From The Archives - While you are here, don’t forget to check 45 Best Social News Websites To Garner More Traffic that we did on 1WD a long time back. Most of them are still as effective now as they were back then.

What is a Social News Website?

Well, everyone is fully aware of Digg, right? Digg is the perfect example of a Social News Website. Users can either visit their fave news websites directly to read the latest news or they can register for RSS feeds of that website which will keep them updated about the latest news. Social News Websites are another way to keep yourself updated with the best possible news that is recommended by others in the community.

Social News Websites are link generators to be precise. The links are submitted by the community that is part of that social news website. In some cases Social News Websites use automated ways to generate news links instead of depending on user based submissions. After aggregation of links these websites sort the links on the basis of categories and lastly manual votes by the community. These votes decide the importance of some news and increase the reach of that news article.

Read - Pligg: A Social Network Content Management System that can be used to launch your own Social News Website.

Trends that Stick with Social News Website Designs

Quickly, here are few of the trends that have kept social news websites sticking around even when most of the startups have come and gone in the last few years:

• Focus on Content - As I pointed out at the beginning of this article, Reddit is still around due to its focus on content. Reddit has done well to minimize everything other than the stories which helps the readers focus on stories and vote for them if necessary. Some of the social news website designs leave space for a thumbnail which supports the article and explains it better. It is important that the social news platform include a brief descriptions for every story if headings are not being displayed completely. This will make more sense to the reader and keep him looking for more.
• Easy to use Vote Boxes - A voting system is important for any social news website but sometimes these voting buttons don’t do their jobs the way they should and end up ruining the experience. A smooth voting system which doesn’t reload the page every time a new vote is cast must be used by all social news websites. Also, the voting buttons must not interfere with the rest of the design and vice-versa.
• Pagination - The basic purpose of Social News Websites is to collect fresh news from multiple sources and showcase it all on its homepage. These sources are so many in number that the homepage tends to be too small to showcase all the collected news. This is when pagination comes into play. The bottom of the homepage must have links to other pages in order so that older news can be access easily. Also, these pagination buttons must be smoothly blended with design so that they don’t kill the experience.
• Comments and Discussions - These are an integral part of Social News Website Design and a reason why users stick around for longer periods. Designers should be careful while designing the comments section as overdone comments section can be a serious turn off for users.
• Profiles - Social Networking has become trendy and having a community system of your own is really very fancy. This is when a profile system for users on a social news website can really add up to the user base of that website. Users indulge in creating profiles and showing of content which they have been reading on that particular social news website which indirectly benefits the social news website.
• Groups - A social networking platform without groups is almost meaningless. Groups helps users to indulge in discussions and invite more friends to those discussions. Such activities help the website concerned and StumbleUpon is one social news website that has utilized the concept of groups at its best.

Now, let us quickly go through some of the in-business social news websites that we have been appreciated for a long time.

Reddit

Reddit is one of the few social news websites that has survived all competition. Go to the homepage of Reddit and the number of votes or comments that an article on the homepage gets are enough to explain the traffic that this social news website will generate for a link that tops its homepage. Reddit was created to focus particularly on the headlines which is why it is sticking around. The focus on stories was so important for the designers of Reddit that they minimized the size of everything else which helped the stories stand apart on every page of Reddit.

This content based minimal design helps the readers scan through most of the stories and find which is of interest to him. Reddit avoids description fields which is why more number of stories show up on the homepage increasing the chances to webmasters to dream of extra traffics. Reddit features a random Sponsored Section on the top of the homepage which is almost similar to the rest of the homepage except that the background color is different. Such sections helps Reddit pay its bills (and probably pocket away a bit which is perfectly alright).

I have been referring to Reddit for ages and it looks like I will continue to do so for many more years to come.

Slashdot

Slashdot is a technology focused social news website where users initiate discussions and share its stories. Slashdot has been famous for its inspirational discussions on open source software movements. Stories are more or less related to the big guns like Microsoft, Apple etc. Slashdot has also been famous for its Gadget based review and book reviews. Such stories have always found a place on Slahsdot.

Like any other social news website Slashdot gives users the options to categorize the stories and start discussions on the same. Slashdot is one of the few social news website designs that have done well to stick with its user base which are tech lovers or book lovers. It is mainly because of the quality of content that Slashdot continues to garner some of the best possible content on day to day basis on their homepage.

Design Newz

Now, let us discuss something about a design based social news website. Design  Newz is one of the few design based social news website which is famous for the quality of its content. Design Newz is based on hand picked content which is only shared after a lot of research.

Design Newz does not permit users to leave comments and vote for stories which can be a turn off, but the quality of content is enough for you to trust the stories that Design Newz generates. If you are a design lover the Design Newz is for you.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon took the world (and the websites featured on it) by storm. It crashed plenty of servers and made plenty of websites super famous. Sometimes the traffic that StumbleUpon generates isn’t completely relevant but the numbers are so pleasing that you will wish for repeated effects.

StumbleUpon has its own community system which helps users interact with each and create groups for relevant discussions. The website will send you notifications if you register for one thus keeping you updated with fresh links. Users can review and vote for various webpages which actually decides the fate of these pages. StumbleUpon’s biggest advantage is its toolbar which when integrated with your browser helps you find new content on the fly.

This is it. I don’t want to discuss Digg because it been discussed time and time again.

Conclusion

Social News Websites are here to stay as they are based on some of the simple trends that we saw above. New website might come and old might die down but the concept will continue to evolve as it is end user friendly. Let us know if you are aware of some more social news websites and your experiences with them.

