Pittsburgh Web Design Trends for Digital Marketers in 2022
Written By: Shane Clark on June 6, 2022
Web design trends follow a cyclical pattern, but 2022 may stand out for various reasons. Yes, current events such as the pandemic have a role. Still, mobile devices are also becoming more powerful, and privacy and security have become top-of-mind concerns for many individuals. In addition, web design is but one of many digital marketing services that Pittsburgh businesses need this year.
We’ve seen a lot of complexity added to new websites as technical capabilities have improved. Web designers and web developers are also taking up the mantle of responding to broader issues like economic recovery, privacy, and safety in cyberspace. I believe that 2022 will be the year where many websites that will be course-correcting toward openness, innovation, and transparency will gain more ‘votes’ or popularity in the market.
The Artistic Turn in Web Design
A heightened feeling of playfulness in web design is a significant trend this year. It seems like a reaction to the formal, minimalist aesthetic we kept seeing back in 2021.
Designers have begun to create websites as works of art, interactive projects, and sites that seem to exist solely to entertain people. This may look new to many (especially Zoomers), but you can trace this playfulness back to the early days of the internet when designers were looking for ways to demonstrate new techniques in design.
We appear to be amid a Web Renaissance of sorts – and it’s only logical, as design trends are cyclical. Both the nineties and 2000s have strongly influenced design in this era. This is probably a solid reaction to all the months many of us had had to endure, stuck at home and passively scanning the internet, searching for something entertaining or thrilling, just like when the internet first began.
Web trends are adopting visual influences from previous eras. Outside of the more photograph-centric layouts that have become mainstream, designers seek new ways to express themselves. These new web designs make inventive use of typography, grids, lines, and straightforward navigation. In addition, sites are kept from feeling too outdated by updated style, including muted hues, sophisticated textures, and serif typefaces.
Inclusivity in Design
Unfortunately, “inclusion” or “inclusivity” are seen as political buzzwords readily tossed around in cyberspace. However, inclusivity is a philosophy that speaks to every designer – making every attempt to be inclusive where inclusion did not previously exist. Moreover, it is an idea that is far from strange in today’s individualized global economy.
Every step of the website design process is affected by inclusive design, from strategic decisions about the website’s target audience to the tone of voice and personalization and establishing your brand’s graphic language to suit all genders, opinions, experiences, and situations.
Images and graphics with practical objectives, for example, have started to show more regularly on a non-gender front, providing playful variety.
Furthermore, as the internet presents alternate realities — questioning the very foundation of what is real — this coming year will see the internet saturated with an increasing number of avatars, images, and characters of non-human identities.
Comedy and Mini-Sites
Humor is glorious in cyberspace. Therefore, creating a website that makes people laugh is always a promising endeavor. So why not have a little fun while thinking of optimizing your website?
Pixar began offering artists time to make short films alongside each featured picture they produced in the early days. These shorts were a creative free-for-all, a chance for animators to let their hair down and have fun without the pressures of their featured projects. These “shorts” eventually resulted in the development of numerous innovative techniques that advanced the area of animation.
Web designers are learning that they can achieve the same thing with websites.
Making a fun mini-site allows designers to be creative, practice and experiment with techniques, and go all out on a professional project without fear of going overboard. Creating for the sake of building can be a terrific way to break out of a rut.
You can experiment in various ways, such as creating a purposely playful UX design or deliberately confounding expectations (while still ensuring accessibility!). Bring some comedy to the site’s navigation, menus, and interactions, not simply the language and graphics. Be unobtrusive. Make the site appear to be a serious one – until it isn’t. This is a chance to make a website that works in unexpected ways. If done correctly, an Easter-egg-style marketing site for a professional purpose can work!
Ease and Convenience
One significant aspect (and trend) that’s been influencing the success of modern online enterprises is a website performance optimization, which is the focal point of industry-standard web design projects. After all, poor website performance affects a company’s bottom line when visitors become frustrated with long loading times. They will look for alternatives. Impatience is the digital virtue nowadays.
The length of time for web pages or media material to be downloaded from website hosting servers is page speed. The time it takes for the browser to show the full content of a web page is page load time.
Website performance has an impact on search engine results. This is because Google uses proprietary algorithms that consider crucial aspects such as page speed, user experience, website responsiveness, and various other website performance metrics to rank websites.
Focusing on page speed optimization from the bottom up is the most critical factor in increasing website performance. Performance optimization plugins, server-side scripts, and final modifications all affect page speed and load times. The effect is minor – but visible. Maybe your business in Pittsburgh is struggling with long page loading times. If so, you may need to work with a specialist who knows HTML/CSS development, inside and out.
Summary:
Professional HTML/CSS development in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania makes all these web design trends possible. So if you plan to innovate your website through better design, today is an excellent time to find out how. Contact Shane today!
