Your business’s website is a digital representation of your company. A high-quality, modern website paints a positive impression of your business, telling visitors that your services are also high-quality.
On the other end of the spectrum — where you don’t want to be — an outdated, slow-loading, poorly designed website paints a negative impression, regardless of the quality of your services.
Taking the time to craft a stunning, user-friendly website is worth your while. However, web design trends change frequently, and failing to pay attention to current trends could thwart your efforts to enhance your website.
A savvy internetgoer can instantly tell the difference between a website designed in 2024 and one designed in 2020 or before.
Check out these modern web design trends to spark inspiration for how to captivate your audience.
13 Modern web design trends
Take a second to visit your business’s website. What do you notice?
If your website was designed in the past few years, it likely looks relatively clean. The text may be simple, and the pages may load fairly quickly.
But just because your website looks okay doesn’t mean it’s meeting your goals. A simple, clean website won’t capture users’ attention. It also won’t paint any impression — positive or negative — of your website.
You can be doing a lot more to incorporate your website into a powerful digital marketing strategy. By using any of these trends in your website design, you can stand out in the eyes of your user base, encourage visitors to keep exploring your services, and paint your business as a modern, trustworthy option.
These are the top 13 design trends of 2024 that you can use in your business’s digital marketing strategy.
1. Bento layouts
Bento layouts get their name from the bento box, which is a lunchbox that features a grid-like arrangement for several small snacks or food items. It’s basically a fancy way of saying an asymmetrical grid layout.
Brands use bento layouts to display several pieces of information in an easily digestible manner. Check out this bento layout example on the employee testimonials page on the website for Hopscotch,
Instead of placing all the testimonials in a list, taking up more page space, the designers interspersed testimonials with photos and a link to see open positions. This layout is visually pleasing and allows users to quickly scan the information before intuitively ending at the “See open roles” button, inviting them to click and learn more.
Your business can use the bento layout for landing pages where you want to display a large amount of information without overwhelming the visitor. This layout also works well when detailing specs for a product or service. You can place small snippets of information in each box and let users quickly scan the details.
2. Minimalism
While the minimalist interior design movement gained momentum in the early 2010s, the minimalist web design trend is now in full force. Minimalist web design is just what it sounds like: web design that uses minimal colors and graphics, keeping the focus on the most important information.
Minimal doesn’t have to be boring. Instead, you can craft a minimalist web design that is tasteful, thoughtful, and sophisticated.
The website for Oishii, a berry company, is a great example of minimalist website design done well. This site looks sophisticated while still including plenty of white space, inviting the reader to focus on the essential details about the berries.
3. Parallax
Parallax web design plays around with varying scrolling speeds on a page, creating an illusion of depth that instantly captivates the viewer. Incorporating this design into your business’s website is a surefire way to elevate your digital presence.
With parallax scrolling, parts of the website stay still while other parts move, producing a dynamic visual experience. While this concept has been around for over a decade, it’s increasing in popularity in 2024.
Dopegood, a modern home furniture company, utilizes parallax scrolling on its homepage to draw the user’s attention to each product line as they scroll past. Each line snaps into focus when it reaches the middle of the page. This technique also creates a more contemporary brand image that matches the company’s stylish products.
4. AI images
Artificial intelligence was a huge topic of conversation in 2023, and virtually every profession is still learning how to use this technology. In web design, AI images have become popular ways to add creative, intriguing visuals to a website without worrying about copyright issues.
You can ask an AI image generator such as Fotor to create specific images to place throughout your website design. You can even ask AI to generate an entire site layout for you, though you’ll want to take its suggestions with a grain of salt.
This page shows examples of images you can create with Fotor:
5. Inclusiveness in UI/UX
As you modernize your website design, be sure to improve its inclusiveness as well. Your website user interface and user experience should be accessible and inclusive for people of any race, gender, skin color, age, size, sexual orientation, and ability.
Zendesk’s help center is a great example of inclusive UX. It features clear navigation, keyboard shortcuts, image tagging, text alternatives, and color recognition to improve accessibility for everyone.
6. Gen Z aesthetics
The oldest members of Generation Z are turning 27 in 2024, while the youngest are turning 12. This means the entire generation is old enough to visit your website, and much of Gen Z is old enough to be your customer.
