22 Latest Web Design Trends for 2024

With each passing year, new technologies emerge, and so do recent web design trends. This article will present the latest trends in this later industry to ensure you’re on top of the trend & getting the best out of your website’s look.

Well, there are no clear borders or rules based on which we define whether a website is outdated or isn’t aligned with trends. Some say a once-in-three-years revamp is the best option, while some agencies say once a year is optimal!

We remain neutral with our own take: Keep the website functioning well and well optimized, and updating the design every two years should be enough!

Anyway, if you are still stuck on some old web design stylistics, it is time to wave goodbye!

It’s 2024, and it’s the AI and ChatGPT Era! It’s time to move toward the web design trends of 2024!

So, let’s the check out top 22 web design trends for the year 2024:

Kinetic typography

Using kinetic typography can be a great addition to your website & can help users digest your content better.

The name “Kinetic Typography” may sound like something straight out of a physics textbook. But it is just a fancy word that is also commonly known as “moving text.”

It is basically an animation technique used extensively in the opening title of films during the 60s. At that time, this technique was used to grab the viewer’s attention. And in 2024, you can still use it to grab the user’s attention once they visit your site.

With kinetic typography, you can also bring attention to important sections of your site.

In addition, it can gradually reveal information as the user scrolls through the site. A classic example of kinetic typography is the Arcadia homepage, where animated text appears upon scrolling.

Parallax scrolling

Parallax scrolling is also among the list of top web design trends for 2024 & has been used by several big brands. Using this effect, you can add depth to your pages & make them appear more dynamic.

Parallax scrolling is more common in sites that utilize web applications with the aid of text, images, and video to create a dynamic experience.

In parallax scrolling, it appears as if the images/videos are placed behind other sections upon scrolling. This subtle change can make your content more engaging & helps in creating a better user experience.

A classic example of parallax scrolling is the Dogstudio homepage which features an animated dog in the background.

Cursor animation

Usually, the cursors on most websites look the same… But in 2024, cursor animation is becoming more popular, especially on websites that offer tools and web applications.

Using animated cursors delivers a unique user experience & helps websites stand out from other opened tabs and websites. 

There are many online tools through which you can generate unique animated cursors for your website. But if you want a more tailored approach, you can also get a web design agency to design cursor animations as part of the website design.

Similarly, you can incorporate animations that are triggered by the cursor movement to make your website more interesting in 2024.

Data visualization

It can be a struggle to communicate data interestingly and engagingly. And that’s where data visualization comes to play!

Using charts and other visual representations of data are increasingly becoming the norm in web design. So, another web design trend to take advantage of is turning textual data into visuals.

Some of the best ways to visualize your data & incorporate it on your site are to use graphs and infographics. Similarly, you can also use dashboards to provide a full-fledged overview of data in an interesting way.

You can create a UI library on Figma or even on Canva & rely on it to produce most of the visuals in the future. That way, you can automate this process, and anyone from your team can take care of this endeavor.

Dark mode

Android introduced dark mode in 2019, while iOS introduced it earlier in 2018. But since then, this trend has also moved into websites & for good reasons.

Incorporating the dark mode feature into your website enhances the UX, especially since many people tend to surf the internet at night. And that’s when the dark mode is more useful to them!

A comforting experience on your website will encourage the person to stay longer on your website, thus improving all other related metrics!

So, by adopting this design trend, you get to keep the users engaged on your site & even lower the bounce rate.

Smart content loading

Do you have a resource-heavy website that is taking too long to load? Then take advantage of the smart content loading technology! The latter became quite popular in 2022, and it’s getting more attention ever since!

On that front, we may say that smart content loading is not a new web design trend, but it will remain relevant this year without any doubt.

We have already seen intelligent content loading in action on multiple social media sites including Meta’s Instagram & Facebook. The web version of these platforms only loads content when the user scrolls down. This allows for faster website loading speed, and therefore enhances the UX.

Micro-interactions

Micro-interactions are small surprise events that are triggered when a user takes action on the website. For example, Twitter reminds users that there are new tweets if they haven’t refreshed the page for a while.

Upon refreshing the Twitter feed, users also hear a popping sound. This is a classic example of micro-interactions that can help users interact with the Twitter platform.

Facebook, as well, shows notifications with specific numbers in red.

Once again, such micro-transactions can improve the user experience & increase engagement.

