Articles

20 Best New Websites, October 2022

,

The design world fluctuates back and forth, swerving between love and hate for different design trends. Sometimes we see a wide range of approaches, and sometimes designers all hop on the same idea.

This month, the web is dominated by animation. Designers are cramming in motion in unexpected ways. And it’s fun to explore. Here are 20 of the best new sites on the web this month. Enjoy!

Bannach

Bannach is a German furniture brand. Its products are colorful and geometric, so it makes sense that when you scroll down to the collection, the thumbnails begin as pixel blocks and animate into product photography.

Fornasetti Profumi

Fornasetti Profumi takes a different approach to motion. It uses video to emphasize stillness to promote the calming qualities of its candle products.

The Other Side of Truth

The Other Side of Truth is a superb exercise in utilizing the web for a cause. It presents facts on the Russia-Ukraine war, but the standout feature is the toggle switch that, instead of light mode-dark mode, toggles facts and Russian state propaganda.

Glasfurd & Walker

Glasfurd & Walker is a portfolio site for a design agency. So far, so standard. However, it sets itself apart because it’s slightly bigger than the browser and swerves left and right with your mouse movement.

Sirup 5th Anniversary

Sirup is a Japanese singer-songwriter, and to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his first hit single, his record company has put together this awesome maximalist micro-site that uses type, motion, and art direction to capture his style.

Fitzjohn’s

Fitzjohn’s is a slick site for a new apartment complex in the Hampstead area of London. It uses a refreshing modern color palette and calming animation to take the edge off the frankly ludicrous price tag.

Persepolis Reimagined

Persepolis Reimagined is an awe-inspiring WebGL tour through one of the most important cities in ancient Iran. Make sure you tour it on a large screen. It’s hard not to be wide-eyed with wonder.

JaM Cellars

JaM Cellars is a Californian wine brand that’s pitching to bachelorette parties. With names like Butter, and Sugar, it’s not the most sophisticated tipple, but yellow, we love a yellow site.

Danielle Levitt

This portfolio site for film director and photographer Danielle Levitt features samples of her best work scrolling past the viewport. There’s a clever switch of thumbnail and background color when you scroll down to the contact details.

Propel

From total color energy to Apple-levels of minimalism: Propel is a slick, animate-on-scroll site for a marine motor brand selling an outboard and inboard motor. The animated masks on the images are a nice subtle touch.

Standards

Standards is a site for a SaaS that helps organizations create, maintain, and share brand guidelines. It uses subtle animation, video of its UI, and compelling copy to sell its approach.

Chris Carruthers

The portfolio site for Chris Carruthers is deliberately self-indulgent with scrolling text, clipped images, and scroll-jacking, but it’s also delightful to peruse.

Theodore Ellison Designs

We don’t often see colored glass in real life, but the play of light on stained glass is beautiful. This site for Theodore Ellison Designs uses video to bring the effect to the web.

Owomaniya!

The Owomaniya report for 2022 uncovers the state of gender diversity in the Indian entertainment industry. Presented in the style of infographics, the information is brought to life by animation.

Meetings

Meetings is a French events company. Its site uses an animated collage approach to showcase its services, and animated text to pull you into its content.

Blakeney

Blakeney invests in African companies on behalf of institutional investors. Its site is typical of the financial industry, but it uses animation to lift it to a higher level of interest.

Becklyn

Becklyn is a digital design agency. Its portfolio site uses animated text, expanding image masks, and video to guide us through its site and app design approach.

Cabi

Cabi is a brand of Japanese condiments with a typically Japanese feeling site. Bright colors, a slowly scrolling slideshow of dishes, and editorial to pack shot hover effects are a great introduction to the brand.

Slantis

Slantis provides building information modeling to architecture and infrastructure providers. Its site uses animation to showcase the types of content it produces for clients.

July Fund

July Fund is a venture capital project. It takes an entirely different approach than its competitors by adopting a chaotic but enjoyable card-based design.

Source

The post 20 Best New Websites, October 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

Data Management Patterns for Microservices

,

This is an article from DZone’s 2022 Database Systems Trend Report.

