About a year ago, I compiled a huge list of artistic sites. It seems like the trend has carried on in 2008 and is growing stronger (thank God the glossy style is gone). So what's hot now? Pencil sketches, handwritten notes, card stocks, watercolor effects, collage art, script fonts, grungy and splatter ink backgrounds (glossy gradients are not "in" this year). Another trend to be on the lookout for are the vintage and retro styles which I've posted earlier this year. Here is a list of 82 sites picked from Best Web Gallery that show the current design trends.
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A nice collection of nicely-designed websites. However, web design shouldn’t be about “trends”. It should be about appropriate design.
Awsome list you got here. Title should be “Web” Design Trends. ;)
Hey Nick, thank you for compiling these designs. They are very inspiring.
Good deal. I still like some of the glossy stuff that’s out there, but I agree it is becoming dated. Ok – not ‘becoming’ dated – it is dated! ;) I like the current trends a lot though. Some sites here I have not come across… I love komodomedia.com. I also really like what people are doing lately with the handwritten notes in their styles. Thanks – Eric
Once again Nick, really great article rounding up those great designs.
Keep up the good work, it’s very inspirational.
Greetings,
Marco
Oh my! I am loving your selections… Thanks so much for taking the work xD I’ll add them all to bookmarks :D It’s so great for inspiration!
@egghub
On “Web Designer’s Wall”? Redundant.
Nice compilation… but this is like saying there are trends in newspaper design…? I think trends are just that… trends… If you want to go with the flow, you take it… If you want to stand out… take ONLY what you need ;)
I’ve noticed some of these popping up quite a bit. Thanks for the round-up.
My site is going to use basic gradients and really subtle stripes (not Web-2.0 stripes, thank God).
And I do like the hand-written look that 2008 is sporting, but I’m such a noob with Photoshop AND I don’t have Illustrator so I can’t really do that much creative stuff just now…
Oh, another thing, the only glossy UI I like is the iPhone interface. They made the gloss look good there.
Has anybody else noticed space/galaxy themes popping up everywhere lately?
I’ve noticed that with a lot of the sites I’ve been doing lately, the project managers and art directors seem to lean towards the grungy look. Especially weathered paper edges and wrinkles etc.
Something I’d like to do is a web site with a bomber jacket leather look… fun!
Great compilation! Thanks for sharing!
This is great. It got me inspired to try and combine a few of these styles, like large fonts and grunge or similar. Yes I’ve seen the galaxy look on quite a few sites too!
the best is yet to come…
And to think I just redesigned my “wood pattern” website. Anyways the sites you show are great looking and look as if they were designed more by a graphic designer than a web designer.
I am liking this trend… a lot better than the magazine trend that hit a while ago.
First time coming to your site. Nice.
Really interesting, thaks for your compilation. Glossy style is slowly getting boring, I agree… But in operative systems it’s still “in”. At last in Windows… and Linux. Maybe the web is going some steps ahead, like in much more other things.
Hmmm… according to your words… this blog is really “in”!