However, this doesn’t give you the green light to start to place fake signals and notification buttons on your website. Authenticity and honesty is key in a digital world that’s filled with untrue information.

So, feel free to condition your visitors onto navigating the website through micro-interactions as long as they’re legit.

Those interactions can be added to a site in the form of chimes, scroll animations, and so on.

GIFs-based graphics

We believe that the use of GIFs as graphics will also be among the top web design trends of 2024! In fact, their use can help you to deliver a better user experience as compared to using stock photos!

The use of still images is widespread across the web, and if you want to stand out from the competition, GIFs might be the best alternative! They can be animated while preserving a light size and seamless loading characteristic.

In fact, you can also use GIF-based images to give instructions to the users without writing a lot of words or adding lengthy videos!

Keep it simple

I know you have been hearing the phrase “Keep it simple” for several years now. And in 2024, keeping your design simple is still a thing!

In 2024, users no longer have the patience or the time to go through a complicated web design with a slow loading speed and unclear content layout. Based on this, we believe that all the elements of your website design should follow this mantra of “keeping it simple.”

The Starbucks Coffee homepage is an excellent example of a simple website design with aesthetically pleasing graphics. This tells us that you don’t have to use big words or complicated pictures to convey your message to the visitors.

Bold typography

Typography helps you to establish the visual hierarchy of your site & to strike a good balance between graphics & content. Another benefit of following good typography practices is that it helps you to improve the accessibility & readability of your site.

And these two things are significant components of a good user experience.

For 2024, you should incorporate bold typography in your site to make it more readable & accessible to your audience.

Still, marketers like myself are yet unsure about how Google and other major search engines would interpret the use of different text formats in a seemingly random manner. That’s why I am still skeptical and I won’t recommend incorporating this web design trend, especially for new websites!

Illustrations

Modern looks in 2024 require more than stock photos! Illustrations and flat/outline designs are exceptionally taking over the web design arena recently. In fact, many big brands have already started to use illustrations on their website.

Our agency, for instance, developed a set of outline Avatars & our team uses them throughout our website and social media!

With illustrations, you can make your website look more personalized and unique as well.

If you think about it, people are used to seeing pictures on almost all websites. Illustrations simply speak more devotion and professionalism!

They carry as much aesthetics and appeal as function! That’s ‘cause you can use SVG format illustrations on your web pages, making the size much smaller & the speed much higher!

Overlapping text

Overlapping text is also among the top web design trends.

Ever since the inception of the web, people have been used to neat and evenly-spaced layouts. But why not break these rules and move towards more crowded and overlapping texts!?

It’ll definitely give a fresh outlook to the visitors!

That’s not to say that you can go out and overlap every single element on your site or landing page!

You can keep it to a minimum by overlapping a certain headline or a certain portion of your website. This will allow you to maintain a polished and neat aesthetic while also tending to mainstream trends.

In short, break the uniformity of your pages a little bit without descending into full chaos in which nothing makes sense anymore.

Text-only hero section

Just like a hero is the main character of a movie/tv-series, a hero section is the most important part of any website.

This portion of the website is present above the fold & is used to convey the value proposition, CTA, or other important elements.

Normally, most websites make their hero section image heavy along with a blend of text. But one of the web design trends of 2024 is to make your hero section “text only.” Of course, you can make the text interesting with eye-catching typography or effects!

As mentioned earlier, you can also use unique and bold fonts to attract the user’s attention & to make the most out of your hero section.

White space

White or negative space refers to the empty area that’s present between different elements of a website. The use of white space gives your content enough room to breathe and improves readability.

Despite the term ‘white space,’ it doesn’t have to be white necessarily.

On Apple’s website, for instance, the landing page for iPad makes good use of white space with eye-catching animations and typography.

Full-height hero section

Make your hero section full-height so it covers the entire above-the-fold area of your website. In a sense, you can turn your hero section into a giant billboard that provides you with a medium to convey your message.

This web design trend will allow you to catch the user’s attention right away without any distractions.

One thing to keep in mind is to optimize your website for different browsers and devices. So, when you are incorporating the full-height hero section, always pay close attention to the responsiveness of your site.

Ideally, check your website on all major devices. A good way to check your website design’s responsiveness on a lot of devices is through BrowserStack.

