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Review: Should Designers Use Design Bundles?

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One of the most challenging stages of a design project is laboriously producing all those assets that bring it to life.

Whether you’re a web designer in need of icons, or a brand designer looking for mockups, it’s a smart move to fall back on stock assets to speed up your turnaround, reduce costs, and enliven your designs.

With so many stock sites to choose from, which should you opt for? Today we’re going to take a look at DesignBundles.net and ask if it’s the right choice for your project.

What is Design Bundles?

Design Bundles is exactly what it sounds like: sets of design assets that you can download for free or at huge reductions on RRP.

Launched five years ago, Design Bundles is brought to you by the same team that delivers Font Bundles.

Over two million customers are already enjoying the benefits of Design Bundles’ weekly updates.

What Can You Download From Design Bundles?

There are currently over 800,000 products listed on Design Bundles, and the collection is growing all the time.

The files have been produced by 6,500 of the world’s leading independent designs. Because the products are top-quality, you can really make them work: scale them, flip them, distort them, recolor them; just about anything is possible when you’re using high-quality raw ingredients.

What’s really impressive is the range of products that are in the collection. You’ll find backgrounds, logos, icons, textures, patterns, and clip art. For product designers, there are mockups and web elements. Print designers will love the huge range of cards, invites, flyers, posters, and brochures. And if you’re looking for standard stock images, you’ll find a gargantuan range under popular themes such as technology, architecture, travel, and business.

Because Design Bundles is relatively new, you won’t find its collection padded out with out-of-date Gifs. In fact, Design Bundles is one of our favorite places for free SVGs, the best format for graphics on the web.

All the products are royalty-free and licensed for personal and commercial use, so you can relax knowing that you’re fully covered.

What Makes Design Bundles Different?

There are a lot of design bundles services online, so what makes Design Bundles different? Well, firstly, the quality; Design Bundles has a consistently high level of designs. We love the freebies. They make a huge difference and are great for trying out ideas you might not be ready to invest in.

Design Bundles differs from other stock sites because it offers curated bundles of complementary assets — you don’t just download a vector file; you download a set of vector files. This innovative approach means you don’t have to go hunting for matching images; once you’ve found the right download for your project, you have a whole range to enjoy.

The whole process of using Design Bundles is simple, from browsing through the available assets to choosing a design and through to the fast, simple checkout process. It’s all designed to make including design assets into your projects as simple as possible.

The website is user-friendly, and in the unlikely event that you’ll need them, the support team is friendly, helpful, and prompt to handle queries.

Is Design Bundles Good Value?

We’d be lying if we said that cost wasn’t a big bonus of using Design Bundles. Design Bundles offer up to 96% discounts on regular prices, meaning that you can get the same incredible assets that top design agencies use at a fraction of the price.

In terms of time-saved, inspiration-delivered, and graphics-acquired, your Design Bundles subscription will more than pay for itself.

Alongside the daily and weekly deals, you’ll find products you can try for free. For example, design Bundles provide a whole heap of free SVGs. And not just sample files. There are thousands of files to download and use in projects. You can’t get better value than free!

There are new freebies every week, so it’s worth subscribing just to ensure you don’t miss anything.

For freelancers, the licensing model is particularly attractive. Because there’s no limit on the places you can download design resources once you’ve bought them, you can download files at home, in the office, or at a client’s workspace — whatever is convenient. Meaning you carry a huge library of resources with you wherever you go.

Oh, and if you want to make the most of your new Design Bundles assets, don’t forget to check out its YouTube channel, where you can learn tons about how to create effects, edit images, and complete creative projects.

Should Designers Use Design Bundles?

When you’re designing a project, whether you’re a digital artist, a web developer, or a crafter, the result relies on the quality of its component parts.

Design Bundles offers you the chance to work with high-quality assets from some of the web’s top designers at a fraction of the price of creating them yourself.

We’re confident that if you give Design Bundles a go, you’ll quickly see the benefits for yourself. But if you’re still not sure, why not sign up for its newsletter and check out some of the daily and weekly deals and the freebies that are available to you.

Design Bundles is a recipe for success that you’ll be happy you discovered.

 

[— This is a sponsored post on behalf of Design Bundles —]

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Cultivating Customer Confidence with UX

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Businesses rely on designers to help them build the perfect relationship with visitors.

After all, as much as companies may wish it wasn’t true, many consumers still judge a book by its cover. A website that fails to prioritize concepts like trust and transparency could instantly lose the confidence of its target audience. 

As a designer, it can be tempting to focus on figuring out ways of convincing an audience to convert or give up their money instantly. However, while design experts know how to enhance conversions, they also understand how important it is to make sure that customers feel confident in a website.

Here’s what you need to know about cultivating confidence in user experiences.

How Does Transparency Affect Confidence? 

In a survey conducted in 2016, 94% of consumers stated that they would happily be loyal to a fully transparent brand. As customers continue to search for more honest and reliable companies, the demand for transparency in UX will likely continue. 

As a web designer, you can’t force a company to share all vital information with its clients. However, you can use your design knowledge to help the honesty of a company stand out.

Here are some other strategies that designers can use to build transparency for their clients. 

Create an Eye-Catching “About” Page

One of the first things that today’s businesses need to be honest about if they want to delight their customers is their people. 

For instance, creating a page where your client can highlight the nature of the products that they sell is an excellent first start. Maurele has a beautifully designed “About” page to tell its customers everything they need to know about the business. 

At the same time, drawing attention to the footer where customers can check things like the terms and policies of the website or FAQs that answer their most common questions is another fantastic way to build transparency. 