Why look for a change in Web Design Industry?

That, my friends, is the first question to pop up when we try to dream of changes in our own design industry. Why do we actually need such changes? Aren’t we doing good, already? Well, we are doing good but we are doing stuff that is boring, predictable, comfortably pleasing, repetitive and all other similar adjectives. Here are a few quick reasons which second my thought of (at least slight) change in the Web Design Industry:

• Web Design Industry is overly trendy. A web designer might try to think out of the box but at the end of the day he/she cannot ignore the trends that are running around in the industry. The result is an uninspired design which isn’t unique and almost always a redesign of what has already been done. Somehow, we have to change this predictable trend that grasps the industry so tightly that it becomes impossible for designers to implement an out-of-box design. The fear of loathing has to be pushed away in order to make way for innovative designs.
• Enough of cool-designs-to-garner-attention kind of stuff. We see multiple talents designing for their friends only, as such minds do not have enough exposure to hold the red hot iron in their hands. They just don’t know that they can sit in between geniuses and make their jaws drop. We need to educate such undeveloped brains about the importance of their vision. We need a planned education system that directs geniuses into the correct directions.
• We have to embrace agile methods instead of sticking with start-with-scratch and I-can-do-it-alone things. I agree that most designers might be loners but that does not mean that we cannot use ways that can save time and improve the design development process. Start prototyping, learn sketching to show quick examples to your clients, and don’t follow the lengthy process when an agile method can do a lot for you.
• Designers must be educated about the horizons of fonts. Most of the designers have started to experiment with fonts but the typeface industry still has a lot of room to expand. Designer fonts give a new meaning to a design and we must understand that.
• Internet Explorer must be ignored! I know this is a dream but I hope that the Mayans prediction applies on Internet Explorer and it never surfaces back on the World Wide Web. Internet Explorer has been the reason why many designers fail to tag their design as platform independent. This is what we call regressive.

Web Design Trends in 2012

It is time to introduce the first fragment of this discussion which will focus on the upcoming trends in the web design industry in the year 2012.

• Responsive Web Design - I had to start the trends list with Responsive Web Design as it was the most talked about thing in the last quarter of 2011. Responsive Web Design will continue to evolve in the year 2012 and might just become what we really want it to become. Website designs in 2012 will become more flexible which will permit websites to display easily on various screens and devices without any issues whatsoever.
• Minimal Designs with focus on UX Design - Minimalism was always here to stay and 2012 will continue to experience minimalism at its best. But, I believe that 2012 will see the enhanced form of Minimal Designs evolve due to the much desired need of User Experience. I want to see Minimal Designs that focus more on User Experience without losing its minimalism factor.
• jQuery - jQuery has evolved a lot from it’s beginning and 2012 will be no different. Designers will be seen overusing jQuery in their designs which will result in smoother sliders. The only problem (which sends chills through my body) will be the “over usage” of jQuery for results that will look repetitive on various web designs. Still, jQuery is something that is here to stay and we cannot stop designers from using it in their projects.
• HTML5 - Isn’t this obvious? HTML5 based designs became so famous in the year 2011 that everyone was boasting about an HTML5 design. It became a fashion-kind-of to have an HTML5 based design. This trend will continue to gain pace with huge organizations taking control of HTML5 and making the switch-over to HTML 5. The results will surely be astonishing and lovable.
• Merging Designs with Social Media - Social Media Industry grew exponentially in the year 2011 after Google entered the game with Google+. With Facebook’s new look getting a mixed response and Twitter’s planned interface changes, the Social Media industry will garner lot of attention and it will be exciting to see how designers merge their designs with various Social Media Platforms so as to decrease the gap between a website and its social media page.
• Touch Screen Compatibility - The debate is on about the future of Touch Screen Technology and designers must understand that adding enhanced features in their design that multiply the touch screen user experience will surely take their design to places. This is one area which hasn’t yet been explored enough but it will be interesting to see how designers take up touch screen technology and what ideas pop up so as to add that extra element to designs that make them touch screen friendly.
• Custom Fonts - As I said earlier, the font industry hasn’t yet experienced its fare share of experiments. Custom fonts have started to evolve lately with designers trying to come up with fonts that are totally unique. This experimentation will continue to touch new heights in the year 2012 and results should knock us over.

Social Media Trends in 2012

Social Media Industry did see plenty of changes in the year 2011 but that wasn’t it! Social Media is all set to experiment more just because the end consumer is slowly becoming comfortable with upcoming changes. One must understand that change in trends is usually overly minimal and often impossible to recognize within the gap of 1 year. But, it is this subtle shift in trends that defines the future of an industry. I can see a lot is in store for the social media industry because even after years of launch the Social Media giant, Twitter, is still struggling to monetize its platform.

