Lately, casually browsing through some websites, I have found some that caught my eye. It was because of their unique web design that seemed to inspire me to look further into it. There are definite web design trends that are exploding on the scene, which offer a visual appeal that draws you in, and perhaps makes you want to refresh your own site with a redesign. Of course trends are always changing at a rapid pace, but hopefully some of these current trends may be able to inspire you or give you a new idea.

Here we go:
1. The Retro Trend
Ad Packs

The Retro style seems to be a trend on the scene right now. I actually noticed quite a few of them while I was browsing. Perhaps this trend will be here to stay, but it definitely offers some inspiration for a creative edge.

2. The Ribbon
CJs Favorites

There has been a rise in the Ribbon trend used amongst web designers and developers recently. It is being used on both professional and personal websites. There is a debate whether or not the use of ribbons is becoming overkill, or if it adds a personal finesse. I personally like the Ribbon trend, I think it’s visually appealing.

3. Huge Headlines and Images
Second and Park

Lots of websites today are using huge headlines along with images to captivate you. By using such large words and pictures, it definitely grabs your attention and pulls you into the website. I think this is a great trend because sometimes you need something to jump out at you, and it definitely makes the experience more memorable. The headline and the images on your website set the tone for your visitors, so it doesn’t hurt if they are big and flashy.

4. Customized Typography
TapTapTap

This trend is one of my favorites. I always think different fonts add that extra “umph” that you otherwise might be missing. The typography (font, letters, style, print) trend has been exploding throughout the web design world, changing drab styles into fabulous custom fonts. It is now a possibility to create your own unique font, and I would highly suggest it.

5. Mobile Compatibility
H&M

Smartphones are EVERYWHERE nowadays, so it is important to cater to the mobile compatibility trend. This is especially if you are a business that is in constant need of marketing any product. I for one know that this function is very helpful, and I use it all the time. Since more smartphones have been enabled with CSS and JavaScript, this trend is definitely pushing web designers to be ‘mobile ready’.

6. Single Page Layout
Creative People

Sometimes it is necessary for your website to be straight and to the point. This is where the single page layout trend comes in. More and more sites are being designed to purposefully give visitors a little amount of information in a quick way. Having a one page layout allows web designers to focus on an effective strategy to appeal to visitors and users.

7. Minimalist & Creative
Get Finch

Like the one page layout trend, the minimalist and creative trend keeps things simplistic and clean cut. Instead of getting lost in a complex website, this trend allows you to engage the website in an easy manner. As opposed to busy layouts in the past years, this new white space concept is becoming ever more popular, as it is distinguishable and creative.

8. Social Media
Old Loft

There is no surprise that the social media trend is and has been growing at a rapid rate, it is almost never ending. Everyone you know uses or will most likely begin to use social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. So it is very important that web designers include the aspect of social media links on the sites they create. It will allow your visitors an easier, more accessible way to keep in touch with your site on a daily basis.

9. Introduction
Kyle Standing

Introduction boxes and headlines are an expanding web design trend. You only have a few seconds to catch a visitor’s attention when they look at your site. Having a quick, upfront way of introducing yourself and what you or your company is about is why the introduction trend works so well. It’s very catchy, and I like it because it is straight and to the point.

10. Modal/Light Box
Digg

Modal/Light boxes are kind of like pop-up windows, except they are less annoying. These boxes offer web designers a different way of displaying pictures, text and videos. Its focus is to concentrate on the information presented that is relevant to the user. I like this feature, and I use it on various websites. For example, when I do online shopping sometimes a light box will appear when I click on a certain image that I am interested in, providing me with more information. This user-friendly modal/light box trend is upcoming.

Web design trends are changing at a constant rate. Hopefully some of these trends and examples can inspire you to create or redesign your own sites. You never know, maybe it will even lead you to creating a new trend that can be introduced to the web design world. Good luck with your future creations.

Source(s):

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/web-design-trends-2010/

http://d-lists.co.uk/2010/11/02/web-design-trends-retro/

http://d-lists.co.uk/2010/08/24/web-design-trends-the-ribbon/

Why do you want to create a business website? The obvious answer is to make money online. However, creating a mere web design won’t be enough unless it looks professional and your market can see it.

To ensure that you succeed online, your web design must depict professionalism and it must be accessible by your market especially when they are actually searching for your services. This is the ultimate way of winning the trust of your market and growing your business.

So, how should you create your web design? Well, here are some powerful techniques that will allow you to create a winning web design.

Explore Your Competitors

Research and development is an important part of every business, because it helps you determine what steps you should take to effectively compete in today’s tough business world. It is also important when you are ready to create your business website.

You need to see how your competitors have created their presence online. The purpose of this exercise is not to copy anything, but rather to determine how you can come up with a better and more effective design.

Create Your Strategy

Once you go through the designs of several competitors, you now need to sit down with your designer and discuss how you can beat them in terms of professionalism and elegance. Your audience won’t be able to see you physically, so you will need to create an engaging atmosphere/design that will make them stay on your site.

If your target market will realize (after visiting your site) that they will get what they are looking for, they will surely spend some time on your site and eventually become your customers. Hence, quality design with quality content along with strategic placement of content will help you win the trust of your market.

Write and Organize Your Content Nicely

Now, as your content (along with the design) will help you win the trust of your market, you need to ensure that your content is powerful, benefit-oriented as well as visible. There is no need to hide your most powerful punch lines somewhere down. Make them visible to grab the attention of your market. Ensure that your copy can engage your visitors and eventually convert them into customers.

Create Simple Site Navigation

Make it easy for your visitors to browse your website. You must have come across dozens of websites where you felt lost due to excessive links all over the page. Don’t give the same feeling to your target audience because it can put anyone off. It’s not good to make it difficult for people to find your products. You need to make their lives as easy as possible.

Be Found Online with Your SEO-friendly Site

All the factors that we have discussed above will be useless, if your market is unable to find you. One of the best ways to reach your market is through search engines. If you reach them – right when they search for your products – your chances of converting them will increase significantly. So, ensure that you create an SEO friendly site to increase your visibility in search engines.

So, folks, based on experience, these are some powerful tips that will allow you to create an effective web design and grow your business.

Source: http://www.sitesketch101.com/enhance-your-design-to-grow-your-business

Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.

First, there’s “Open”.

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.

Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.

Second, there’s the “full web”.

Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.

Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.

Third, there’s reliability, security and performance.

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

Fourth, there’s battery life.

To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 – an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies.

Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.

When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome without any plugins whatsoever, and look great on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Fifth, there’s Touch.

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.

Sixth, the most important reason.

Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.

Conclusions.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Steve Jobs
April, 2010

Resource: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

Thoughts about this coming soon…