Giving a brand a human face makes it easier for that company to establish lasting connections. That’s why designers should always prioritize using real, authentic images over stock photos where possible. For example, a large feature image on an “About” page that addresses the company’s unique nature makes it easier to connect with a target audience. 

Make sure that there’s plenty of space on the “About” page to introduce significant members of staff that can give a face and personality to both the website and the brand. For instance, Mociun.com uses a fantastic hero image of a person with her cat.

Add Space for Testimonials and Customers

While you don’t need to post a customer’s entire consumer list online to prove that they’re a reputable company, it is worth highlighting some of their clients. No one wants to be the first person online to trust a new website. Testimonials and reviews from other people are how you add instant confidence to any experience. 

For designers, social proof can come in a lot of different formats. For instance, if you’re building a website for a company that sells directly to other businesses, you could add pictures of the logos of the brands that the company has worked with. Alternatively, for a B2C brand, basic reviews and quotes will often work wonders. For instance, there’s a list of great reviews included on the product pages of the PlaySuperlative.com website.

Unless customers leave comments directly on the web page themselves, remind your customer that they need to get permission from the client to use their quotes on any web page. 

Additionally, remember that adding pictures and names to testimonials where possible can sometimes make them more believable. 

Tell Your Client’s Story

When building a website for a client, there are many different things that you’ll need to think about. For instance, you need to focus on the company’s USP or whatever makes them unique. You’ll also need to ensure that clients have all the information they need to make purchases easily. 

At the same time, it’s important not to go over the top with too many features. Simplicity is often the key to good UX. 

Where possible, however, if you want to boost confidence for your client, it’s a good idea to highlight their unique motives and vision as a business. Ask the company that you’re designing for what their mission is. Do they want to transform the way people communicate and collaborate like Trello? Do they want to fill the world with information, like Google?

Focusing on the unique ambitions of the business, beyond the desire to make money, makes them seem more three-dimensional and real. 

Highlight Security

Use your skills to ensure that certain aspects of safety and security stand out for your client. For instance, notice how Fetching Fields instantly pulls attention to the fact that they’re using certified and organic, human-grade wellness solutions.

Other steps you can take include making sure there’s an SSL certificate installed to cement the website’s safety. Additionally, if your customer has any badges or certifications that can highlight their security strategies, it may be a good idea to include those too.

If your customer takes payments online, you can use several secure website seals to boost confidence. For instance, showing that you’re “Verified by Visa” or using Mastercard Secure Code is a wonderful choice. 

Make Sure Visitors Can Find Contact Information

As a website designer, one of the best things you can do for your customer is making sure that they have excellent navigation, complete with easy-to-find information. 

On any website, innovative navigation ensures that an audience can find the pages they need to make sure that they feel as comfortable as possible, making their purchases. 

Make it easy for visitors on a website to track down useful insights about the products they want to buy or the kind of services available from the company in question. Additionally, if your client has any FAQ pages or additional resources, make sure that customers will have no trouble tracking those down. 

The example above from Petersham Nurseries makes it easy for clients to find everything they need on the website, thanks to a convenient vertical navigation bar. 

Remember, one piece of information that should always be as easy as possible to find for your customers should be the contact page. A contact page shows that the business is willing to answer any questions a client might have via many channels. 

List a physical street address and phone number for the website where possible, or at the very least include an email address where people can get in touch. 

Make Sure Pricing is Clear

Finally, if you want to ensure that visitors can trust your client’s website, you need to avoid hiding any critical information with fine print or content hidden in the website’s footer. When designing product pages or service information, make sure that you’re as transparent as possible about the company’s pricing. 

You don’t want a customer to wait until they click through into the checkout page to discover that they have to spend a fortune on postage and packaging. And, no one purchasing a service wants to wait until they’ve got their credit card out to discover that they’re going to be paying extra for things like set-up fees. 

According to Jakob Nielsen, one of the top mistakes anyone can make on a website is not listing their pricing as clearly as possible. 

As tempting as it may be to hide certain expenses and send customers through to the checkout page faster, avoid any opportunity to hide information about costs. 

Designing for Confidence

Ultimately, many different things can make a website stand out today. 

Designers can experiment with unique strategies like dynamic loading and video-based backgrounds. You might even decide to explore new styles with the right company or adapt certain pages to take advantage of things like 5G and new connectivity options. 

However, before you can begin exploring new opportunities on any website, one of the most important things you can do is ensure that you get the foundations of the website’s credibility right. Take an approach to design that focuses on transparency and trust first, and the rest will naturally fall into place. 

In a world where consumers are less trusting of brands than ever before, people who design for transparency will be sure to stand out from the crowd. Don’t underestimate the power of embracing trust for your clients in 2020. 

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3 Essential Design Trends, August 2021

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Sometimes the designs that make the most impact do a lot of unexpected things and break some of the most tried and true rules of visual theory.

Sometimes these design elements work brilliantly, and other times they are fleeting or fall flat. This month all of the examples here seem to break some conventional design rules. Here’s what’s trending in design this month…

1. Alternative Homepage Image/Video Crops

This trend breaks some traditional standards and is pretty refreshing – alternative homepage crops for images and video.

The full screen or 16:9 aspect ratio is out the window with vertical and square options that prove you can do more with your photo collection.

What’s great about this trend is that it’s super attention-getting because of the interesting use of space and imagery. Almost any design without the full-width hero header will grab your attention because it is different. These examples prove that point, and each design does it differently.

Now here’s the challenge: You have to make sure that this style has a solid fallback for mobile so that the result is equally impressive.

