The Big Web Design Trends for 2015

This type of layout almost always works in each resolution without having to put much work in fine tuning resolution depending on design versions. Implementing (I mean basically writing CSS) these designs is a breeze when compared to more complex layouts that need exceptional amount of work and CSS expertise to assure fine result in all devices.

Good point, @JKK.

I think the fact that it’s built into the base structure of things like Ghost and Skeleton means a lot of mediocre layouts use the ‘huge background/small text layout’ as their starting point.

Obviously you can easily change the default templates for these things, but people often stick with defaults. The thinking is “There’s a big picture area here. What picture should I use?” rather than “Should I use a big picture here?”.

Not to disagree with you at all. Your point is true and needs to be stated. However…

There is only so much ‘freshness’ matters. Especially at the lower end of the market where businesses only have so much resourcing to provide to design. And by “resourcing” I mean attention span and room to think, as much as I mean money.

Many businesses care less about originality and cutting edge design then they do about other things. I hear these things often:

  • “Make it Look Good. No, I don’t know what Look Good means.”

  • “I want my site to look like That One Over There. It’s got a Nice Big Thing something something”

  • “Move that thing over there and that other thing over there”

Don’t get me wrong: I’m totally not knocking on the clients I hear this from. They’ve simply got priorities and want things done their way.

I anticipate that a possible response to this is “you are the designer and therefore should lead. express your authority”.And I totally agree with that as well. I like being the Design Stalinist.

But some companies simply don’t have time for it. And interested parties don’t have the headspace to accept the leadership and education that is neccessary for delivery of a superior product. They just want things done their way.

In these all-to-common cases following common design trends (ie, Design Patterns that work well) is perfect.

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Make it Big sites strike me as a misinterpretation of “mobile first” as “mobile only” and, as several of you have commented, it’s easier and less costly up front to use one design. But the downside in user retention on larger devices could be even more costly. Just a few days ago Nielsen Norman Group published an article on why the page fold still matters (http://www.nngroup.com/articles/page-fold-manifesto/). Big is super for some sites, but definitely not for all.

“Make it big” is easy to get completely wrong. If it’s just a large image with a couple of random words then many visitors who hit the page just leave because they do not realize that there is actual content on the page! This is especially true for mobile where they do not see a scrollbar and the menu (if it’s on the page at all) collapses into a tiny button. It works for landing pages that also display a well-defined call-to-action (like a register/login form or simply one big “Buy” button or maybe even “Scroll down to see content”) but otherwise just causes confusion and drops your conversion rate.

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By doing this, it really makes the website look more beautiful, neat, and relaxing.

This is a good idea, but aren’t we sacrificing the overall visibility of the website by minimizing it’s content specially in the homepage?

Nope, you misunderstand.
My comment was referring to the content of the article, not the writer(s).

“Mystery Meat” is the old, already existing, name for this way of building webpages.

If i arrive to a page, and all i see is “bla bla bla” in the middle of a 2560x1440 pixels huge blurry image of someone drinking a cappuccino (or whatever).
Am I then supposed to start hunting around to find out if there is some kind of hidden navigation, or more hidden content on the page, or any more pages on the site?

Of course not.
I usually just leave.

This is a moronic design fad.

Either you want people to find your content, so you don’t hide it.
Or you want people to NOT find your content, so you hide it.

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Two trends to lose.

  1. All those gigantic heroes. They are really no different that the “Welcome” screen of the 90s - for flash and static websites. Big heroes just for a fad are pointless. (Somewhat) Big heroes that are useful are a bit more compelling: https://www.digitalocean.com/ or https://www.optimizely.com/

  2. Giant sticky headers and navigation bars.

Sorry, @MatsSvensson. You’re right. I missed your context.

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I’m torn on whether this design trend is good or bad. I agree that it’s poor design when the user is left wondering what the site is about and where to click next to get some content. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Some sites do this very tastefully, creating a nice atmosphere that invites more exploration, while still making it clear what they are about and how to navigate the site.

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Bootstrap sure made all websites look the same with huge background photos and 3-4 word text overlaid on top of them. That being said we can’t put all the blame on Bootstrap. People are too lazy to make unique websites nowadays. They get templates and frameworks and don’t even bother customizing them. I’m not against the use of templates at all but I think people should make a bit of effort to make their websites stand out. Here is what Jason Fried said about the modern web design trends:

Most of these designs can be described like this: First, you see a huge photo with some text over it. Then, as you scroll down, the background slides away and another big photo with more text on it pops up. And so on… Maybe you’ve seen this style–it’s starting to crop up everywhere. To a designer’s eye, it looks good, and it’s technically impressive, but I’m not sure it says anything meaningful about the companies using it. Worse (for those companies), it’s created a new kind of clutter: Too many companies look the same–all style and not enough substance.

I totally agree with him. The written content is still what draws people in. Without a good copy you won’t be able to attract potential clients/customers no matter how good the visuals are.

I guess if there’s ‘x’ amount of web design, then only ‘x/10’ – the top 10% – of it will be excellent.

The bottom half will – by definition – be mediocre to bad. So the only question is exactly how that bottom half executes mediocrity. 10 years ago that would have almost certainly meant a ‘header bar and three column layout’ because that was the easiest, most common way to create a mediocre design.

Today the ‘Big background and Big centered text’ is that vehicle.

So, I guess I’m saying, you could force a mediocre design team into using a different format, but chances are the results would probably be just as uninspired. They’d just be ordinary in a new and different way.

Perhaps Big Text is a better template for so-so designers to stick to than most templates?

#just thinkingoutloud

I’d be happy with that one. I’m rather glad the days of having to squint even to read a site’s intro text are largely behind us. :slight_smile:

Good collection but some of the sites have amazing design but wasn’t easy to consume the content. I could be wrong. But thanks for compiling it was definitely refreshing to see some creative stuff in one place.

I hate the make it big trend. Look at the LA Times website. I used to love to read the news there and was a very active commentator and I enjoyed reading the comments. Now I avoid that site completely. It is awful. You get bounced out of the articles you click, you cannot easily comment or see the comments anymore and it takes over your entire screen with big glossy photos I could care less about. I READ the news online. I do not read it in magazines, photographers portfolio websites or watch TV news. I do not even watch news videos. I read my news quietly. This make it big trend is totally annoying to me.
I like to get to a site, see a normal menu, search bar and find articles or content without what they think is fancy and artistic.

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That was an amazing collection! Every year web designers do something fresh, different and inspiring which takes the unique place in marketing…The Born design grab all my attention at all…

Yep.

Some designers just have no clue.

Surely people are buying these 40" 4K-screens, just so they can get a really really really good look at our scaled up background image and two word headline.

There are many changes occured down the years in designing… If you planning to create an infograph , You have many online tools like. But if you have no idea on how to use them effectively you can go for Infographic services.

Try 8k - http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/07/lg-leaks-8k-imac/

So where is the 8k content?