Now, let us quickly go through some of the most important trends that will grip the Social Media industry in 2012:

• Monetizing “Checking-In” - Almost everyone has their own check-in system nowadays. Services like foursquare have popped up everywhere and every Social Media platform is trying to integrate a check-in system with their services. The important part is that no one has yet monetized the check-in system. It is important for marketers to understand if the end target is currently in a pizza outlet or on his couch. Such data can help the marketers promote their product to the end user at the best suitable time. I believe this will be a topic of debate in 2012 and must see light at the end of the tunnel.
• Facebook as the center of the Internet Experience - Facebook is, no doubt, the center of the Social Media industry as of now, but soon it will be the center of our Internet Experience. May not be in 2012, but Facebook will surely continue to dive into our nervous system so as to be a part of our day to day lives. It will be interesting to see how successful this trend turns out to be in the year 2012. The day isn’t far away when parents will send birthday wishes to their kids via their kids Facebook wall. Thankfully, I am not on Facebook!
• Bolster Personalization - Facebook has smartly outdone other Social Networking Platforms by personalizing everything on its portal. The Facebook Ads, Fan Pages and Sponsored Stories develop a strong bond between the user and his Facebook profile. Everything he sees on his Facebook profile (which includes the unwanted ads) is what he loves to see. This is what other social media giants will strive to achieve in order to enhance user experience.
• Rise in Road-Side Venture Capitalists - Services like KickStarter have made it quite easy for ideas to receive the necessary funding by a group of small time investors who later on get back something in return. I can see a rise in similar services as the market for such services is still dry. Out of garage entrepreneurs have loads of idea but not the money. On the other hand small time webmasters have the money but not the ideas. Such services will bridge the gap between these two genres and start a totally new industry.
• Socially Smart Idiot Box -Television has become an integral part of our lives. No matter how much we ignore the idiot box, we end up surfing channels to find something interesting. 2011 witnessed a rise in discussions that were about socializing the television experience. I am not sure how exactly will this be done but soon we will see the Social Media Industry taking steps that will bridge the gap between Television and Social Media Platforms.

[Image Source]

Conclusions

The year 2011 is now the thing of the past. Just like 2010, 2011 was special by every means and has increased our level of expectations from the year 2012. Time will tell how 2012 will turn out to be but we can be sure that the events ready to roll in 2012 will keep up all tight!

Definition of “Trend”

Dictionary.com defines trend as “the general course or prevailing tendency.” We all know what design trends are and that many of us fall into them each and every day. What many designers don’t know, or don’t realize, is that these trends will come and go and eventually you will look dated if you stay in that rut for too long. I’m not against using them at all, I use them often. It’s excellent practice and helps to mold us into the designers we will become in the future. My only problem with trends is that they can cause problems for people if not used correctly. Let’s discuss.

They Cause Complacency

Using trends can be great because they can help to push your limits to learn new things. The problem is that they can be counter-effective if you rely on them too much. What I mean is that they can make us complacent designers who never try anything else new because we already know how to design something a particular way. I have personally fallen prey to this with my corporate design background. I worked for an agency where about 90% of my design was corporate and driven by project manager requests. The company had little backbone to stand up to clients and tell them we were the experts in what they needed to be effective for their clients on the web. This led to the designers of the agency finding a “safe zone” with a particular trend and sticking with it because we knew we’d get less push-back if we didn’t step too far out of the box. Complacent designers mean less effective projects, end of story.

by fabio_ski.t

They Create Copycats

Trends also create copycats very easily. You will find this all over the internet these days. People find a designer they like and then decide they’re going to rip off designs in the portfolio for their own projects…or worse, they steal the work for themselves. Personally, I think copycats are becoming even more prominent with the rise in design related social sites such as Dribbble and Forrst. I think these sites are awesome, I am simply pointing out that they are enabling trends to prosper moreso than they have been able to in the past. So my take on this, feel free to use trends to help you along, just don’t steal other people’s stuff and remember to put your own creative twist on whatever inspiration you gather.

They Mean Less Creativity

This could probably go both ways. I can see where it could force designers to come up with a better way to do something, meaning the trend has helped us along in our quest for awesome design. But more often, I think it puts design in a box. New designers feel they can’t design something different than the “great designers” out there because it will never be accepted. They try something fresh and it never gets noticed because no one else is doing it. Of course, if it’s good enough, eventually a popular designer will pick it up and then it gets pushed through the industry like wildfire. So my point here is that we need to make sure the trends don’t limit our designs but rather cause us to come up with new ways to achieve the results we desire.

They Can Be Less Effective

Ultimately, I think we need to take into consideration that trends can end up being less effective on a project if used improperly. This is what I mean when I say that just because it works for one project, doesn’t mean it will work for another. Take a massive dropdown menu for example. It’s a trend we’ve been seeing a lot of lately and a great example is on sony.com. This works great for the design they have going on and the amount of information they want to put in front of the customer immediately. But it may or may not work for the next project you work on. Maybe they don’t need a drop menu at all or maybe there’s only a few links to drop down. Either way, just remember to assess the situation and whether what you’re using will help or hurt the usability.

by Enokson

Great Design is Usable

Great design is…well…great. It’s all the things we hope for when we start a project. It’s user-friendly. It’s pretty. It’s functional. It solves problems that sometimes the user didn’t even know they had. It creates a good experience. It establishes or furthers a brand. It just works in every sense of the word. If a design isn’t doing all these things and more, it’s not great. Great design cannot create problems and still remain great. Lets look at a few things that are encompassed in this term.

It Solves a Problem

Everyone out there has had problems using a website at some point or another. It could be something as simple as the navigation not working properly. Maybe you weren’t able to find something or came across a site that requires an updated Flash player. What great design does is solve problems, not create them. Instead of making users search for information for ten minutes before they finally stumble across it, it shows them exactly how to get there in just a few clicks. This could be an incredible new search function or a well thought out drop down menu. Keep these things in mind when designing as they will make or break your design no matter how beautiful it is.