Janmaat Fotografie does a great job accounting for interesting photo shapes and flips the script on mobile. (Rather than what you might expect with text then photos because of the desktop placement, the photo stack uses the same shape and layering and is above the text on mobile.) The result is phenomenal.

N3 uses a very vertical image in an almost split-screen style design. It’s a sharp contrast to many of the other split screens we are accustomed to with an equal divide. The distinct shape of the image is interesting and intriguing. It’s definitely not a shape we see in website design frequently.

Bounce uses a similar split-screen effect in the opposite manner as the example above, with the tall, vertical space as an “empty” area and the right side filled with a square video. The shapes help push and pull your eyes across the screen to look at all of the elements and take in the overall design. It’s one of those ideas that if you only talked about it, you might talk yourself out of it, but here, it’s pretty striking.

 

 

2. On-Screen “Stickers”

Stickers are a design trend that has made its way from social media to website design.

These website stickers break design rules because they cover content or seem to be put on the canvas haphazardly. And that’s why they are so attention-getting!

The benefit to these stickers is that they can highlight specific items or content or help focus a call to action.

Friesday uses stickers in conjunction with hover effects to keep users interacting with the design. Multiple stickers can even pop onto the screen in the same location. The animation is simple and fun and feels like a digital sticker book.

August Eighth uses a center sticker as a call to action. It’s a true focal point in the center of the screen with an almost three-dimensional effect that lifts it off the background video. It’s a borderline dark pattern since the only way to get the box off the screen is to click through to the shopping part of the website.

EasyGreen has a bright yellow sticker in the bottom corner that feels almost like the sticker on a piece of fruit. This style and placement work well for the content and product featured. It’s bringing the digital and real-world a little closer with this design element.

 

 

3. Breaking Design “Rules”

The third trend this month is kind of a catch-all for general rule-breaking. While the other trends show certain design elements that aren’t the norm, each of these examples really tosses everything you traditionally think about design out the window. (And that’s ok.)

The trick to a rule-breaking design is that it has to be focused and simple enough to keep users interested and provide intuitive elements that tell them how to interact with the design. It’s a delicate balance.

Here’s how these sites do just that.

Supercontinent has a lot going on. At least four typefaces on the screen at a time, movement (using different shapes and aspect ratios), overlapping elements, hidden navigation, and you may even find a few more broken rules if you look closely. And somehow, it still works.

What’s pulling this design together is a key unbroken rule – the chaos is rooted in a grid system that keeps it all somewhat organized. Plus, there’s plenty of white space to keep elements from feeling crowded and overwhelming.

Source of Plastic Waste combines elements in unexpected ways. There’s no real navigation; the site is just a continuous scroll. That’s a big website usability rule broken right out of the gate. There are other design elements as well, from the “header”/logo moving to the top right corner to the almost over-designed transparent box for text elements. There are a lot of scroll elements and actions happening and layers of text on text in some of the screens.

But here’s the thing about this design. As many rules as it breaks, the story is interesting enough to keep you scrolling. The question is, how long and how far do you go without getting lost or confused.

The Debris of Attention is designed to show “bad design” with elements that are frustrating and annoying on websites. The gamified design allows you to hover on each element to remove it and clean up the design.

While this site breaks the rules on purpose, it is still an experiment in how long a user will hang on with so many visual effects happening at once.

 

 

Conclusion

While most of the time, people think about “breaking the rules” as a bad thing, that’s not always true in the design space. Sometimes breaking the rules can result in an unexpected delight.

The challenge is to make sure that when you break the rules, the design is still usable, functional, and understandable. If so, you’ve found a winning combination.

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Top Photo Editing Apps for iPhone and Android

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The photograph is always looking to capture picture-perfect images with creating memories. Using smartphones cameras offers great optics with high-resolution and sharp results. Today photographers are increasing as they click high-quality images with excellent resolution. If you’re a beginner and want to click masterpiece, the best we could recommend is to go for the best photo editing app for iPhone and Android to create a great visual strategy.

One can also choose a product photography course to include photographic techniques and explain the best photo editing apps they should use. After you pick the best photo editing app, make sure it offers a comprehensive set of tools that make your photos shine.

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20 Best New Websites, July 2021

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This month we have a variety pack for you. There are all sorts, from the most conservative layouts and structures to more experimental navigation. And we see how even the most traditional and functional websites can connect with users through mood-enhancing color schemes, clever font choices, and illustrations.

Non-functional–that is, purely decorative–details can really improve the user’s reaction to a site when applied sparingly. Constant movement gets tiring, and adding too many elements can feel fussy and unfocused. Getting the balance right so that things are kept simple but not bare and boring can be difficult, but it is a skill worth mastering.

Enjoy!

Laboratorio Permanente

The site for this multi-disciplinary architecture studio makes very nice use of a scrolling concertina effect.

Sometimes Always 

Wine sellers Sometimes Always have gone for a retro vibe with their color scheme and type.

Empty State 

Split-screen contraflow scrolling and the pop of bright blue against neutrals give Empty State’s home page impact, while the clean layout and clear navigation make the rest of the site pleasant to use.

Kibana 

Quirky display type and illustrations give this single-page site for Kibana lodge a friendly, welcoming feel.

For Good Design Lab

For Good Design Lab’s site is simple and bold; it makes a strong statement. And its design works even better on mobile.

Levitate

Levitate is a sports brand that makes an affordable running blade. Their site has a clean minimal feel, contrasting spaciousness with a sense of movement in the photography used.

Sunst-studio 

Multidisciplinary creative agency Sunst Studio keeps things simple but impactful with oversized black type on white and smaller images.