For more:

Read the Report

One of the key components of microservices is how to manage and access data. The means to do that are different compared to traditional monolithic or three-tier applications. Some patterns are quite common, but others are specific and need to be evaluated before being incorporated into a solution. We will briefly go over some of these common database patterns for microservices before exploring CQRS (including how it differs from CRUD) and, finally, look at how it can be combined with event sourcing.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

/par

What Customer-First Web Design Looks Like

,

The purpose of a website is to reach new customers and keep current ones engaged. Therefore, customer-first should be at the top of your list for design features. After all, without your clients, your business won’t grow or succeed.

Customer-first has been a buzzword for a few years now. In a nutshell, it’s easy to imagine what customer-first design means. The needs of consumers come before anything else. However, the concept isn’t quite as simple in practice. A lot of nuances enter the equation.

Just what does it mean to have a customer-first web design? What are the must-haves to reach users on their level and keep their attention for the long haul?

Embracing quality customer experiences has driven loyalty for as long as anyone can remember. However, we now live in a time of uncertainty, and when people leave companies on a dime if they’re dissatisfied with any aspect. So you must hit the high notes on every song – your website is your purest online persona and must engage users and keep them entertained.

Whether you embrace causes that matter to your customers and share information on them or tweak your design to meet accessibility guidelines, many factors come into play with a customer-centric design.

In a recent report, researchers found that about 88% of company leaders feel customer engagement impacts revenue. You can’t control every variable, but you can ensure your website hits all the strong points for a customer-first web design that grabs them and keeps them on your page.

Here are our favorite tips to create a customer-first approach. You may already be doing some of these things. Pick and choose what makes the most sense for your business model. Even small changes can have a big impact.

1. Know Your Customers

Before creating a website centered around your customers’ needs, you must know who they are. What are the demographics of your typical clients? Survey them and find out what their needs and expectations are. How can you best help them?

You may also want to survey them about your website. What’s missing that might help them? Is there anything they love? What do they hate? The more you know, the better your design can match their expectations. Create buyer personas based on their preferences.

At the same time, buyers will sometimes say one thing but actually feel another way. No one is quite sure why people do this when being surveyed. One way around that issue is to do some A/B testing to see how they actually feel about various changes. Do they respond the way you thought? What other adjustments need to be made?

2. Find the Right Color Palette

Different industries trend toward various hues. For example, businesses in the banking industry trend toward blues and occasionally reds. Blue elicits trust from users and has a calming effect. On the other hand, the fashion industry might tap into brighter shades, such as lime green. Think about what colors people expect in your industry, and then find your color palette.

Each hue has its emotional impact. For example, red is a color of power and can elicit excitement in the viewer. Choose your shades accordingly to get the most emotional punch possible.

3. Accept Feedback

One of the best ways to improve your site over time to match the needs and preferences of your audience is by allowing feedback. Add reviews, place a feedback form in your footer, and even send out requests for feedback to your mailing list.

It’s also a good idea to find a mentor who has been successful at running a business. Ask them to look at your site and give you advice. You might also enlist the help of a marketing professional.

4. Stick With the Familiar

Have you heard of Jakob’s Law? The rule of thumb states that people prefer common design patterns they’re most familiar with. So when they see a pattern they know, such as a navigation bar layout, it boosts their mood and improves their memory of the site.

When making edits, don’t make significant changes. Instead, implement minor adjustments over time to give your followers a chance to acclimate to the shift.

5. Cut the Clutter

If you want users to feel wowed by your page and engage, you have to limit their choices. Add in too many options, and they may not know where to go first.

Start by choosing an objective for the page. Cut anything that doesn’t point the user toward the goal. Ideally, you’d have a little info, an image, and a call to action (CTA) button. However, this may vary, depending on where your buyer is in the sales funnel and how much information they need to decide to go from browser to customer.

6. Choose Mobile Friendliness

Recent reports indicate about 90% of people use mobile devices to go online at times. With phones gaining greater capabilities and 5G bringing faster speeds to communities, expect people to use their mobile devices even more frequently for internet browsing.