It Invites Users to Find Information

Instead of confusing the user with a mess of content they don’t care to read, great design shows them exactly where to go to find what they want. It’s like dropping little breadcrumbs along the way to the exact content they’re looking for. Show them where to go and what they need and they will be back after having a positive experience. This is what great design is all about…keep it simple, keep it useful.

by tomt6788

It’s Beautiful

Okay so maybe it doesn’t have to be beautiful, but that certainly helps. And most of the time when I come across truly great design, it’s beautiful too because if you really know how to design, you understand usability. Most designer’s websites are a reflection of what they can do for clients so take this as a hint to work on your own if you feel inclined to do so. The visual part of a site is becoming more and more necessary anyway due to things like Google’s new search feature that pops up an image of the site upon rollover. Things like this are popping up everywhere on the net and people will slowly begin to choose the nicer looking sites over the other ones, even if it’s subconsciously. So while useable doesn’t have to equate to beautiful, it pretty much does.

It’s Effective

Ah, the notorious effective website. The website that actually does something. It’s not stagnant. It’s constantly updated. It’s never boring. It’s never useless. This is the day and age we live in. We live in a time where information is immediately at our fingertips and there’s a website or webapp to do just about anything you want. A great design is completely and utterly pointless even if it has everything else we’ve mentioned but fails to be effective. If it doesn’t get the point or convey the message it needs to very clearly, there’s something wrong. Take note of what works for you on sites and make sure to incorporate those into your designs. Push the limits of technology a bit even if you’re slowly nudging your audience to understand something new. Just make sure you don’t lose them during the process.

by Peter Kaminski

And That’s A Wrap

There’s more to say for sure but that’s all I’m covering in this article. The point was to help remind you that great design is the ultimate goal. I think design trends are awesome when used properly and when they make sense. I also think they push the industry forward and that they are vital for helping us to do just that. The important thing to remember is not to fall prey to getting stuck in the rut they can cause. Be sure to keep climbing and furthering your work. Take what you will from this, but remember the ultimate goal.

Art Direction is here. The art of creating kick-ass blog posts with great content and super awesome unique designs.

In grunge design, elements are disorganized to give a dirty look. Grunge designs are usually crooked, stained, crumpled, jagged and grubby. Most of them have dirty, dull colors such as Dark Red, Gray, Brown or Black. But nowadays, designers also use bright colors for grunge styles mixed with shapes, textures and real life graphics. A grunge style features wide range of elements that are put together to give a creative impression on viewers. To give you a better idea, I am putting down some examples of grunge design.

Ripped Melbourne street poster – Cool grunge typography background and textures

Image by: Cuba Gallery

A beautiful Armani porcelain figurine photographed through an antique window in St. Augustine, Florida.

Image by: ArteZoe

Image by: bob merco

Image by: aidangirard

Image by: JR Goodwin

Don’t these “dirty” designs look creative? Grunge design is not only used for personal, advertising or e-commerce websites but also for weblogs. I am now giving you the best and amazing blogs with grunge design you can find on the web. Take a look and get inspired. Have fun browsing!

1. Jason Bradbury

2. Allan Anova

3. THS

4. Seed Hunter

5. Basmati Tree

6. That INDIE Dude

7. Spoon Graphics

8.PSD Rockstar

9. Blogriffic

10. Revolution Church

11. NYQ

12. Bart-Jan Verhoef

13. SunSad

14. Gary Nock

15. Octwelve

16. Espira Tecnologias

17. Web Designer Wall

18. Cogitatur

19. Design Reviver

20. Edgepoint Church

21. Tattered Fly

22. Getting Crazy

23. The Trian Woodburns

24. Jared Campbell

25. Kristin Ascoop

26. Carnet de Kinoute

27. Elliot Jay Stocks

28. Kimberly Coles

29. Ready Photo Site

30. Narfstuff

31. JUXT Interactive

32. Pikaboo

33. Blog Solid

34. Mind Twitch

35. Shaker Design

36. Sarah Hyland

37. Blog Me Tender

38. ANidea

39. Matt Brett

40. Simon Wiffen

What are you thoughts?

So, what do you like the most with these compilations? Or do you have any website with grunge design that you would like to share? Feel free to type in on the Comment section!

In this article, I’ll be featuring most beautiful single page website inspired.

1. Kinoz

2. Mitxel Gonzalez Zabalo

3. Fish Marketing

4. Tomas Pojeta

5. Nofrks

6. Creative People

6. James Lai Creative

7. Jason Reed

8. Gotta Get to FOWA

9. PikaBoo

10. We are Sofa

11. Salon – La Foile

12. Kretivia

13. Basil Gloo

14. Designed by Dave

15. Red and White Sale

16. London Web Designer

17. Stage 5

18. PSD Web Layout Design

19. Lennart Basler

20. Think Green Meeting

21. The Great Bearded Reef

22. Fajne Chlopaki

23. Mogulista

24. Social Snack

25. Bullet PR

26. Zee

27. Legwork Studio

28. Silverback

29. Tin Van Damme

30. Charlie Gentle

31. Chirag Solanki

32. Contrast

33. Brian Murchison

34. Visualbox

35. www.MelissaHie.com

36. Tyler Finck, Sursly

37. volll

38. Dan Tobolic

39. Work at Play

40. Black Estate Vineyard

41. Search Inside Video

42. Samar Tuladhar

43. f claire baxter

44. rzmota.com

45. The portfolio of Bryan Katzel

46. SmartCube

47. Fabiano Meneghetti

48. sebdesign.eu

49. NETWISE Strategies

50. Mike Ambs

If you want a website that is simple in interactivity but rich in design go for single page layout. It is also good for beginner because you tend to put everything in one place.