Made By Nacho 

Strong colors and illustrations, with the occasional subtle animation, work well for Made By Nacho.

Flexe 

Flexe are logistics experts, not the first industry that springs to mind when we think of great website potential, but this one is very appealing.

Friesday 

This site for Friesday restaurant/takeaway is lively, colorful, and fun.

Go out{side}

This offshoot site from B.A.S.S. (Bass Anglers Sportsman Society) aims to promote angling as part of an outdoor lifestyle. Earthy colors and a lively visual rhythm create energy.

Protos Car Rentals

Illustration brings a touch of personality to this site for Protos Car Rentals, while attention to detail pays off in the usability.

21wallpaper 

21wallpaper offers downloadable screen savers from different illustrators (7 artists, 3 designs each) regularly, which at the same time acts as a showcase for the artists.

Elon’s Toilet 

This is a brilliant and vital piece of marketing that succeeds in presenting a serious subject in a lighthearted and engaging way. You’ll have to find out for yourself what it’s about.

Pa’lais

A fresh feeling color scheme, a distinct lack of straight lines, and a scattering of illustration work well for the site for this vegan food producer.

Benjamin Righetti

Using a primarily visual medium to effectively promote an artist whose medium is sound is not always easy. This website for organist Benjamin Righetti does an outstanding job.

Wavemaker

Wavemaker is a creative media agency. Their site is strong and confident but with a playfulness that is engaging for the user.

Dpt.

This site for Dpt. throws out the usual menu concept and has its navigation arranged around the screen. It can be a risky strategy, but here it works well.

Plunt.co

Plúnt sells mix and match plant and planter combinations. The site’s core functionality is the combination chooser, which is pleasingly reminiscent of an animal flipbook.

Kingdom & Sparrow

Branding agency Kingdom & Sparrow have gone for a fairly standard approach, but the little hand-drawn details here and there add just enough individuality without overdoing it.

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9 Must-Install Craft CMS Plugins

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Craft CMS is increasing in popularity, and as it does, the previously relatively scant range of plugins is growing rapidly.

There are plugins for Craft ranging from simple field utilities to the full ecommerce solution provided by Pixel & Tonic — the makers of Craft.

An early decision that has borne fruit for Craft has been the plugin licensing model. Paid plugins for Craft charge an initial license fee and then a reduced annual renewal price for updates. This ongoing payment structure ensures plugin maintenance is economically viable for developers, and as a result, Craft plugins tend to be updated more often and are abandoned less.

The best plugins depend very much on the site you’re developing and what you’re trying to achieve. However, some are so universally useful that I install them on virtually every site I build; here’s a list.

1. Redactor

Installing Redactor is a no-brainer when it comes to picking your plugins. Maintained by Pixel & Tonic, it’s a rich text field that extends Craft‘s basic text input. It’s so useful it may as well be part of the core Craft code.

One of the best features is the ease with which Redactor can be customized. Just duplicate the settings file inside the config directory and edit its contents to alter what editing options are available; it’s simple to create anything from a field with a bold option to a full rich text editor. In addition, each Redactor field can be set to use any of the settings files.

Free

2. Retcon

When you’re outputting code from a rich text field like Redactor, you’ll get clean HTML output — which most of the time is what you want. However, if you’re using something like Tailwind, those classes are non-negotiable. I’m not a fan of Tailwind, but I am a fan of using classes in my CSS selectors instead of element names.

Retcon is an invaluable plugin that extends Twig filters to supply a host of options when you’re outputting content. It can add classes to elements, insert attributes, modify the element type, and tons more.

Free

3. Venveo Bulk Edit

During the life of a site, there’s a good chance that you’re going to have to alter fields and sections after the content is in. It’s a common problem if you’re importing data from another platform using FeedMe, or if you have an indecisive client, or even if the site is simply growing.

Venveo Bulk Edit is a plugin that integrates closely with the Craft UI and allows you to edit the contents of multiple entries at once. This plugin has saved me hundreds of hours that would otherwise have been spent painstakingly editing entries one at a time.

Free

4. Super Table

At some point, you’re going to need a configurable list of inputs. Maybe you’re creating a list of documents to download, building a directory, or even your site navigation. You could create a new channel and then add the entries as an entry field, or even set it up with a matrix field, but this is awkward to edit even with Craft 3.7’s new editing experience.

I’m a big fan of opting for the simplest solution, and in this case, the simplest option is a table field. Unfortunately, Craft’s built-in table field has limited field type support. Super Table, on the other hand, supports almost anything, giving you a powerful, orderable set of fields.

Free

5. No-Cache

Craft has a really powerful caching system. It allows you to cache whole or partial templates, and it‘s intelligent enough to know when you’ve edited content that has been cached so that it can be re-cached.

Understanding Craft’s caching is vital; as a very general guide, dynamic content benefits from caching, but static content does not.

However, you will regularly encounter situations where you want to opt out of the caching. A blog post, for example, could be cached, but the time since it was posted must not be, or every post would appear to have been published “today” until the cache is refreshed.

The No-Cache plugin adds a couple of Twig tags that allow you to temporarily opt-out of the cache. This means that you can cache larger sections of your templates, simplifying your caching decisions considerably while still being able to fine-tune what is cached.

Free

6. Retour

Sooner or later, you’re going to have users hitting 404 errors. If you’re restructuring a site and changing the architecture, it will be sooner. To avoid breaking the UX and SEO, you need to add redirects.

Retour is a helpful plugin that sits in your dashboard side menu. Anytime a user triggers a 404, Retour will flag it up, so you can decide how to redirect the URL in the future.

