Our 2012 Predictions: Design

In 2012 we will see more and more Responsive Web Design (RWD). This concept allows a website to be designed with many different platforms in mind. This means that the layout and the content of the website will shape and change according to what platform the user is viewing it on. With the increasing popularity in mobile browsing on phones and tablets, RWD allows a user to view the website on all of these platforms, as well as their laptop or desktop computer, and get a better and more tailored experience for each platform.

We will also see a lot more websites using custom fonts. This will be done using font replacement services such as @font-face, Typekit or Google Web Fonts. This means that designers will be able to use more of their favourite fonts (hooray!),  but there will be a lot more choice outside of the standard ones such as Arial, Georgia, Tahoma and Verdana. This will not only improve aesthetics of the websites but also maintain good content readability.

Websites will also begin to become more interactive through the use of html5, jquery, and in particular a technique called parallax scrolling. This is where multiple backgrounds of a website move at different speed. These websites appear as just one vertical page and scroll to the different content sections with parallax effects making images appear to move in the background as you scroll. This creates a totally new and interactive browsing experience compared to what we’ve seen in the past.