Catering to Gen Z in your web design can help you engage this wide-reaching audience and expand your brand awareness. Websites that cater to Gen Z are:
- Fast-loading
- Visually engaging
- Easy to navigate and use
- Mobile friendly
- Colorful
Findia, a mock-up of a website design, is a prime example of a Gen Z-tailored website. This fictional internet banking platform features fun colors, modern fonts, and crisp visuals to engage the younger generation, one of its target audiences.
7. Mini animations
Mini or micro animations are also trendy in 2024 web design. Including visuals that move slightly can be eye-catching, drawing in the user and inviting them to keep scrolling. But they aren’t so large that they will bog down a website’s loading times.
Lava is a yogurt brand that uses small animations in the background of its product pages, providing subtle movement that catches the eye.
8. Material design
Material Design is an actual design language that you can use to build a responsive, engaging website design for your business. This language allows for grid-based layouts (like the bento layouts we mentioned earlier), responsive animations, depth effects, and other cool designs.
Waaark is an example of a website that epitomizes Material Design features, showcasing fun animations and depth effects.
9. Brutalism
Brutalism is a style of web design that places functionality over aesthetics, embracing ruggedness and eccentricity. This style works well for brands that want to portray a quirky, unique image.
The elements of the brutalism style include bright colors, grid-like layouts, and text-focused designs.
MrBeast’s website is the perfect example of brutalism. It reflects the loud, exciting qualities of the MrBeast brand and engages a young audience through bright colors and funky fonts.
10. Maximalism
Just because minimalism is in doesn’t mean maximalism is out. There is room for both of these contrasting website designs!
However, maximalist web design, with its bold colors and crowded graphics, should be done thoughtfully to distinguish itself from the busy, neon websites of the early 2000s.
Maximalism is also better for brands that focus on artistry and aesthetics; it wouldn’t be well-suited for the plumbing or HVAC industry.
Artist Alex Tade’s portfolio is a good example of maximalism in web design. The site is bold and colorful, with a busy pattern taking up the entire background.
11. Oversized text
Using oversized typography in your web design is a great way to make a statement. This giant text typically appears at the top of the home page, immediately displaying your brand logo or a relevant word or phrase to visitors.
While using headings in website content has been a trend for decades, the oversized text web design trends take the concept a step further by including huge text that takes up at least a fourth of the page. It has a dramatic effect and invites users to keep scrolling to learn why this concept is so important.
Omega Yeast’s website achieves this effect perfectly with its panoramic home page visuals and oversized text detailing the most important qualities of its product.
12. Brand worldbuilding
Brand worldbuilding is a holistic approach to website design that encapsulates the colors, patterns, and symbols that perfectly reflect your company and engage your target audience. It’s the process of building a virtual brand world that pulls users into your website and instantly exemplifies your brand.
This concept is something you can keep in mind as you adopt any of the modern web design trends on the list. Every element of your website should point back to your brand story and reflect your services and values.
Natural Life is a wellness brand with boho-inspired decor and clothing. The company uses brand worldbuilding throughout its website, including visuals and logos that reflect its nature-oriented, bohemian, colorful branding.
13. Detailed footers
If you’re like many business owners, you likely haven’t paid much attention to your website’s footer. It may contain a few pieces of contact information without much else. But modern websites should utilize footers more strategically, including additional text and visuals.
Users often scroll to the bottom of a website to locate specific information about a company, such as the phone number or types of services. Making better use of your footer allows you to share important information about your company with users who immediately visit this section of your homepage.
360gardalife is an activity site for Lake Garda that makes excellent use of this website real estate. The company’s home page footer takes up about three-fourths of the average-sized computer screen, including information about its newsletter, a list of the sports visitors can participate in, a live stream of the lake, and more.
Niche-specific web design trends
Many of the above web design trends are fun and aesthetically pleasing, but they may not work for your industry.
So how do you choose the trends that do work for your niche?