$59 for the first year; $29/year for updates after that

7. Sherlock

One of Craft’s big strengths is its security. A lot of attention has gone into making sure that the core installation uses best practices. However, as with any CMS, potential security vulnerabilities start to creep in as soon as you introduce 3rd-party code (WordPress’ biggest vulnerability by far is its plugins).

You only need to look at the size of the vendor directory in your installation to see how many 3rd-party dependencies your site has. Even a small site is a house of cards.

Sherlock is a security scanner that performs a number of different tasks to help you stay secure, from checking on security threats in 3rd-party scripts to checking directory permissions. The paid version will even let you limit IP addresses if your site comes under attack — although your hosting company may well do this for you.

Lite: Free
Plus: $199 for the first year; $99/year for updates after that
Pro: $299 for the first year; $149/year for updates after that

8. Imager X

Craft’s built-in image transforms are a little limited. For example, they only work with actual assets, not remote images.

Imager X is an excellent plugin that, among many benefits, allows you to transform remote images. In addition, its refined syntax is perfect for coding complex art direction.

Imager X isn’t cheap, but considering the enormous importance of image optimization, unless you have a straightforward set of images to manipulate, it’s an investment you’ll be glad you made.

Lite: $49 for the first year; $29/year for updates after that
Pro: $99 for the first year; $59/year for updates after that

9. SEOMatic

SEOMatic is the SEO solution most Craft developers default to, including Pixel & Tonic themselves.

You’ll need to define the basics in its settings, and you may find yourself creating extra fields specifically for it to pull data from, but the handy progress bars on its dashboard page will give you an overview of what’s set and what needs to be done.

SEOMatic is another premium plugin, but implementing it is far simpler and cost-effective than digging through all those meta tags and XML files yourself.

$99 for the first year; $49/year for updates after that

Must-Install Craft CMS Plugins

The Craft ecosystem is rapidly growing, and the diversity of the plugins available increases as Craft is utilized for more and more sites.

But despite the lure of shiny new plugins, there are some tools that I return to again and again either because they elegantly fill a gap in the core Craft feature set or because I’ve tried them, and I trust them to be robust.

These are the plugins that I have found most useful in the last couple of years, and installing them is the first thing I do when I set up a new Craft installation.

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10 Homepage Design Comparisons to Inspire Your Business in 2022

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Looking to give your homepage a well-needed design update in late 2021 or 2022? Not a bad idea; first impressions are crucial when it comes to business websites. But, fixing your homepage and website design is no easy feat.

Web design trends are evolving faster. Blame the ever-decreasing user’s attention span. The average visitor now spends just 0.5 seconds scanning your homepage to form an opinion about your brand and decide whether to click through or bounce.

Increased user expectations and uncertainty in the user’s response, which is highly impacted by the site’s first impression, are other reasons to consider. This is why the designs which were trending in 2019 are no longer viable in 2021 or 2022.

We have curated the ten best examples of homepage designs to inspire your business in 2022, including a rundown of the best strategies and tips.

Let’s start by highlighting why homepage optimization is necessary for 2022:

Why Your Homepage Will Be So Important in 2022

Your website — especially your homepage — is your brand’s first chance to attract, build trust with, and connect with visitors.

According to recent statistics on why website design is important:

  1. 38% of visitors will stop interacting with a website if they think the layout isn’t visually appealing or intuitive. This creates a higher bounce rate and fewer conversions.
  2. 94% of a visitor’s first impression is based on website design (including colors, fonts, layout, navigation menus, etc.).
  3. 46% of people base a business’s credibility on the aesthetics of its website. Brands with less-than-stellar homepage designs are seen as less trustworthy than companies investing in the visitor experience.

Think of it the same way as walking into a brick-and-mortar store. Visitors are more enticed by a carefully curated ambiance of neatly stocked shelves and welcoming employees than a store that’s dark, messy, or seemingly unfriendly.

Using this logic, your homepage’s above-the-fold section is where you’ll greet visitors and reel them in for more.

10 Homepage Design Comparisons (2019 vs. 2021) To Inspire Your Business Website Design in 2022

Homepage design has come a long way since 2019. In this section, you will explore how.

These homepage designs crush it above the fold. Take just a few of these tips to heart, and your website will be poised to attract leads and conversions — no matter which industry you’re in.

1. Netflix – Crafting The Perfect Call To Action That Reduces Friction With An Additional FAQs Section

Most businesses make the mistake of adding a CTA button that first persuades the user to click on it and then asks for the visitor’s email address.

Netflix also did the same in its 2019 design.

However, Netflix combined both steps in its 2021 homepage design.

The new, improved 2021 homepage design asks for the user email address right up front along with the CTA button.

Here is a good comparison of both the designs:

2019 homepage design

vs.

2021 homepage design

Key Takeaways:

  • The design encourages visitors to enter their email address right when they land on the homepage. As a result, form submission is much easier when the user has started the process. Hence, Netflix makes it easier for visitors to move along their conversion funnel nicely by reducing the friction.
  • The 2021 design also has a nice FAQ section that provides quick information about the company’s services and improves the overall user experience.
  • FAQs also help increase the organic presence of the website in the search engines because Google presents snippets from the FAQ section in the form of an answer box in the search results.

2. Spotify – Revamped Color Combinations For Improved CTA Visibility And Using The ‘Rule of Three’ For Heading Text

The older 2019 Spotify homepage design used light pink and orange colors in its home page main area. The CTA color was green, but if you look closely, the CTA lacks visibility.

