Community & Inspiration articles

Each year, at this time, Pantone nominates a color — or colors, in the case of 2016 — to represent humanity’s hopes and aspirations for the coming year. At least, that is what its PR department sends out. In reality, it’s a rather obvious — if highly effective — marketing gimmick to keep the print-design company relevant to design news year-on-year. It’s an arbitrary bit of self-promotion, that does an excellent job of reinforcing...

This month’s collection of design trends is a gift to behold. Each of the trends are highly usable options that are versatile, giving you plenty of room to play and make them your own. That’s the best kind of trend, right? Here’s what’s trending in design this month. Whimsical Illustrations It seems like whimsical illustrations are practically everywhere. Fun drawings that can be anything from line-style illustrations to full-color...

This month, the slow decline of minimalism continues, and color is everywhere. There’s some awesome type, and video-based maximalism seems to be gaining a foothold. Enjoy! Another Colour I adore Another Colour’s site. It takes incredible complexity to produce an effect this simple. The landing page is a looping rainbow gradient, and the gradient strip on the left takes you to the related point. Click a case study, and you’ll see tons...

In this month’s collection we’re seeing some minor trends, like the return of sliders, over-sized text, and liquid effects. But the biggest thing of note is a brand new trend: brutalist typography and layouts, made more appealing by soft, feminine color palettes. Enjoy! Wolff Olins Globally renowned agency Wolff Olins’ new site is engagingly simple, but when a company like this embraces a trend, you know it’s got staying power....

There’s always a balance between visual design and functional design. Many of the “rules” of design as we know them exist to make visuals more functional. That’s not exactly true of all of the techniques that are trending right now. But sometimes rules are made to be broken, right? You can take these trends in and decide whether they work for you or not. (There’s no right or wrong answer.) Here’s what’s trending in design this month....

All the signs are that web design is entering a phase of exuberance, with clashing colors, rapidly changing graphics, and dense layouts replacing the minimalism that’s dominated digital design for the last decade. Portfolios are beginning to adopt this maximalist approach, but never fear, for those who aren’t quote ready for full-on retina burn on a Monday in late October, we’ve included a few beautifully minimal sites for you to...

You’ll find a few other trends, and sites that ignore trends altogether, in our roundup of the freshest web design this month, but it’s hard to ignore the vibrancy that’s taking over. Enjoy! Chevalvert Chevalvert is a French design agency whose site visually bombards you from the moment it loads. The maximalist approach is visually overwhelming in places, and individual work can be hard to distinguish, but what the site conveys brilliantly...

There’s a bonus trend in the roundup this month. (Four trends rather than three…but you’ll have to find it!) Our more obvious collection of trends are visual elements – skinny vertical design blocks, a shift to tiny logos and branding rather than the oversized center logos that have been popular for a while, and dark and moody design schemes. The extra trend is more interactive; you’ll have to click through the examples to find it....

This month, there’s tons of color, and some elegant transitions. Video is huge this month, with a number of sites opting for video front and center. You’ll also find some delightful animated illustration. Enjoy! Bon Iver Visualizer This impressive site, built with Spotify data, visualizes all of the people currently streaming Bon Iver music, including key details of their location like elevation, and weather conditions. It’s a...

Every month we roundup the best portfolios launched by agencies, freelance designers, and other creative professionals, into one easy-to-digest collection. And now we come to September. The kids are off to school (the poor dears), the teachers are off to school (the poor dears), and you’re free to spend some time thinking about the most important holiday of the year. You’ve got to get ready for it emotionally, spiritually, and financially....

This month’s collection of design trends focuses on a bit of a slow burn – design techniques that appeal to millennials (maybe) and Generation Z. Gen-Zers are those born between 1997 and 2012, meaning part of this generation is in grade school. This generation is impacting design trends already because they are the most digital savvy generation yet. And they start using digital tools at even younger ages, making it no surprise that they...

This month we leap back to the culture of America circa 1969, dive into the oceans with whales, discover multiple approaches to pitching a design agency, get invited to festivals, and shop online the right way. Enjoy! Kilotype Kilotype’s awesome new site shows off its variable fonts with a clever mouse-track — move your cursor around the screen vertically and horizontally to see the full range of each family’s weight and italic. Once...

It’s August, which means the rain is finally slowing down, and I have a chance to get my roof fixed. While I wait here under a literal tarp-fort that I hung up in my office, I thought I might as well compile some of the best recent portfolios for you all to look at. We have a mix of sites this month, both colorful and, shall we say, color-minimalist. We’ve got more than a few specimens of one-column layouts, and some superb CSS Grid-based affairs....

Each of the design trends we are spotting this month have to deal with over-the-top techniques. It’s interesting because these big effects don’t always pop on the radar of what’s trending, but these concepts almost begged to be featured with a large number of projects showcasing these design elements. This type of trend is interested because designers either love them or hate them. Take a look and see if these are concepts you’ll use....