Abstract Elements

I bet almost every one of you has seen one of those marvelous people photo manipulations with abstract elements in them. Usually artists use some C4D renders into their artworks. Those renders makes art look more surreal and sci-fi. Don’t worry if you aren’t owner of C4D or similar software. You can achieve similar effects with simple Photoshop brushes as well.

Examples

1. Abstract Africa by Kevin Roodhorst

2. 7 Records by Patrick Monkel

3. Get Over by Mark Jay Caccam

4. Pink Rewind by DDavey

5. Fashion by Michael Ostermann

Brushes

1. FD Abstract Toolkit by Paul Willocks

2. Paint Lines by env1ro

3. Fortune Brushes by ShiftyJ

4. Silicon Brushes by Xavier Durand-Hollis

5. Abstract Aura VI by differentxdreamz

Watercolors

Watercolors started becoming a trend couple years ago. They bring that traditional, though fresh feeling to artworks. They can be used to enhance some parts of artworks or you can use them to create whole artwork as well. Creating your own watercolor brush is difficult, yet interesting process. But, if you don’t have the time or necessary, don’t worry – there are plenty of free great looking watercolors brushes available on web.

Examples

1. Portraits by Nielly Francoise

2. Monsters by N1ko

3. Take Me Up by Brice Chaplet

4. Arique Colorful by Ariil Davidoff

5. 60549 by Jarek Kubicki

Brushes

1. 15 Vector Ink Strokes by Wegraphics

2. Hi-Res Splatter Brush Set by Franz Jeitz

3. Mateu7′s Watercolor Brushes by Mateus Mim Mesmo

4. Watercolor Splatters by Denny Tang

5. Dirty Sprays by Tutorial9

Abstract Lines & Lighting Effects

Shiny abstract lines together with some lighting effects have always looked fine in digital artworks. These effects can be blended in any type of artwork. You can highlight some specific areas with them. Photoshop brushes are perfect for creating abstract and lighting effects. There are dozens of premade brushes available on the web.

Examples

1. Impetus by Ernest Lim

2. Imagination by Kevin Roodhorst

3. Chaos by evade

4. Incredible v2 by Antoine Pirard

5. Living Into My Own World by PAROiQ1

Brushes

1. Petals Adrift by differentxdreamz

2. Sparkles Brush by WingsOfAHero

3. Smudge Brushes by Rockanium

4. Light Effects by Wegraphics

5. Light Brushes by RedSigns

Geometric Elements & Vectors

Adding geometric elements and vectors to digital artworks became quite popular few years ago. We can see experienced and talented designers using this technique a lot. Similarly to watercolors, this technique also mixes the traditional with modern. If you don’t want to draw the shapes and vectors yourself, there are few Photoshop brushes available for this trend as well.

Examples

1. Street Lights by Joao Oliveira

2. I Love Colors by feartox

3. A New Start by poisonvectors

4. Blackout by Steve Goodin

5. Salvation by Rupinder

Brushes

1. Distorted Lines by FlowGraphic

2. Gradient Shape Brushes by Fresh eMedia

3. Baroque Ornaments by Wegraphics

4. Hand Drawn Florals by Nathan Brown

5. Linear Vector Brushes by Vina Nguyen

Although the year of 2010 will be over in 3 more months, the revolutions in web design this year have led designers to achieve extra ordinaries web designs, while continuing to set the unlimited parameters of it. Below are the 13 main points of web design trends of 2010 which we think will keep to continue, and some more inspirations to help you set new ideas for your upcoming web design projects or perhaps redesign your own website/blog. Be creative, unleashed your concept.

1. Huge headline and images

You have probably realized that many websites today are using huge headlines and/or images. By doing this, designers are focusing the big headline and images to grab users attention and invite them in. It creates a great visual impact which will help your visitor to remember your website. Furthermore, you can use these on your web designs to communicate the site’s tone or  to create an immerse experience to the visitors.

2. Customized typography

Typography in web designs today has expanding from a boring standard fonts to beautiful customized fonts. By using Typekit (it’s a subscription-based service for linking to high-quality Open Type fonts from some of the worlds best type foundries), you can easily use real fonts on the web. Say good-bye to the standard fonts and pick a beautiful readable fonts to convey the purpose of an e-commerce website or portfolio.

3. Print design influence

Serif fonts, more graphics, grid systems, and more of other print design aspect have become the inspiration that influenced web design in this year. The point of getting influence from print design is that it has had to be high impact to grab attention and communicate clearly.

4. CSS3 & HTML5 capabilities

With CSS3 & HTML 5, web designers can take new advantages to help them load the web faster and create a better navigation. On CSS3, designers will no longer need to use images to create the effects. In fact, it will never be easier to create rounded corners, borders backgrounds, text and box shadows, and opacity property.  While HTML5 will intro­duce more seman­tic tags like “header”, “footer” and “nav” as well as the much antic­i­pated canvas ele­ment.

5. More visual effects

Pay attention on the background of most web designs these days. Designers are gradually replaced the backgrounds with patterns or subtle and textured background. Not only because it looks nicer and more modern web 3.0 feel, but it also creates a certain visual effects for the website tone and feel as might be expected on the design concept.

6. Mobile compatible design

Mobile generations in has started since the release of smart phones a few years back. This year, more and more smart phones with CSS and JavaScript supported has created the new trend for web design and directing many websites each day to go mobile as well.

7. Single page layout

Say that you don’t have much information to give out to your visitor but still need a website a short info about you and your company’s services, and having several pages is just a waste. With single page layout, designers can avoid creating the unnecessary pages and focus on the single layout which will be more effective both for the visitors and the user or designer.