The new 2021 design uses blue and green colors with a much larger font size for the main heading. The colors are attractive, and the CTA is visible clearly.

Here is the comparison of the Spotify homepage 2019 design vs. 2020 design:

2019 homepage design

Vs.

2021 homepage design

Key Takeaways:

  • Blue is the most versatile color, and green is the perfect choice for the CTA button. Spotify used universally accepted color combinations to redesign its homepage and made the CTA more visible.
  • The main heading is also made larger than it was in the 2019 design, and it follows the rule of three in writing which is effective and satisfying. It uses just three words in the main heading to allow the human brain to process information as a pattern that is more memorable.

3. Hulu – Give Priority To Your Brand Name And Hide Pricing

If you compare the Hulu 2019 vs. 2021 Hulu homepage, the brand name has been prioritized and shown as the main heading.

Moreover, the older homepage had pricing information everywhere, which has been reduced intelligently in the new design.

2019 homepage design

vs.

2021 homepage design

Key Takeaways:

  • The brand name ‘Hulu’ is displayed as the main heading of the homepage, which helps to build audience trust.
  • The older design persuaded the users to pick a paid plan even though they had a free trial option—this discouraged users from trying their service. The new 2021 design encourages users to try the platform for free. In addition, the packages have prominent CTAs that mention “try for $0”. This design move improves conversions on the website.
  • The new design makes it easier for the visitors to select a viewing plan with easy comparison of the three available plans. The best part is, customers can start all the plans for $0. It’s a win-win situation for the users, and they can quickly pick a plan to start watching Hulu.

4. Nextiva – Reduce Visual Noise And Add Pictures In Menu To Improve UX

Nextiva realized the importance of reducing visual noise in its newly designed 2021 homepage. Visual noise happens when you use too many colors to attract user attention. Different colors compete with each other resulting in diluted customer observation.

In the old 2019 homepage, Nextiva used orange, blue, and green as the primary colors, while in the 2021 revamped design, they have used blue as the main color.

Here is a comparison of the two designs:

2019 homepage design

vs.

2021 homepage design

Moreover, the older homepage didn’t have an image in the product menu, but the new 2021 homepage improves the UX further.

Below is a comparison:

2019 homepage design

vs.

2021 homepage design

Key Takeaways:

  • Nextiva used blue as their base color for the homepage design and removed orange and green colors to reduce visual complexity. This is an excellent change to keep the user’s attention focused. Notice the green colored bar at the top of the homepage in the 2019 version now replaced with blue.
  • The 2021 design has a clean look compared to the 2019 design, which looks scattered with too many different elements, including CTAs that confuse the users.
  • The product menu does an excellent job of linking intelligently to service pages such as phone systems and video meetings. The image of a smiling lady attracts users to click on Nextiva’s products to learn more about them. Improving UX is an impressive way to reduce bounce rates and increase time on site.

5. GoToMeeting – Avoid Lengthy Sign Up Form, Educate Users About Your Products, and Add Images That Depict The Current Needs of The Audience

GoToMeeting does a great job educating the users about their product by adding more content on the homepage that comprehensively explains their product features.

Moreover, they have replaced the older hero image with a new picture that portrays the changing needs of their audiences. Nowadays, there is a rise in work from home culture due to Covid-19. Hence, the photo and the heading text clearly target the needs of their users.

Here is a comparison of the 2019 vs. 2020 homepage of GoToMeeting:

2019 homepage design

vs.

2021 homepage design

Key Takeaways:

  • The 2019 homepage design had a sign-up form on the homepage, which GoToMeeting removed in the 2021 design. People hate to fill in so much information right when they land on the home page. Hence, GoToMeeting did the right thing by removing the signup form from their homepage.
  • The hero image steals the show of the 2021 redesign because the picture of a working mom with her kid playing studying in front of her is a great way to portray the current needs of the society when over 60% of the employees are working from home. Audiences can quickly relate their working environment with the hero image leading to more sign-ups.
  • The older 2019 design was confusing, and it made little effort to help the users understand the different features of the product. The new 2021 homepage design has a product features section that explains the different features of the software. When users are educated about the product, they earn the confidence to try the product.

6. Zillow – Apply Hick’s Law To Allow Visitors To Take Faster Decisions

Zillow does an impressive job of applying Hick’s Law in allowing visitors to make faster decisions. Hick’s law states that the more options you present to the users, the faster they will decide. Therefore, it is a major factor in improving website usability.

The old 2019 homepage design of Zillow offered too many options to the users, like they want to buy, rent, or sell a property. The users first select either one of the three options and then enter the zip code to start their search.

The new 2021 homepage design changed that. Now, Zillow offers users a single option. They only need to enter the zip code to get started.

By reducing the number of actions that users need to take to just one, the homepage design eases the overall decision-making process of the site visitors.

2019 homepage design

vs.

2021 homepage design

Key Takeaways:

  • The new homepage design has a simple search bar that persuades visitors to take prompt action.
  • The Hero image is placed smartly behind the search bar to depict the needs of the users accurately.
  • The homepage does have three different panels for buying, renting, or selling a home when the users scroll below. The old design is missing that. The new design removed so many options above the fold and kept just a single option for the users to encourage more users to search properties on the site.

7. Plex – Placement of Prominent Calls-to-Action On Homepage

The CTA is a key element of every website. It helps the users decide on their next action and helps to convert the visitors into leads.

Plex lacked an optimized CTA placement in its 2019 home page design. Hence, the 2021 design received an uplift to better place the CTA for increased visitor engagement.

