At the beginning of the 2000s, colorful flash animations and visitor counters were considered the height of web design, but now the focus is on completely different aspects. If you want to keep a stylish, professional looking presence online, it is worth keeping up to date with the latest trends. This article will tell you what web design trends await us in 2019.

1) Infinite Scrolling

Scrolling instead of clicking – that’s how easy it is to describe the principle of “Infinite Scrolling”, which has been increasingly found on websites for some years now and is also one of the web design trends for 2019.

This form of web design is particularly suitable for websites with a homogeneous range of information:  Once the end of a content section has been reached, the next one loads immediately. Portals such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram use this method.

But beware – for more complex web projects with different categories and topic clusters, the web design trend of Infinite Scrolling should be ignored. Here the user friendliness could be lost due to missing navigation possibilities.

2) Serif fonts

Presumably every web designer sooner or later encountered the credo “serifs are for print”. But trends wouldn’t be such if they didn’t break the rules from time to time. And so the written form with the characteristic up and down strokes on the individual letters establishes itself as a real web design trend by 2019 at the latest.

The serif typeface is becoming increasingly popular, especially for headline elements, thanks to its decorative design. The font, which was originally mainly used for daily newspapers, is also associated with positive characteristics such as seriousness and trust.

Mail chimp’s use of serif fonts
https://mailchimp.com/ uses the serif font in its headline elements
Use of serif fonts on vogue’s website
The body of text in this article on vogue.co.uk uses serif fonts

3) Olderly website

Less is more – this is the lesson of Marie Kondo, who is the talk of the town. The trend towards minimalism also arrived in web design in 2019. So ask yourself the following two questions when you look at the content on your website:

  • Does the content provide relevant information?
  • Does the content offer real added value to the user?

If you cannot answer both with a clear “yes”, you should consider either optimising the content so that it becomes more informative or provides added value, or removing it from your website.

A tidy, and well-structured website not only has a positive effect on the visual appearance, it also improves usability, increases conversions, increases loading speed and can therefore have a positive effect on the Google ranking of the website.

visitsweden’s website showing a minimalist style
visitsweden.com showcases the minimalistic web design style to great effect

4) Micro Interactions

Small, creative animation effects that surprise the user – this is called “Micro Interactions” in web design. Used sparingly and correctly, these interactions increase the time spent on the website or app.

Examples for well implemented Micro Interactions can be found here: https://www.awwwards.com/awwwards/collections/animation/

5) Authentizität bei der Bilderauswahl

A web design trend that will, probably to everyone’s delight, continue to prevail in 2019 is authenticity in the selection of images for the website. The times of exchangeable, striking and emotionless stock photos, which can also be found on hundreds of other websites, are finally over.

stock photos are out of fashion
Stock photos are impersonal and replaceable – as shown by these Shutterstock images of doctors (source: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-doctor-smiling-camera-on-white-255821086?src=IYZskBCm6_cXa8X9l-6MPQ-1-4)

However, photos of real employees, which stand out positively due to their personality and individuality, can be seen more and more frequently, especially on company websites. This not only has a more authentic effect, but is also a confidence-building measure towards the user.

Genuine, authentic photos for this business page
Genuine, authentic photos for the Bagelman’s website (Source: bagelman.co.uk)

Summary of web design trends 2019

In 2019, web design trends will continue previous trends or focus even more on them. Ultimately, the goal of every website should be to offer the user what they are looking for and to guide them in a user-friendly way through a customer journey. The current web design trends can provide creative input and inspiration for this in order to keep up with web design in 2019.