Looking at the websites of other businesses in your industry can help you gain inspiration for the trends that are capturing the attention of your target audience. Here are the biggest web design trends for niche-specific SEO pages:
Legal websites
Many of the boisterous and brightly colored design trends above don’t work for legal websites that are trying to paint a professional, sophisticated image of a law firm. Instead, on-trend legal websites use features like:
- Elegant typography that reflects the law firm’s professionalism and is easy to read
- An emphasis on the text and content of the website to emphasize the results of the group’s work
- A dark and bold color scheme that communicates prestige and professionalism without being too showy
- Clean iconography and website layout decisions that show sophistication
Blake Harris Law has a beautiful website that exemplifies each of these trends. Blake Harris is a lawyer who works specifically in asset protection for high-income individuals, and his website communicates that demographic with an impressive degree of accuracy. The typography is bold and attention-grabbing and yet subdued, the coloration of the website draws attention to splashes of light (which typically are photos of the lawyer himself) so one is focused entirely on the lawyer and his impressive results as described in the content, and the iconography is clean and simple, not drawing attention away from what truly matters on the site.
Home service contractors & engineering websites
Home services companies and engineers need websites that clearly explain their services and that focus on customer pain points. Their sites also need to be engaging and set the company apart from competitors.
A few trends in home service and engineering websites include:
- Hero images that clearly show the results customers can receive
- Organic shapes like squares, hexagons, and rectangles
- Hover animations that provide more information about a service
- Content that clearly describes the benefits of working with the company, cutting straight to the point
Home service websites have a reputation for being simple and boring, but they don’t need to be. You can still engage and inspire your target audience through high-quality graphics and trendy design features.
Robert Carpentry is a great example of a home services company that has mastered its web design. The website has hero images that show the group’s work front and center, right at the top of the page, while implementing a primarily geometric design with much of the website being divided into squares and rectangles.
Medical & health wellness websites
When users visit health and wellness websites, they often have two main goals: to figure out if the company is trustworthy and to find the company’s contact information. Trendy website design for health and wellness sites hinges on these goals.
You’ll often see medical websites that follow these trends:
- Eye-catching designs that engage users and encourage them to keep browsing
- Clear, informative copy without bells and whistles that users could see as snake oil
- Simple navigation so users can quickly find the information they’re looking for
- Cool color schemes to calm users’ nerves
- Testimonials from previous patients so users can envision what they will receive working with the business
Within these criteria, health and wellness websites have a lot of room to customize their web designs to their specific branding. For example, the Pacific Clinics website follows the cool color scheme trend right down to the letter, with calming and cool gradients dominating much of the site. Navigation is additionally made easy, with many of the necessary pages easily accessible from the home bar with high-quality copy that gives users all of the information they need quickly.
Restaurants & food-based websites
For restaurants and food-based websites, minimalist design trends that keep the focus on the food are popular and effective. Many customers visit a restaurant’s website for one main purpose: to view the menu. Having a clear, direct navigation route to the menu allows potential customers to easily accomplish their goals, learn vital information about the restaurant, and make a purchase decision.
For example, Starbucks places many image of their drinks right at the top of its website homepage. The “Menu” icon is additionally the first choice in the overhead menu.
If you sell food products, including more details about your offerings is a must. Incorporate web design trends like:
- Dropdown menus that enable users to browse product categories or quickly find specific products
- Plenty of white space that keeps the focus on the product details
- A neutral color palette that reflects the products (i.e., greens for a health-centered snack brand)
Sakara Life is a nutrition program company whose website is an excellent example of food web design trends. The site has several dropdown menu options, a green color scheme, and easy-to-access details about its products front and center on the home page from simple redirects.
Digital & tech websites
Tech websites are excellent places to show off some of the more unique and tech-forward trends above. These companies often use responsive web designs with:
- Scrolling-responsive design elements
- High-quality photography
- Micro animations
- Minimalist design
They want users to be instantly wowed by their technical expertise. An outdated or too simplistic website could indicate that the company does not keep up with modern tech trends.
The Apple website includes several modern web design features to illustrate the innovation within its products. For example, head to the product page for the iPhone 15 and you’ll see a micro animation of the phone, an interactive design feature that lets you rotate the phone with the flick of the mouse, and scrolling-responsive design elements that brings new information into the page.
Cryptocurrency websites
Cryptocurrency websites include sleek designs, dark color schemes, and modern features. They often include web design trends like:
- Bento layouts to display details about their offerings
- 3D graphic elements to showcase modern expertise
- Emphasis on numbers as that will catch an investor’s eye
- Pops of color to engage a younger audience, common in the crypto investing world
Solana is a great example of a cryptocurrency website that utilizes modern web design trends.