Making sure your site translates well on smaller screens makes sense for your company and for your customers. Be sure to test everything. Click through all links. Fill in forms. Ensure images and text auto-adjust to the correct size, so people don’t have to scroll endlessly.

7. Make Multiple Landing Pages

Like most businesses, you probably have several buyer personas as you segment your audience. Don’t just create a single home page and expect it to fulfill the purpose of every reader. Instead, create unique pages for each persona to best meet their needs.

Make sure each landing page speaks in the natural language patterns of your specific audience. Think about the unique needs of each group. How do their pain points differ? How can you best meet their needs?

8. Keep Important Info Above the Fold

People are busy. They work, have families, and might visit your site on the 15-minute break they get in the afternoon. Most consumers want the information they need to decide and don’t want to dilly-dally around with other things.

Place the essential headlines and info they need above the fold, so they see it first. Make it as readable as possible by using headings and subheadings. Add in a few bullet points. People also absorb information easier in video format, so add a video highlighting your product’s or service’s main benefits.

You should also place a CTA button above the fold if it makes sense for your overall design. Keep in mind people may have visited and already read some of the information. Some users return just to sign up and want to find the CTA quickly.

Step Into Your Customers’ Shoes

Look at your site through the eyes of your audience. What works well? What needs to be adjusted? Over time, you’ll develop a customer-first web design that speaks to those most likely to buy from you. Then, keep making changes and tweaking your site until it hits the perfect balance for your customers.

 

Featured image via Freepik.

Source

The post What Customer-First Web Design Looks Like first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

20 Best New Websites, September 2022

,

This month we’re seeing websites that are very conscious of the design trends they’re following. Designers are making conscious choices to adopt styles, and opting out when it doesn’t suit the site. What we end up with is a crop of sophisticated, well-designed websites that use style as a technique to further their aims.

Here are the sites that caught our eye this month, enjoy!

Seen

Seen uses conversations to explore themes surrounding ethnicity and racism in creative fields. Displaying these conversations as online chats creates a sense of intimacy.

Baboon to the Moon

There is a lot of color in Baboon to the Moon’s product shots, so the rest of the site is kept simple, with good clear navigation too.

Fleava

There is a strong sense of luxury to digital agency Fleava’s glossy brochure portfolio site.

Baunfire Portfolio Review 2022

This site for Baunfire digital agency’s creative networking event is bold, personable, and fun.

Laesk Kombucha

There is more than a touch of Wes Anderson’s style to this site for Laesk Kombucha; somewhere just out of sight is Bill Murray in a red beanie.

Viso Haus

Viso Haus doesn’t do anything hugely groundbreaking here with their brutalist-style portfolio site, but they do it very well.

Mario Carillo

Artist/programmer Mario Carillo has opted for a minimal approach, allowing the work to do the talking.

Symbol

There is a warmth to Symbol’s site, created by the color tones and combinations used here.

Contekst

Interior architects Contekst favor a brutalist visual style for their site, but with some nice little animated extras.

Arcane Type Fair

No, you haven’t missed the font lover’s answer to Comic Con: the Arcane Type Fair is fictitious and a clever showcase for Rain Foundry’s Conacher typeface.

Capsul’in Pro

With lovely scrolling animation and soothing colors, this site for Capsul’in Pro manages to turn coffee pods into objects of desire.

Wanderful Chalet

Random illustrations and a quirky display type add character to Wanderful Chalet’s brochure site.

Stone Cycling

Bricks made from rubbish don’t sound like the most exciting thing ever, but this site evokes a lovely clean feel: like an old building gleaming in the sunlight after all the soot has been scraped off it.

Lazarus Forms

Lazarus Forms is an API for AI document processing. This site succeeds in being transparent in its explanation without being overly technical and pleasing visually.

Nathan Riley

An excellent example of masonry combined with variable scrolling speeds creates tension in digital artist Nathan Riley’s portfolio.