Gradients

The use of color gradients is nothing new and will continue to be among the top web design trends for 2024 as well. In case you don’t know, a color gradient is a combination of position-dependent colors. Basically, you can pick two colors to create a gradient that shows the progression from one color to another.

With the use of gradients, you can create eye-catching backgrounds on your website. And besides being visually appealing, they also add depth to different sections of your site. When combined with illustrations, text, and animations, gradients can transform a dull-looking site into an art piece!

Frosted glass effects

The frosted glass effect is quite popular in Photoshop and other photo editing tools. But with the advancement in web technologies, this effect made its way to web design.

When the frosted glass effect is applied to an image, it appears as if you are viewing the image through a frosted glass window.

The frosted glass effect can make your images look blurry, and when applied to background images, it leads to great-looking website sections.

Besides filling an area with color, it also gives a glimpse of the background image.

Overall, it can help CTAs or any other objects to remain readable, visible, and eye-catching.

If you are conveying an important message through your images, then it is not recommended to use the frosted glass effect.

But there’s nothing stopping you from giving it a go to experiment with how it looks!

3D elements

With advancements in technology, you can transform your website into a fully immersive 3D world that can keep visitors hooked. Last year, we saw a lot of major brands bring immersive & 3D websites, which also attracted a lot of attention.

And with new advancements in VR tech and rising interest, there’s a lot you can provide to your visitors through fully rendered 3D websites!

Such websites can use audio, video, and animations to create a 3D world that changes based on the user’s interaction. A good example of a website utilizing 3D content is Panasonic Connect, in which users can scroll to view all the different products offered by the company.

This showcases that only imagination is the limit & you can achieve a lot with interactive 3D websites!

But to use this website design trend, you will likely have to pay a lot more than for a simple website with text and images and other essential MVPs. Also, the loading speed would be much longer than it should be on an Enterprise or an e-commerce website!

However, the user interaction & the attention your brand can get from this website design trend will be a lot more than what you will pay to a web design firm!

Drag interaction

Drag interaction makes it appear as if a user is performing an actual action on your website. So, in a sense, it allows the users to have more control over their experience on your site.

With this technology, users can drag and drop different objects on your website with the help of a mouse or a tap on tactile screens.

Earlier, this drag-and-drop feature was only used in website builders, but it has now become accessible to end users as well.

For portfolio and e-commerce websites, drag interaction can add a lot of functionality and make the websites more visually appealing.

The Robin Mastromarino website is a great example of this function, and so is CDC’s home page!

Once fully loaded, our homepage allows you to hold and move case studies until you find one that’s relevant for you. Check the video below:

Micro animation

As the name implies, this web design trend is to use small but meaningful animations.

With the introduction of micro animations, you can induce clicks upon users by making certain parts animated or bouncy. In addition, micro animations make websites more interesting and visually appealing to users.

For instance, you can include a downward-pointing animating arrow in the header section. Upon clicking it, users will be able to see other sections of your site. Similarly, micro-animations can also be used on e-commerce sites to enhance the user experience and give a better overview of different products.

Personalized content

Personalized content is already served by many top websites. But in 2024, we believe that it will become a more mainstream web design trend.

It is highly possible that you may already have come across a website whose content changes when you revisit them. But when you visit the same website from a different device for the first time, you see the original content once again…

This is done through the use of your location and browsing history… Once the website has enough information about the user behavior, history, and location… more personalized and tailored content can be served to them.

By introducing personalized content, you can increase the conversion rate on your website. And to see this personalized content in action, there’s no better example than the Google search itself!

For instance, my teammates in Europe would see different homepages on Amazon from our managers in Canada or from mine here in Morocco!

De facto, personalized content adds a lot of value to e-commerce websites. Once a user has interacted with different products on an e-commerce website, more relevant products can be shown, resulting in more sales.

Pixelation

Pixelation was not a feature back in the day and was quite common in games, graphics, and whatnot. But the last few years were a turning point! The feature grew into an aesthetic effect and found its use in icons, fonts, and all types of graphics…

With the use of pixelation, you can give your website more of a retro look. However, such a website design trend might not be appropriate for every type of website…

Conclusion

The world of website design continues to evolve, and you can’t afford to miss out on the bandwagon. If you want your website to look the best version of itself in 2024, then make sure to try at least some of the web design trends mentioned above.

And if you need help making up your mind, rest assured, our team is always here!