. Mobile First Design - Agree and am doing my first now with CrowdFunde.

17. HTML5 Canvas - cool and new to me.

18, Pixel Sprites and Browser Games - New to me but COOL!

19. Quick Registration via social - AGREE!

20, CSS3 Keyframe Animation - Cool, want one.

Just as we did a year ago, I'm kicking off 2014 with a list of design trends I expect to gain ground over the next twelve months.