Evi O. Studio

Sometimes the simplest things, like this full-screen image transition for Evi O. Studio’s portfolio, can be so well done it’s an absolute pleasure to scroll through.

Sundo

Sundo has created SMOTSpots – smart sunscreen dispensers for public areas. The tone of the site is suitably utilitarian with a soft edge.

Blue

The Blue experience from Rossinavi luxury boat builders is a pleasing immersive microsite showcasing their new hybrid-electric boats.

Cased in Time

This site is an excellent example of how to make a single product commerce site that doesn’t feel lacking in content.

Educated Guess

Educated Guess is a podcast for creatives by creatives. The accompanying website is pleasing to use, easy to navigate, and allows the user to focus on the content.

Source

The post 20 Best New Websites, September 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

15 Best New Fonts, Aug 2022

,

There’s nothing like a new font or two to breathe new life into your designs. And so, every month, we put together this collection of the fonts that have caught our eye in the past few weeks.

This month we’ve got traditional slab-serifs, some original scripts, a couple of workhorses, and plenty of characterful display faces. Enjoy!

Canora

There are plenty of calligraphic typefaces available, but Canora is a little different. Alongside Canora Frente, which leans to the right, Canora Verso leans to the left for an original look.

Fisterra

Fisterra is an informal serif in two styles. Morte emphasizes the pair’s curves, and Fora accentuates the sharp lines; both share the same elegant skeleton.

King of August

King of August is a single-weight script that’s packed with energy. The extra cut beneath the stroke on characters like the lowercase s and p add a delightful wet-paint feel.

Lithops

This poster-worthy font is Lithops. The pattern forming the letter shapes is reminiscent of seaweed, fine jewelry, and acid flashbacks. Just don’t try setting body text in it.

Sangbleu

Sangbleu is a super-family of typefaces with five complementary voices: Empire, Kingdom, Republic, Versailles, and Sunrise. It’s ideal for demanding editorial work.

Kohinoor One

Kohinoor One claims to be the thinnest font ever produced, with strokes just one unit thick. It’s perfect for those occasions when you need light typographic color at extra large sizes.

Firelli

Firelli is a warm, contemporary slab serif with a range of weights from thin up to a chunky, retro-feeling Black. It works amazingly for both headlines and body text.

UCity

Ideal for signage, branding, and headline text, UCity Pro is a geometric sans-serif with ten styles and a variable font version.

Artex

Artex is an excellent sans-serif with simplified forms that work best when embracing its vast number of styles and weights. It’s also available as a variable font.

Colroy

Colroy is an excellent early-style slab-serif that is superb for setting large runs of text. It was begun in 2009, released in 2014, and has just been re-released with new weights and a variable font.

Fabbrica

Fabbrica is a solid, functional sans-serif that performs exceptionally well at small sizes, including on screen. It has rounded and sharp variations and different weights.

Mule

As the name suggests, Mule is a flexible, hard-working serif with mixed lineage. Its round shapes are friendly and engaging, and its vertical rhythm makes it ideal for extended text passages.

Romano

Romano is a distinctly Roman font. Subtle flares and abrupt angles call to mind carved letterforms and the formal scripts of the renaissance.

Kosmos

Kosmos is an experimental typeface in which multiple horizontal shapes make up the letters. The finest weights are barely visible, and the thicker weights overlap the shapes to create cloud-like forms.

Precise Sans

Precise Sans is an excellent font for dashboards and other complex UI designs. It is clean and modern with simplified shapes. It’s currently in beta.

Source

The post 15 Best New Fonts, Aug 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

20 Best New Websites, July 2022

,

Welcome to our guide to the best new websites this month. If subtle, minimal sites are your thing, either look away now or prepare to have your preconceptions challenged because this month, we are going maximalist.

Lots of elements fill up the screen, lots of color, lots of big fonts, lots of illustration, and plenty of in-your-face personality. This is a tricky style to get right: if elements are not chosen and placed well, the result is simply annoying clutter. If done well, the result can be impactful and memorable.