8. Minimalist & creative

As a replacement for busy and complex web designs in the past years, huge white space in web designs has creating a simple and minimalist concept in this year. It’s clean, engaging, memorable, and yet creative.

9. Multi column / grid system

Although grid system is not something new anymore, designers are taking more advantages from this system, creating multi column web design layouts to make it easier to use. This also allows them to fit in more content as it will help you to save more spaces on the layout.

10. Custom illustrations & clean icons

More and more companies realized how essential it is to grab their customer’s attention. Not only they have the web designed with certain ideas to fit the company’s concept, but in recent years many companies are gradually changing the lead images from photo images to custom illustrations and icons. These unique customized illustrations and icons are obviously what the customers will capture and remember.

11. Social media is a must

There are just no end with social media. At least everyone has Facebook account. It’s another way to interact to your visitor, so put up your social media links on your footer, sidebar or wherever you think fit on your website design. As many of them prefer to connect with you through the website they check on daily.

12. Introduction

A website is the new way to get to know a person in this internet era. Having an introduction boxes or headline is now the trend in web design. With average 30 seconds time for your visitor to look over your website, this introduction is the best way to let them know a bit about who you are and what you or your company (can) do.

13. Modal boxes / Light boxes

They called it the new generation of pop-up windows. Modal boxes or also known as light boxes, is an alternative to present pictures, text, or videos. It’s clean, crisp, focuses the user on the information which are being presenting, and more user-friendly than pop-up windows.

So, which points above have you applied on your designs? Or do you think we miss other point of the upcoming and on going web design trends for this year? Let us know your thoughts on the comments.

I didn’t add any comments this time – compare these designs yourself and try to understand why ones really stand out, well others seem a little bit classical. Notice small things, how designer puts a little bit unique style in its design to make emphasis like folding, comment,date boxes which stand out from layout, icons, background textures and nice shadings.

What  I noticed though – for blog designs light colors always look better and are more user-friendly since visitors need to read information – light background and dark text always seem to work great!

1. WordPress Two by sinthux

WPmonk by sinthux

WordPress by sinthux

WordPress Beta by DouglasEltz

Hypowired by sinthux

WordPress Theme by sALuUm

Webbo WordPress Thema by Servetinci

Simple WordPress theme by yehsper

Edge v.1.1 by AlxDesign

WordPress Blog by Pinpoint-Designs

FreshPress by AlxDesign

Plush by AlxDesign

Sveriges Finest by AlxDesign

Design MS v.5 by AlxDesign

Condo Bandit by AlxDesign

Disambler WordPress by deadlinesdesign

s

Osae by osec

GrungePress by AlxDesign

PlanetF1 by AlxDesign

Springbloggers by SneakyOne1990

by

VintMint WordPress Theme by STRIF3wind

Jocoo by SencerBugrahan

Naruja Portfolio by JuliusX

Creative Bloggers by SneakyOne1990

Coffee Cup by Pilej

Delicate: WordPress Theme by itsmattadams

The General Blog by BboyWicked

IamSuthan by BboyWicked

Video BLOG – Template by askdzigner

Smooth Portfolio Layout by JuliusX

Webee by zee7

GoldPress by SencerBugrahan

Quacero by SencerBugrahan

Blog layout by shuffl3

Honcerate WordPress theme by snaz

Black2 WordPress theme-Blog by ehlikeyif

Blog Magazine Theme by dellustrations

Boutique Theme by dellustrations

Magazine Theme by dellustrations

Royal Mag by AlxDesign

Web-Kreation Redesign – Mockup by jeeremie

Gamma Design by easydisplayname

Beta Design by easydisplayname

Delta Design by easydisplayname

Authentic WP by gdnz

Coloured Solutions V1 Blog by moDesignz

Pixogen by gdnz

Simplicity by AlxDesign

AVG-HHBlog by AntoniaVG

CloudBlack WP by gdnz

DesignersLust Website Design by TheDrake92

Rainbow Blog by PanthereNoire92

Coffee blog by Pilej

Textured Blog Layout by voodoosimon

WordPress – Fairy Theme by detrans

Dalton Hurd by sinthux

Personal Portfolio 2.0 by jonaska

Blog Theme update by coWebdesign

WordPress – IcePress Theme by detrans

TV Shows by waterdesign

eacose by osec

osea by osec

AudioTech by DouglasEltz

Cube Productions by vanmall

Matias Blog by Pilej

KO by trunglq

CreativeTalk by kodcor3y

Big Blue by detruk

Green Palacy Theme by DouglasEltz

Waterfall blog by coloformia

I think this modern&minimal trend will rule for some time, time for loud elements and web 2.0 cheap shiny badges has been long gone –  time for subtle emphasis, accents, big and stylish fonts, lightly textured backgrounds,grids, lots of negative space, usage of icons.

We cannot deny also huge technological possibilities with CSS3, HTML5, jQuery allowing you to do things which were impossible like 2–3 years ago. I also read IE6 is finally nearing extinction so we have one pain less from our shoulder and we can focus more on design and clean code!

What’s interesting this trend isn’t even minimal fully – while it has lots of white spice, you will still see some light textures, icons, bold fonts. Usually people called site minimal if it was just plain typographic, almost without any images and styling.  While researching new trending I must say plain minimal won’t work anymore if you really want to create modern design. Minimal isn’t just black text on white background anymore, while you still need to reduce design to the most important elements, you will improve design with a little more coloring,  minimal icons and very light textures.