Take a look at the home page designs of Plex from two different years. If you compare the two home pages of 2019 vs. 2021, the primary difference that will grab your attention is the CTA.

2019 homepage design

vs.

2021 homepage design

Key Takeaways:

  • The call-to-action buttons are more prominent and have actionable texts.
  • The number of CTA buttons is increased to two to encourage users to take action.
  • The additional CTA button is wisely placed at the center to get immediate attention.
  • Note that the color choice for the button is also bright and highly contrasts with the background yet matches the color theme.
  • The old heading text ‘Stream Smarter’ was confusing because it didn’t help the users understand what Plex does. Hence it is now revised to ‘Watch Free Movies and TV on Plex.’ The new text is easy to understand and has the word ‘Free’ to increase the number of visitors clicking on the CTA.

8. Dropbox – More Above The Fold Content And Change of Fonts

Dropbox has significantly worked on its main content, which is clearly visible in the comparison homepage design images of 2019 vs. 2021.

The 2021 homepage is seen fixing faded, minimalistic, and less engaging content in the older homepage.

2019 homepage design

vs.

2021 homepage design

Key Takeaways:

  • Sans serifs, with their clean readability, are included for longer bouts of the homepage.
  • Bold sans text is doing the job of drawing user attention effortlessly.
  • The color contrast of the text with the background is increased, which improves the visibility.
  • The right side image of a laptop is replaced with a screenshot of the software, which intrigues users to know more.

9. Cisco – Moving Blocks To Outsmart Competitor Websites

The homepage design of American technology company Cisco has seen a drastic change in 2021; it deserves to appear on this list. The company website smartly represents an appeal for future development through its killer homepage design.

Here is a comparison of the old 2019 homepage design vs. the new moving block design of 2021:

2019 homepage design

vs.

2021 homepage design

Key Takeaways

  • The home page contains moving blocks with news from the blog. As you hover over the image, it widens up, and a CTA button appears. The blocks represent a design of the future which the competitors might find hard to replicate.
  • Every block has a CTA, which was missing in the 2019 design. Each block represents a specific Cisco service and caters to the different needs of the visitors.
  • The new design is elegant and cleaner with lots of information.

10. Slack – Product Video On Home Page For More Conversions

Slack has made it easier for the users to understand the product well by using a video on the homepage.

The 2019 design has an image, while the 2021 design has a video that helps the visitors understand how the product works.

Here is a comparison of the 2019 design vs. 2021 design:

2019 homepage design

vs.

2021 homepage design

Key Takeaways

  • The inclusion of a product video leaves a great impression in the minds of the visitors and shows them what your product does.
  • Video helps Slack to make its value proposition clear and super fast.
  • Video has a strong correlation to conversions, and they work well as compared to hero images. Slack used a hero image on the homepage in 2019, but they replaced it with a video in 2021.

Final Thoughts on Using These Homepage Designs for Inspiration in 2021

By making it to this point in our guide, you now have plenty of inspiration to run with when upgrading your homepage. You should also have a better understanding of how powerful this tool may become for your brand.

So now it’s time to brainstorm how to use these ideas for your own 2021 homepage design. First, jot down the key points from this guide and honestly assess how your website currently compares.

Accomplish this task, and your brand might see an uptick in website traffic and conversions. It may even earn a spot in a roundup of killer website designs just like this one.

Source

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Exciting New Tools for Designers, July 2021

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The dog days of summer are here. From vacations to pool time, you might not be thinking about work that much. But there are still plenty of new tools and resources popping up to help you become a better or more efficient designer.

Here’s what new for designers this month.

Haikei

Haikei is a web app that you can use to generate SVG shapes, backgrounds, and patterns in a web-based editor that you can use with any design tool or workflow process. Everything is customizable and it is free with access to 15 generator functions. (Additional templates and generators will be available when the pro plan is released later.)

Pixelhunter

Pixelhunter is a smart image resizer for social media platforms. It recognizes objects and crops pictures automatically. It supports 102 sizes and is free to use.

Compo

Compo is an Apple app that allows you to play with shapes and colors and create compositions on your own. You can see shapes and colors like the Bauhaus masters, creating from a blank canvas or shuffling in more creative ways. You can move, rotate, copy, overlap, and adjust shapes and colors to suit your style. Available for iPad and iPhone.

Backlight

Backlight is an all-in-one design system platform that allows you to build code and reference sites in a space where designers and developers can work together. It has a series of “starter kits” to help you with the technology you use from React to Chakra to Tailwindcss. It’s designed to be collaborative with everything in one place and integrates into your workflows. The tool is just launching and you can request early access to learn more.

Multi Color Text With CSS

Multi Color Text With CSS is pure fun. Check out the pen by Shireen Taj.

Mega Creator

Mega Creator is an online graphic design tool that helps you create images, icons, illustrations, backgrounds, and more for a number of uses. It has templates that are sized for common uses such as social media. You can upload your own elements to work with (free) or use including graphic assets for a fee.

Noloco

Noloco is a no-code solution for designers to build web apps. You can start building for free and design almost anything you can dream up from a set of drag-and-drop ready-made blocks. (And it will work across all screen sizes.)

Tinter

Tinter is a tiny web tool to generate color variations of images. The tool also generates monochrome colors of images with multiple variants, without hampering the quality of the image.

Radix Colors

Radix Colors is an accessible, open-source color system for designing gorgeous websites and apps. It includes 28 color scales with 12 steps each and includes support for dark mode as well as matching transparencies.

WP Cost Calculator

WP Cost Calculator is a smart, simple tool that allows you to easily create price estimation forms. It’s perfect for a number of industries that use online pricing.

