Community & Inspiration articles

This month's website designs are showing elements of what is happening in the world around us. While this is often true, some of the things we are seeing right now are an immediate reaction to current events. Trending this month are designs for website notifications and pop-ups, retro typography, and blue and green color schemes. Here’s what’s trending in design this month. Website Notifications The COVID-19 world health pandemic has...

Are you trapped in a fourth floor apartment listening to the guy next door serenade the block from his balcony with a saxophone he made from a length of rubber tubing and an old boot? While people the world over very sensibly self-isolate, it’s still possible to be productive, why not work on your portfolio? Strap on your noise-cancelling headphones, turn on some white noise, and grab some inspiration from our monthly roundup of the best portfolios...

If you’re self-isolating thanks to Covid-19, or simply a fulltime remote worker, keeping in touch with the industry can be tricky; There aren’t any water-coolers to gather around, and your cat is less knowledgeable about CSS than she likes to pretend. One of the best solutions is web design podcasts. They’re a great way to grow your skills and ideas, while enjoying a fun, informal chat. Web design podcasts are entertaining, insightful,...

Two of these three trends comes with some usability concerns but are a lot of fun to look at and play with. Would you take the risk of trying one of these design techniques? The third trend (up first in this list) is a new take on bold color palettes that shifts from some of the colors that have been overwhelmingly popular for a while. Here’s what’s trending in design this month. Warm Colors, Especially Reds Warm colors – especially red tones...

Each month we publish a roundup of the best new portfolios, launched in the previous four weeks, by freelancers, agencies, and other creative professionals. This month’s edition is packed with color and animation. Almost every site in this list animates some part of its interface, and many are dependent on animation entirely. You’ll find tons of great interaction design, but the real trend in 2020 is that personality is making its way...

Designers are embracing big, bold concepts with oversized elements, bright color, and even a little rule-breaking. (The best part? Most of these trends seem to overlap somewhat.) Here’s what’s trending in design this month. Homepage Headline Heroes Homepage hero areas are shifting again from website entryways with plenty of text, CTAs, and options for users, to simple displays with big headlines (and maybe not much else). Use of oversized...

January 2020 is picking up where 2019 left off, with lots of animation and even more bold, bright color schemes. We’re also seeing an unusual number of luxury sites this month, and as always there’s a strong set of startups trying to break into the market. Enjoy! Plink To take on giants like PayPal, you need a compelling brand and a simple message, that can also wow with its first impression. Plink hits the nail on the head with its 3D animation....

Every month we roundup the best new portfolios released in the previous four weeks. This month we’re looking back at the whole of 2019, and picking out 19 of our favorites from the last 12 months. There’s a mixture here of colorful and restrained, experimental and expected; the one thing they all have in common is an attention to details that creates an exceptional UX. Enjoy! WTF Studio If you’re going to name your business WTF Studio, you...

From some very tough competition, these are the 50 sites we liked the best this year. Each one has been chosen either because it took a unique approach, or because it was central to a design trend that was a big hit in 2019. There’s a lot of fullscreen video, a lot of illustration, and the emergence of a post-Brutalist maximalism trend that’s set to keep running into 2020 and beyond. Is your favorite included in the list? Nomadic Tribe Illustration...

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....