You may be confused right now, but don’t worry – read further and I will show what I mean through real examples expressing modern design style in the best way possible! While I may not be so great into describing contents, try to pay attention and focus on important elements I mention and at the end of this article I am sure you will be fully charged with inspiration and understanding how to design your site using modern elements.

However this article isn’t meant for you to just get inspired to copy elements from other sites, but to understand where trending is going now. Maybe you will be the one to start new design trend? –  keep experimenting and never stop learning, good luck!

Before we start I would like to drop down the most important features of modern minimal webdesign style:

• Lot’s of effective negative space
• Grid based web designs
• Clear, big typography
• Lightly textured backgrounds and patterns
• Subtle,minimal icons
• Light shading and color transition, letterpress effect
• Ribbons, sketches, dashed lines,ruler, transparent like backgrounds
• Keypress navigation
• Clear shapes
• Old-school design combined with HTML5,CSS3 and jQuery
• Animated mouseover effects
• Colors –  usually monochrome with just one bright color to give little emphasis on links and titles.

Roger Burkhard

This is portfolio site of Roger Burhard who is web designer and developer featuring all the works he has been done here!

To describe his design style I have to quote his words:

“Hi, my name is Roger and I call myself a New School Designer which means I set great value on clear shapes, colors and typography. New School because I believe in the mix of design and technology. I love the challenge of simplifying complex information, to visualize and pimp them with the latest technology.”

I have to say his own words also describe current trending –  with all the tools, technology and information available we now can create designs much easier, you just need to put little thinking in to understand how to simplify our designs and codes even more using latest technologies.

Thomas Maier

I think Thomas Maier site design is excellent example to show minimal simplicity with modern elements. It is portfolio and blog for Thomas with sliding navigation and all content is on single page. Navigating through this site is really easy –  use main navigation and right bottom “back to top” button.

All elements are made easy to use, intuitive and design is amazing! Minimal icons, letterpress text effects, light shadowing!

Inspect Element

With huge buzz about new HTML5 and CSS3 collaborating with jQuery there is no surprise new effects have become one of the most popular modern trends! To understand what I mean mouseover to their logo and images –  logo is rotating and images has nice shadow, you can learn this effect in this tutorial if you want to recreate something similar.

Besides that Inspect Element blog has implemented few more design elements which are very popular right now –  I mean background behind logo, which is very well-recognized by designers who know how transparent background looks in Photoshop, paper boxes in the navigation also gives nice emphasis and clean look associating with clean paper.

Veerle’s Blog

Not long time ago Veerle created new site design (actually created completely new website to start fresh, but it’s another story) and her new design is a huge case of study with subtle beautiful design elements everywhere but in the same time keeping everything simple and clean.

I spent like 10 minutes just playing and researching all the great effects –  little 2/3 sec. mouseovers create a feeling that site has something magical in it. What I like the most is effectively used white space and font selection. Icons are minimal, but sometimes bright to bring right emphasis for RSS, Twitter or just making Jobs section more prominent in the middle section.

Check all sections of this site, little design ideas are sparkling everywhere here!

Project Fedena

Project Fedena is the open source school management system based on Ruby on Rails. It was initially developed by a team of developers at Foradian Technologies. The project was made open source by Foradian, and is now maintained by the open source community.

But from design point of view what makes this site stand out is light background resembling light paper and hand-drawn icons and buttons looking very realistic and natural.  Only two colors are used –  dark red and 2 variations of grey color, pretty impressive. Strong grid system and white space just emphasize right elements –  nice alternative to minimal icons, create minimal hand-drawn ones instead!

Kyee

This website is owned by Kyee from England creating beautiful websites which are minimal, beautiful and modern, I checked his portfolio as well and I was impressed, I suggest you to do the same for further inspiration and study how modern design should look in 2010!

What’s impressive in this particular design –  it is simple, light without big design element, but it looks so professional!

At first there are just 1 main color (blue) used in different variations and that’s it, what creates that comfortable feeling when we visit Kyee portfolio page? A lot of white space –  design is so hard, because it’s so simple – every section gets the space it deserves.

Everything else is minimal –  even logo, really small font size, but headings really stand out to deliver the message.

Impressive portfolio and skill!

I just couldn’t stand and exclude this beautiful piece of art! Light noise added, nice separator with subtle logo and input fields also get well deserved space making hard for you not to start typing your contact info automatically!

WPBundle

Liam from WeFunction just finished his design on WPBundle which will be shop for bundle of webdesign candies like 10 WordPress themes, icon sets and various other useful goodies, but to make this work of course professional site is necessary to prove their skill and create sales.

Since Liam and his team are really experienced they’ve put together amazing site – both from design and functionality point of view. In the screenshot also we can see how light texture is used to resemble with Twitter sky, but really such little elements rule the world now. Watch out for subtle dashed lines, calm buttons and little colors.

Emphasize just what you really need!

They Make Apps

But what if you want to create minimal site, but it is almost impossible because of all the functions and links you need to include in your design?

Create design –  black&white, at least almost, using less is more even in colors!

TheyMakeApps website has recently won Webby and SXSV awards –  it is online shop for mobile apps and also hanging place for all app makers dying to earn some money for good work.

You will notice here several trends –  boxed background, precise logo ( by precise I mean it has been measured, which is popular trend lately too) and of course keep icons minimal using just color.

Simple Bits

SimpleBits web agency designs and builds simple, usable, and attractive interfaces that account for speed, file size, readability and accessibility — using web standards and also it has interesting blog in the meantime.