[And Happy Independence Day to all of our American readers!]

screenagers & the incredible machine

screenagers & the incredible machine’s site puts illustration front and center, creating a look that evokes various mystic ideas. It sounds strange, but it works.

Anna Jóna

This prelaunch teaser site for Anna Jóna café and cinema has an elegant yet modern feel.

Hardpops

This site for Hardpops (alcoholic) ice pops takes its cue from the product flavors, and the bright, fruity colors give it a real zing.

Daniel Spatzek

Daniel Spatzek’s portfolio site takes the rules-are-made-to-be-broken approach. The result has attitude and a nice touch of humor.

Ander Agency

Plenty of color, large type, and illustration make a bold statement for Ander Agency’s single-page site.

Pretty Damn Quick

Colorful illustration on this site for Pretty Damn Quick’s Shopify app creates an impression of friendliness about the company and ease of use of the product itself.

Know Your Beetle

Know Your Beetle is a showcase page for Kaploom creative studio. Color and type combinations make a big impact.

WTFFF

While many of the sites featured here have a sense of fun about them, WTFFF tackles a somber subject: online sexual abuse and harassment. Artwork and audio create an immersive experience in which five young people share their experiences with the aim of helping others.

BelArosa Chalet

Full-screen illustrations with a hint of vintage style create an ideal impression of what future guests can expect from the currently under construction BelArosa Chalet.

Paradam

The color scheme on the Paradam site is on the pastel end of the scale, but there is still lots going on to entrance the eye.

Tilton Group

The scrolling color panels on the Tilton Group site are a thing to behold.

Fresco

Fresco uses a standard layout design, but the colors and quarter-circles instantly lift it.

Museum of Pink Art

Museum of Pink Art is an immersive experience celebrating the color pink. Undoubtedly worth a virtual wander around.

Icons by Menu

OK, this somewhat more minimalist site slipped through the net, but Icons by Menu is so pleasing to look at and use that we had to include it.

GlareDB

With an illustration that could be ideally at home on an Arthur C. Clarke book jacket and that rich, deep red background, this site for Glare DB is a world away from what might be expected.

Alex Beige

While the overall style and accent illustrations are pleasing on Alex Beige’s site, the Our Team section is guaranteed to raise a smile and stick in the user’s mind.

Snickerdoodle

Careful spacing means busy elements (like on scroll animated illustrations) don’t become overwhelming on the Snickerdoodle site.

Grisly’s Cosmic Black

The site for Grisly’s Cosmic Black is fun, bright, and joyful. Plus, it’s nice to see an alcohol site going a bit further than the usual ‘drink responsibly’ and actually providing helpful links.

The Perennial

Not just floorplans and (lots of) images, but virtual walkthroughs too. The Perennial doesn’t feel like a standard office building.

Source

The post 20 Best New Websites, July 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

3 Essential Design Trends, July 2022

,

There are a lot of dark, retro vibes trending in website design right now. Although there are still some light projects popping up – including a pastel trend below – a lot of what we are seeing has a quite moody feel.

Here’s what’s trending in design this month.

Pastel Color Palettes

Let’s start with the trend with a lighter feel – pastel color palettes. While much of the web is trending toward dark aesthetics, there’s a segment that’s going in the exact opposite direction. Those sites feature soft, pastel color palettes that serve as a balance to all the super dark websites out there.

One thing about this website design trend is that it jumps out because of the stark contrast with all of the dark color palettes out there.

Each of these designs seems to use a pastel color palette as the basis for a background. A blur effect is paired with the colors to use pastels in a way that has a natural feel without appearing too feminine or light.

Robust uses blue and earth tones for a pastel background that feels modern and strong when paired with the hard-edged headline font.

Atmos uses a light pastel theme that takes you through the clouds with blues, and pinks, and purples. The pastel color scheme works well with the content which is airline-themed and makes you feel like you are flying through the sky. The colors are also soft enough to provide an easy reading experience.

Klezma is another design with the same pastel background with graduated color. The peach tones are fairly neutral and give plenty of room to the content.

