Designing Tomorrow: The Definitive Guide to 2023’s Game-Changing Website Trends
Stay ahead of the curve with these website design trends in 2023.
The Internet has been a place for people to meet and talk to one another since its early days in the mid-1990s. By 2023, we anticipate that user input will be incorporated into every facet of website development. This encompasses how users may influence their interactions with the internet in large and small ways, not simply in the metaverse, Web3, or the next wave of the digital zeitgeist.
We’ve identified 6 key trends worth following in the world of web design, ranging from a new (old) look to parallax scrolling and beyond, in light of this emphasis on more immersive experiences. (For a bit of fun, look at these classic scrollbar designs.)
Y2K aesthetic
Christopher Nelson, a designer, has a personal portfolio site that uses pixelated typography and clean, flat-color photos to evoke the style of the year 2000.
Everything from music to fashion to art from the early 2000s has made a resurgence in recent years. The Y2K style, in particular, has made its way into the online design, where we anticipate it will continue to gain popularity. Designers may make site visitors feel more at home on their sites by capitalizing on broad cultural movements like the Y2K scare to create engaging, personalized experiences.
In the early 2000s, picture loading times were quite long. As a result, many early websites had very basic, text-heavy layouts with plenty of empty space. Additionally, sans serif and monospaced typefaces predominated. Sometimes they were pixelated, as modern web designer Christopher Nelson shows on his page.(opens in new tab).
Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive is one place to look for Y2K ideas.(opens in new tab). If you’re interested in web design, you can also follow the Web Design Museum (which opens in a new tab) on Twitter.(opens in a new tab). Throughout the museum’s halls, visitors may look at carefully selected screenshots of famous interfaces from the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Custom fonts and lettering
As entertaining as Leandro Assis’s unique typefaces are, so is his website.
Expect unique typefaces and hand-created lettering to be the next wave of this trend in 2023, given the interest in text-based website designs in previous years. Customized typefaces and other such elements help to immerse visitors.
Text may play an important visual function, and illustrated techniques are gaining favor. Leandro Assis, a Brazilian lettering artist, has created some beautiful examples of hand-drawn lettering that you can see in a new tab here. His lively, expressive fonts reflect his humorous and aesthetic inclinations. The letters of Assis sometimes animate for emphasis. Among the many clients who have appreciated his aesthetic are RuPaul’s Drag Race(opens on new tab), Nike(opens on new tab), and Amazon Music(opens in new tab).
Shared frameworks
To the same extent as open-source software has grown in popularity, so will shareable frameworks in 2023. This is all part of a larger trend of artists seeking to strengthen their communities and get more exposure to their work by encouraging the widespread dissemination of their own methods, tools, and processes.
The ultimate aim is to provide users with a more engaging and satisfying time on the web. The Accessible Social Guidebook(opens in new tab) by accessibility advocate Alexa Heinrich is a great example. She doesn’t just urge people to have an open social media presence; she gives them step-by-step guidelines, along with several free tools and frameworks.
The more expansive worldview may also help in business. Webflow’s Flowbase shows how offering free resources may be a growth strategy for their premium products.(opens in new tab). For example, the design agency Finsweet (opens in new tab) has seen a surge in its clientele thanks to the public’s appreciation for the company’s openness to sharing its expertise with them.
Deeper dimensionality
Guuulp! is a series of 3D illustrations by LS Graphics featuring characters and objects with a Claymorphism aesthetic.
Whether or if the metaverse matures into anything more than an intriguing experiment in 2023 is an open question. However, the metaverse is already having an immersive effect on web development. Leading methods like 3D illustrations and Claymorphism — a mix of inner and outer shadows to produce a soft, 3D impression — give websites more depth via animations, full-page effects, and multi-layered graphics.
Some innovative websites, like Redis Agency(opens in new tab), even use a full-on 3D visual experience, complete with eye-catching 3D visuals and a parallax scrolling effect.
Claymorphism provides a new interactive experience with graphics that can be felt rather than seen. A fantastic example of this is LS Graphics’ Guuulp! (opens in new tab), a collection of 3D illustrations of characters and things in the Claymorphism style. The year 2023 should witness an increase in the number of clay animation-inspired works produced by artists.
Loading animations are back
In the early days of the web, loading animations were all the rage, but they have since fallen out of favor. As the trend for interactivity, animation, and immersive designs continues, this kind of animation has made a resurgence.
The site(opens in new tab) by Cory Runnells is one of our favorites because of the way the loading animation serves as a story arc that culminates with Cory announcing himself as a superhero.
Easier collaboration
Since 2020, remote work and hybrid workplaces have become the norm, elevating the significance of high-quality virtual environments. Remote collaboration tools, or digital features that contain collaborative assistance are more important in our daily lives. The incorporation of built-in collaboration capabilities into digital products will increase in popularity in the next year (2023).
The last straw came when Adobe bought Figma, a famous tool for a collaborative design that is well-known for features like sharing prototypes and design systems that centralize and organize all of a team’s shared materials. This purchase is just one more indication that programs that facilitate online teamwork and the exchange of knowledge are crucial to developing today’s innovative workforce.
As people spend more time online, they want more immersive experiences, and these tendencies reflect that. In 2023, this mega-trend will be a major factor for designers to consider when creating any website.
