When choosing a website design style, it’s important that it portrays the personality, image, brand, and corporate identity that it represents. There is a psychology behind design. Understanding that psychology and leveraging it in your web design will allow you to better connect with your customers and give them a great user experience.
Overall styles convey personality types. I’ve put together a few of the most trending web design styles and the personalities they reflect. You may identify with one design type, or you may find that more than one design type applies to your brand and business.
Minimalism
Minimalist design is one of the strongest design influences today. Minimalism design is all about simplicity of color, type, graphics, content, and imagery. At first glance this may seem easy, but actually the stripping away and paring down of all unnecessary elements to the most essential content is a difficult process. The strength of Minimalism is that it places the focus on content and services, creating a good user experience and easy site navigation.
Some design styles that fall under the category of minimalism are:
- Scandinavian – Typified by organic natural elements and plenty of white space.
- Duotone – Strong colors in bright contrasting tones give an edgy modern vibe.
- Monotone – Matching tones or black and white give a subdued elegance and sophistication.
Some personality traits of the minimalist type include:
- efficient
- organized
- perfectionist
- introverted
Mid-Century Modern
Mid-Century Modern is one of the hottest design trends around. Mid-Century Modern reflects the period and styles of the era between 1933-1965. Mid-Century Modern design has a distinctive and recognizable color palette, with strong unusual color combinations such as pumpkin, peach and aqua. The work of Josef Albers was very influential, as was the Bauhaus movement. Mid-Century Modern relies on pared down elements, simple geometric designs, sans-serif type, warm soft tones, and saturated colors to evoke a classic timeless look and play on emotion and memory.
Some design styles that fall under the category of Mid Century Modern:
- Flat design – 2D elements pared down to their essential shapes and colors, flat design continues to be very popular as they replace high resolution imagery with fast loading eye-catching graphics that are good for SEO.
- Vintage – This style uses vintage elements and images from the 1930’s-1950’s era to create a sense of nostalgia.
Some personality traits of the Mid-Century Modern type include:
- well-read, intellectual
- spontaneous
- collector, appreciative of art
- curiosity
Hand Drawn Graphics
Hand Drawn Graphics for website design have a timeless appeal. Even illustrations from 100 years ago are still valued and appreciated today. Hand drawn illustrations are a versatile visual style, ranging from comic-style illustration to fine art drawing. Using Hand Drawn Graphics for web design conveys content in a unique and original way, unlike any other style.
The strength of Hand Drawn Graphics is that the imaginative and unique talent of an individual artist will often resonate in a very personal way with viewers. When the drawing style meshes with your business identity, this allows you to connect with your users in a powerful way.
Some design styles that fall under the category of Hand Drawn Graphics:
- Comic Book style – Often used to tell a story in a fun or retro way to create interest and engage users.
- Vintage – Hand drawn elements, especially typography, will give a hand crafted timeless appeal.
- Animation – Motion graphics can create a friendly engagement with users, which in turn encourages them to spend more time on your website.
- Illustration – Fine art illustration can set many different moods depending on the artist’s style.
Some personality traits of the Hand Drawn Graphics type include:
- creative, artistic
- caring, sensitive
- values hand-crafted, original work
- humor, fun, play
Realism
High quality photographic images create a what-you-see-is-what-you-get user experience. Photo Realism transports the viewer into another time and space; a real place that they can imagine themselves in. This creates closer more natural connections between the viewer and the website they’re on, and makes everything seem touchable and more real. With techniques such as employing depth of field, the viewer can imagine themselves in the scene taking part in the activity. Photo Realism also employs 3 dimensional effects such as layering images to draw attention to details. Realism plays with perspectives, interesting angles for shots, and close-ups to create a more down to earth and engaging experience. The current trend is towards authentic photography over stock photo images to portray a more unfiltered and genuine type of imagery. The strength of realism and photography is that it always draws the eye of the user.
Some design styles that fall under the category of Realism:
- Complimentary Realism – Realism combined with flat images or illustration creates interesting juxtapositions.
- Photo Realism – Hyper real photography to draw the viewer in to the space, enables the viewer to imagine themselves participating in the scene.
Some personality traits of the Realism type:
- down to earth
- values honesty and transparency
- authentic
- WYSIWYG
Typography Driven Design
There is a psychology behind typography. Using type only on a website design can be very expressive of the business and brand behind it. Typography Driven Design focuses the viewer squarely on the content, as there is nothing to distract from that. Typography Driven Design is a bold no-frills approach. It relies on font styles, with little or no other imagery, and plays with scale, color and layout to create interesting and powerful graphics.
There is really only one design style that falls under this category, and that is the Typography Driven Design. It is why it is such a powerful graphic design technique.
Some personality traits of the Typography Driven Design type:
- authority
- confidence
- attention to detail
- serious
There you have it: 5 major website design styles. As complicated as good design is, there are many variations. You may find that the right website design for you is a combination of styles. When done well, this can be very effective.
If you are the designer, the project often rises or falls on your intuitive understanding of how well the design reflects the personality and identity of the website owner. If you are the website owner – whether you are an individual, freelancer, business or corporation – expressing your personality successfully through your website design is what draw your customers and keep them engaged longer.