Fonts with a Distinct Retro Look

Every one of these websites uses a typeface with a similar look and feel. This retro headline style is trending in a major way.

The best way to use this design element is for short words. This typeface design isn’t meant for a lot of words or when readability is a high priority.

This style is all about creating a specific kind of vibe for your website. The typefaces in this trend have a quite retro look and feel with an almost 1960s or ’70s feel to them. The rest of the design mimics this feel as well with colors and surrounding elements that contribute to the overall look.

A couple of common elements here include the use of all capitals font sets and letterforms that include odd shapes and lines.

Sretks not only uses a retro typeface but bends and twists it a bit too to add to the old-school feel. The background color helps add to the groovy vibe.

Barge 166 uses a retro typeface with the same design feel as the other examples but with a sharper, more serif-style edge. It’s easier to read but still carries a retro look and feel. Use a typeface similar to this if you want to capture that retro font style for a trending look while maintaining as much readability as possible. This option works best for multiple lines of words in a large size.

Picky Joe uses a retro typeface with rounded letters and a bit of a tilt to the characters to create a distinct feel. This is definitely a style that has to be used sparingly but can be a fun option, depending on the content of your website design.

Dark “Product” Sites

Dark mode design is probably the biggest design trend of 2022. Everywhere you look, websites are using dark color palettes and styles. Designers are creating more projects with a dark/light toggle so users can control their experience.

This visual concept is carried over to website designs that feature products as well. This is one of the last places the dark aesthetic had not touched. It’s been a bit of an unwritten rule that product images should be on white or light backgrounds to help make them easy to see and inspect digitally.

This design trend bucks that idea and features products on dark backgrounds – some with so little contrast that you almost have a hard time seeing the products. (Maybe these brands are banking on the idea that you already know them or are selling a lifestyle product.)

HQBC sells bike accessories such as glasses and helmets and the site has a sleek look and feel. You know it is cool from the second you land on it. The question though – is there enough visual information with the dark background to help you make a purchase? This design probably works because it only encourages you to find a physical location to make a purchase rather than buy online.

Doggystyle Shop also banks on the idea of you knowing the shopping experience or brand when you arrive. What the design does do though is put products on white backgrounds after you have clicked through far enough to make a commitment to buy. This helps you see the product well one final time before making a purchase. (The challenge is that it is three to four clicks in for the most part.)

FirstFit uses the design trend in a way that’s similar to the first example. They are showing a product, but not actually trying to convert sales on the website. Other links take you to more product information and content – using a lighter background and color scheme – and the dark background with the product serves mostly as a highly visual landing page that will help entice users to learn more. When it comes to dark mode and products, this seems to be the best option for most website designs.

Conclusion

The state of the world around us and our emotions can play hard into websites and other design projects. Some of the darker elements that are popular now may be a reflection of that or it could be more of a lean into dark mode schemes.

Either way, the web has a pretty dark feel right now.

Source

The post 3 Essential Design Trends, July 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

Low Code and No Code: The Security Challenge

,

This is an article from DZone’s 2022 Low Code and No Code Trend Report.

For more:

Read the Report

Many companies are looking to low-code and no-code platforms to build apps in the visual environment. They provide the opportunity for faster app development and reduce the dependence on highly skilled developers. Companies may hire less experienced or only minimally trained staff (I’ll call them citizen developers) to meet service gaps and to respond to skills shortages, ensuring their larger dev team can focus on more advanced projects. 

Source de l’article sur DZONE

/par

How Low Code Demands More Creativity From Developers

,

This is an article from DZone’s 2022 Low Code and No Code Trend Report.

For more:

Read the Report

Yes, engineering is a science, but it’s more and more an art, too. Developers must be at least as creative as the next hacker — and they need to cultivate user empathy. That’s why organizations benefit from automating the minutia, allowing devs to focus on novel problem-solving. This is where the promise of no-code and low-code development comes in — not to replace developer jobs, but to transform them into knowledge worker roles. Read on to learn about the no-code/low-code movement, how it fits into your work as a developer, and where it’s heading. 

Source de l’article sur DZONE

/par