Thinking about changing your WordPress site design? Here is what you need to know
There’s a reason why certain brands revamp their image, and some have done so successfully. There are different factors that usher in the change, but much of it is done for improved positioning to better appeal to their target audience. They want to reestablish their position in the market and re-engage those who have slipped through their fingers. By refreshing their public image while staying true to their core principles, brands can get a second lease at life in a very competitive market.
The same can be said for WordPress site owners looking to improve their website design to appeal to their audiences.
Due to the volatile nature of online marketing, there is more cause for site owners to need to re-design their site. Regular search algorithm changes require everyone make tweaks to their sites so they don't…
What are the hottest new design trends emerging this year?
When you take a look backwards at design trends from recent years and compare them with those that are just now emerging, you can get a great feel for the way that user needs grow and change. It is the job of design to meet users where they need it.
Over the past few years, the digital landscape has been filled with Flat Design and responsive, drag-and-drop web templates. The rise of Flat Design was hardly a surprise given that its minimalist appeal is super-easy to replicate and personalize. Flat Design was a simple and adaptable design innovation that really embraced the medium of the screen. In doing so, it created new expectations for the harmony of usability and aesthetics.
But now that we're a few years past the heyday of Flat Design, we're starting to…
7 Web Design Trends You Can't Ignore in 2017
What do some of the top web designers have up their sleeves for 2017? In an industry that thrives on innovation and creativity, it's no surprise that the web design trends that are sure to make an impact in 2017 both push boundaries and embrace clean simplicity.
This infographic explores seven trends that are sure to make a big impact in the web design world this year. There's something for every style of designer here, from clean and tidy to chaotic and daring.
It starts with open composition, a style in which elements appear to be leaving the screen, giving visitors the impression that elements still exist somewhere outside the monitor. A trippy and intriguing concept.
Asymmetry might be more up your alley if you like to colour outside the lines every now and then.…
Our interview with Template Monster's CEO, David Braun
What are the challenges and success factors in creating online startups serving small businesses? To shed light on this with a case study, we spoke to David Braun about why he founded Template Monster and where he is taking the businesses during an interesting time for web developers looking to serve small businesses.
How did you come to a decision to start template monster ?
David: It all started quite a long time ago, although it seems as if it were yesterday. TemplateMonster wasn’t created from scratch, it was based on a local web development agency. We owe the idea of TemplateMonster to the customers who didn’t need a custom design, they needed a cheaper solution. At the moment we didn’t have anything that would meet their requirements. Once I saw a designer working with his templates and that was the moment when the idea…
Flat Website Design: A Fad or the Web’s New Look?
Like the hottest fashion fads, website design trends come and go. The days when carousel sliders and sidebars ruled the Web are long gone. In the last few years, flat websites have taken over.
The reason? Modern Internet users are savvier than their predecessors. They know how to navigate a webpage, so there’s no need to use shading and textures to guide their eyes.
Flat designs also have faster load times and a clean, professional look. According to Bluehost, these sites offer perfect scalability for mobile devices. These attributes not only enhance UX but also improve a site’s PageRank.
But is flat design a bottle-rocket fad that will burn out as fast as it took off? Or will it be the Web’s new wayfarer – a trend that remains popular through the decades…
Examples of the latest trends in creating desktop and mobile digital experiences
In this article I'm going to review the trends in digital experience design that we've seen so far in 2016. As a designer and developer, I’ve written about such trends before, but this is the first year where I have started to notice the more significant changes I'll describe first.
In the web design/digital experience development community, there has often been separation between the way a website looks and the way a website works. This has generally resulted in differences of opinion between designers and developers. In recent years we have started to see this change, but for the first time we are seeing less of a divide with designers now paying serious attention to functionality and not just to form and design.
1. Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence will have a big impact on the way designers…
When selecting colours for your site, consider which are most popular
You see endless posts about the meanings of various colours. Purple conveys superiority, blue= calm, red= passion and yellow= happiness. This is all well and good, but misses one crucial point which should be considered when assessing site colour; what colours do people actually like?
This chart shows the favourite and least favourite colours of over 200 people across various age groups, although the majority were aged 19-35.
It's interesting that blue was so popular across genders, and brown was almost universally unpopular. When it came to purple there was a big difference between genders, with almost a quarter of women saying it was their favourite colour and over a fifth of men saying it was their least favourite.
So it's probably best not to use too much brown…
Which resolutions of web browsers should you target when testing new website designs or on conversion rate optimization projects?
It pays to be aware of the screen resolutions for the devices your prospects and customers are using since the quality of experience you deliver through your website can vary hugely depending on how well your design works at different resolutions. Even with a responsive web design (RWD) where screen layout adjusts depending on resolution, there are 'break points' which may mean that some resolutions don't work so well.
The latest worldwide screen resolutions show the challenge of the wide range of Desktop vs Mobile vs Tablet screen resolutions to test against. Of course, the tablet and smartphone resolutions have to be tested in both portrait and landscape format:
Of course, to find out the…
The evolution of flat design and how its journey so far can shape your online presence
Whatever the goal of your site, it has to have style and substance to succeed, but what if I told you that following one web design trend could help you to achieve both?
Increased browser support for CSS3 saw an explosion of gradients and box shadows, but the web development world is taking a huge leap away from these traditional design details and embracing the clean, crisp nature of flat design. The move sees less vendor prefixes and shorter style sheets, two factors that mean less kilobytes on page load. Here we will explore the key principles of flat design, its impact on user behaviour, experience and ultimately conversion, and unveil how this particular trend is likely to evolve throughout 2016.
Flat design at a glance
Thanks to its minimalistic nature, flat design has been the go-to concept…
The anatomy of a successful website in 2016 and beyond
Digital marketing is such a fluid industry that many changes have taken place this past year alone.
Consider:
The Mobilegeddon threatened lots of website owners, only for it to produce less dramatic ramifications to most sites, at the very least.
The latest Google search engine guidelines emphasized high-quality standards for Your Life or Your Page (YLYP) and placed more value on Expertise/Authoritativeness/Trustworthiness (E-A-T), among other changes.
The emergence of personalized content such as Facebook’s Instant Articles, Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
There are probably more changes that went under the radar and developments that are about to take place soon in this field. This goes to show that digital marketing is an ever-evolving industry that requires marketers to stay abreast with the latest news to keep themselves informed about its best practices.
Throughout the years, there are digital marketing practices…