This website clearly implements all of the trends described above while still making its information clear and easily accessible.
E-commerce web design trends
Following web design trends is important for any website, but it’s crucial for e-commerce businesses. For these companies, their websites are their entire brands. They don’t only provide information about the company; they also facilitate sales.
Many e-commerce companies are using the following trends to modernize their websites and boost user engagement:
- Product video gallery: Companies highlight their products through immersive video galleries showing all angles of the product
- Interactive shopping: E-commerce brands help users visualize their products and make personalizations through interactive shopping features, like Converse’s Shoe Customizer tool.
- AI & chatbots: Through AI-powered chatbots, users can ask questions and receive personalized answers to guide their purchase process.
- Asymmetric layouts: Using asymmetric layouts, such as bento grid designs, lets e-commerce sites display more products without overwhelming users.
- Unique transitions: Fun animations and scrolling features showcase a brand’s personality while exemplifying its commitment to modern technology.
As an example of interactive shopping on e-commerce platforms, Converse has a Shoe Customizer feature that lets you choose the colors and patterns on their shoes. This interactive feature lets you view all angles of the product and instantly see how small changes affect the design. This interactive visualization of the product leads to more custom shoe sales.
Meanwhile, Bottle on the Table is a wine brand with a highly interactive website. The site features unique transitions and animations throughout, drawing users’ attention to its product offerings in a captivating way.
Expert insights
We reached out to industry experts with a question:
As a marketing expert, what do you anticipate will be the most impactful trend in web design for 2024?
See below for their repsonses.
Person: Brian Gamble, MBA – Tenured HR Recruiter, Workforce Development and First Class Onboarding
Prompt engineering improvements. As a client, for example, trying to put together an audiobook, it would be super cool, not to have to study effective prompt generation, in order to create unique original, and Dynamic stills other photos to place within say a 30 page children’s book not only do some AI pictures come out very Extremely vivid, but they’re so new to most eyes that if you know how to tweak it properly, you’re generating your own art that doesn’t look like anyone else’s. Or for example I could potentially feed my entire children’s book into ChatGPT, and have it adjust to Mandarin age group 8 to 14 and sound and talk like a kid and then Bam all of a sudden I’ve got another copy of a book to uniquely market to a distinct and entirely separate group of children enjoying the same message. (Things like self awareness, self-defense, and stranger danger.) for example..
And now all of a sudden there, I am successfully empowering an entirely separate demographic of young folks, and overcoming social and academic adversity in different markets, and in different corners on the opposite side of the world. Neat..
Person: Valev Laube, Branding Expert, Web Designer-Developer, Graphic Designer & Marketing Director
We’re entering an era of diverse technological advancements and high device saturation. The internet now spans touch-enabled devices, foldables, large screens, and embraces technologies like AI, VR, and Mixed Reality.
Web browsers are universally supporting CSS backdrop blur, and no-code solutions are democratizing web development, bringing fresh design philosophies and aesthetics into the mainstream.
Coupled with faster internet speeds and advancements in CSS and 3D graphics, are paving the way for an adoption of visual effects and micro-animations. We’re likely to see more intricate click/tap animations, integrated typographic designs, and native SVG shape modifications.
The line between websites and progressive apps is blurring, leading to more immersive experiences. For example, there’s buzz about upcoming integrations allowing web browsers to apply a blur effect similar to the Finder sidebar in macOS, letting the user’s desktop background subtly influence the website’s appearance.
These developments suggest a future rich in exploratory experiences, blending website design and app functionality in novel ways, and let’s not forget about mixed reality, what will be web look like when it’s not limited to rectangular “slab.
Final thoughts
Incorporating any of these web design trends into your business’s website can help you stay competitive in a modern, digital-facing world.
When they land on your website, potential customers will instantly know that you care about your brand image and are dedicated to creating a positive user experience. They’ll also know that your services or products use modern technology and innovations.
You can check out lots of online templates to use as a starting point for your web design transformation. You can also find tutorials for higher-level designs like parallax scrolling and mini animations.
These web design trends are ones that our team incorporates into our client’s websites in every single project, whether it’s only a few or most of them. Whether or not you personally choose to follow these trends is entirely up to you, but I hope that you find some use out of the article regardless. Have a great rest of your day, and thank you for sticking with me all the way until the end!