But now about design –  little ribbons are gaining popularity as well, forget about web 2.0 colored badges –  use them as naturally as possible. SimpleBits logo sits nicely on red ribbon, where it resembles with real bookmark we used to put in our books. Use natural colors and get resemblances in visitors – create deja-vu with real life.

Beautiful typography is definitely an important element here and notice CSS3 2–3 sec color variation on mouseovers in links!

DelliBarApp

Delibar is a full featured Delicious and Pinboard Mac client. Delibar focuses on giving Mac OS X users an easy and quick tool for searching, managing and sharing their bookmarks.

Looks like there is not any modern and great looking webdesign imaginable without self descriptive icons  as one of the main graphic design elements.

Light radial gradient, shadows,  1 px thin lines, strokes and of course beautiful typography with subtle letterpress effect. Even design element behind “Pinboard Flavor” is really calm and almost unnoticeable.

Design Swap

Site has interesting idea to bring community together by redesigning each others website.

By Trent Walton words:

“DesignSwap’s sole purpose is to promote collaborations between designers by saying one simple thing – I design on your site, you design on mine”.

I am curious how this project will work out and suggest you to join in to create new friendships and grow your experience, but now about design.

All the main elements are in the “above the fold” section showing branding and which artists are now exchanging and doing redesigns. Both circles have nice mouseover effect. Make notice on subtle texture (which is not noise in this case),many subtle letterpress effects on text and icons.

Red ribbons and sketched characters seem nostalgic and odd at the first time, but little CSS3 effects clearly show you designer knows about latest technologies and trends!

Yaron Schoen

This is personal portfolio site of Yaron Schoen, designer based in NewYork. It’s important to create the first impression good and here by quality chemistry icon expression and slogan you get immediately introduced with Yaron’s world. Design shows he is confident about his skills and while browsing his site you will also feel his experience.

But what about modern trends? Logo is minimal, even loud header uses as little graphics and colors as possible. All design is kept clean and grid based, I almost feel the most white space you will be using, the better results in the most cases you will get. Just don’t exaggerate or maybe you need to do exactly that!?

Design Informer

I couldn’t exclude this great design blog from this collection since I consider Jad Limcaco design is pure greatness including simplicity in such complex website.

Navigation and input boxes has nice mouseover effects using CSS3, header has subtle graphic to make it more interesting –  there are many little and subtle design elements you will not notice immediately, but it all together feels natural. You just have to notice those elements, use them in your own designs letting visitors enjoy information you want to deliver.

Nice element is that little ruler separating content section from sidebar –  small things matter!

Uh and did I mention this valuable art directed post teaching how to use grids to achieve clear separation of content.

Hot Meteor

Hot meteor is web agency which specializes in web, print, and branding. Design is kept really minimal and interesting it has been centered, which is unusual practice. Transparent gradient in the static header also gives nice scrolling experience!

Crush Lovely

Not used a lot just yet, but I am sure keypress navigation will gain huge popularity in future to let visitors switch categories and slide images easier. When I used keypress navigation here with left/right arrows in this single page design it was really great experience to slide through different backgrounds and styling in elegant way.

Usable Efficiency

Very valuable video tutorial site teaching you how to improve and design websites. Author got very clean and professional site designed with him, you an expand extra info –  such as comments and description about video just if you choose to.

Arty Papers

Portfolio site by R. Marie Cox, here besides white simplicity I like tiny small logo and navigation –  looking great! Just for fun, check his 10 previous site versions in the footer, interesting evolution through years!

i-Design Studios

iDesign Studios is a web design and development company specializing in creating custom web sites, focusing primarily on custom WordPress theme design and development.

Look how dashed lines do all separation and not a single bright color is used? Check out also interesting feature to switch to dark/light theme –  it’s  nice to see they think about reader by offering little personalization options

Franzz

Personal portfolio page by Francesco Fonte, nice addition to site is percentage skill graph, where he measures his own skills by percent. I couldn’t avoid to notice subtle background texture and light “more” –  such eye candy!

Monty Lounge Industries

This is a portfolio site created by experienced web designer Kevin Fricovsky and huge titles do make an impression!

Dustin Allen Pace

Portfolio website of 23 years old web designer Dustin and this is his showcase site. Play with navigation to enjoy light mouseover sliding.

Pixelumbrella

Pixelumbrella is the online portfolio of Seattle-based web designer and developer Nick Robinson.

5 Squared

Single page portfolio website – definitely saves clicks and some of the expensive time!

Skylar Anderson

Jason Duerr

THG Creative

Einserver

This is personal blog and portfolio site by Florian Pichler from Deutchland. What I liked here was little font size –  maybe for bigger resolutions it would be too small, but for my laptop it was just the right way! Interesting –  everything is small, but white space is used in the right way and that’s what makes it feel and look so good I think.

Great design element here is animated navigation too with sliding ribbons on mouseovers and active sections.

David Kim

Very light and simple yet professional single paged web designer site, love the clean sight!

Virb

A Dfferent Design

Solv-UX

Clientr

Verticis

Selvanova

While header might contain a little bit too much information, but light content section is just plain brilliance –  light mouseover effects, little icons and dashed lines. Thoughtful design.

Nice Reply

MetaSet

Just A Lab

JoyPad

Joyent

Mark Palma

Interesting feature in this site subtle background icons behind content – such icons affects readability a little bit but definitely interesting touch of design and idea

Brett Chaney

Render Wave

This website stands out with its really interesting perspective slider, check it out!

Adam Woodhouse