TraveledMap

TraveledMap allows you to create customizable maps thanks to the use of markers, routes, and photos, which you can share or add to your website or blog. This tool is made for travelers and tourism pros.

Glyph Neue Icons

Glyph Neue Icons is a collection of 1,500 icons in SVG and PNG format. (They are free with a link.) Icons come in plenty of categories and styles for all types of use.

Streamline Icons

Streamline Icons is a set of thousands of icons in 12 different styles and themes that you can use for projects. They work through the Streamline app or a plugin for Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD.

Health Icons

Health Icons is a set of free, open-source health icons for personal or commercial projects. They include filled and outline styles that are editable. There are more than 800 icons in the collection.

OMG, SVG Favicons FTW!

OMG, SVG Favicons FTW! Is a look at the benefits of using SVG favicons in web projects. It also examines some of the challenges – such as browsers support – with code snippets to help you get started.

Aspect Ratio in CSS

Aspect Ratio in CSS explores a design concept we talk about a lot in other places, but not so much with CSS. This piece by Ahmad Shadeed takes a look at how you can go beyond the “padding hack” and use native aspect ratio support in CSS to maintain image height and width ratios in responsive design.

Fight Kick

Fight Kick is a bold font with a lot of personality. The free demo version has 249 characters and is for personal use only.

Glow Better

Glow Better is a beautiful premium typeface with a pair of options – a serif and script. Both contain letterforms with swashes and tails that are delightful.

Huggable Hedgehogs

Huggable Hedgehogs is a playful font that’s perfect for children’s projects. Everything has a mono-height in the all uppercase typeface.

Monice

Monice is a rounded sans serif with thick lines and high readability. It includes bold, regular, and italic styles with free (demo, personal) and commercial options.

Rustica

Rustica is a robust premium typeface with 20 styles and family options. It has slim curves and an easy-to-read character set that would work for almost any use. It also supports 219 languages.

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Poll: The Ethical Dilemma at the Heart of GitHub’s Copilot

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On June 29th, GitHub announced Copilot, an AI-powered auto-complete for programmers, prompting a debate about the ethics of borrowed code.

GitHub is one of the biggest code repositories on the Internet. It hosts billions of lines of code, creating an unparalleled dataset with which to train a coding AI. And that is exactly what OpenAI, via GitHub, thanks to its owners Microsoft has done — training Copilot using public repositories.

The chances are you haven’t tried Copilot yet, because it’s still invite-only via a VSCode plugin. People who have, are reporting that it’s a stunning tool, with a few limitations; it transforms coders from writers to editors because when code is inserted for you, you still have to read it to make sure it’s what you intended.

Some developers have cried “foul” at what they see as over-reach by a corporation unafraid of copyright infringement when long-term profits are on offer. There have also been reports of Copilot spilling private data, such as API keys. If, however, as GitHub states, the tool has been trained on publicly available code, the real question is: which genius saved an API key to a public repository.

GitHub’s defense has been that it has only trained Copilot on public code and that training AI on public datasets is considered “fair use” in the industry because any other approach is prohibitively expensive. However, as reported by The Verge, there is a growing question of what constitutes “fair use”; the TLDR being that if an application is commercial, then any work product is potentially derivative.

If a judge rules that Copilot’s code is derivative, then any code created with the tool is, by definition, derivative. Thus, we could conceivably reach the point at which a humans.txt file is required to credit everyone who deserves kudos for a site or app. It seems far-fetched, but we’re talking about a world in which restaurants serve tepid coffee for fear of litigation.

There are plenty of idealists (a group to which I could easily be accused of belonging) that nurture a soft-spot for the open-source, community-driven web. And of course, it’s true to say that many who walk the halls (or at least log into the Slack) of Microsoft, OpenAI, and GitHub are of the same inclination, contributing generously to open-source projects, mentoring, blogging, and offering a leg-up to other coders.

When I first learnt to code HTML, step one, before <p>hello World!</p> was view > developer > view source. Most human developers have been actively encouraged to look at other people’s code to understand the best way to achieve something — after all, that’s how web standards emerged.

Some individuals are perhaps owed credit for their work. One example is Robert Penner, whose work on easing functions inspired a generation of Actionscript/JavaScript coders. Penner published his functions online for free, under the MIT license; he also wrote a book which taught me, among other things, that a while loop beats a for loop, a lesson I use every day — I’d like to think the royalties bought him a small Caribbean island (or at least a vacation on one).

There is an important distinction between posting code online and publishing code examples in a book, namely that the latter is expected to be protected. Where Copilot is on questionable ground is that the AI is not a searchable database of functions, it’s code derived from specific problems. On the surface, it appears that anything Copilot produces must be derivative.

I don’t have a public GitHub repository, so OpenAI learned nothing from me. But let’s say I did. Let’s say I had posted a JavaScript-powered animation from which Copilot garnered some of its understanding. Does Microsoft owe me a fraction of its profits? Do I in turn owe Penner a fraction of mine? Does Penner owe Adobe (who bought Macromedia)? Does Adobe owe Brendan Eich (the creator of JavaScript)? Does Eich owe James Gosling (creator of Java), if not for the syntax, then for the name? And while we’re at it, which OS was Gosling using back in the mid-90s to compile his code — I doubt it was named after a fruit.

If this seems farcical, it’s because it is. But it’s a real problem created by the fact that technology is moving faster than the law. Intellectual property rights defined before the advent of the home computer cannot possibly define an AI-driven future.

 

Featured image uses images via Max Chen and Michael Dziedzic.

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