Web Design Trends 2025
17 Feb 2025
Web Design Trends 2025
Our annual predictions on what will trend in Web Design this year.
Trends in 2025
Simple and Demure
The more that happens on a web page – animations, sliders, movies, large text that moves, preferably all at the same time – does not necessarily mean that the web page fulfills its purpose of collecting leads, incentivizing purchases or informing the visitor. It is an advantage if visitors can easily find the information they are looking for quickly, which can be more easily accomplished if the web design is clear and easy to understand.
Effective websites are simply a little more ”demure”. Even Apple, which usually uses a heavy amount of animations and interactivity when presenting its products, has toned down its expression.
The subdued trend is also connected to the accessibility trend. It is more difficult, and sometimes not even possible, to incorporate accessibility aspects on websites with highly interactive or animated elements.
Another aspect of cleaner, simpler web design is that these web sites often have an effective conversion rate. While websites with lots of animations and cool effects are impressive, they can also be overwhelming and difficult to navigate. The recent recession means that more companies have to focus more on making money and less on improving their image as “design thought leaders.”
Chaos, Anarchy and Brutalism
As a counterbalance to the more streamlined and clean websites, the trends from previous years of loud and slightly messy designs are still a topic of discussion among trend experts. Brutalism is a trend where the eye-catching (or eye-stabbing?) and unpolished take up a lot of space. The color scheme is often loud and the attitude that it that ugly or strange is more than OK.
See more examples of brutalist web sites at brutalistwebsites.com
Whether these types of websites are exhausting or a breath of fresh air is often a generational question. The younger generation mostly has an easier time embracing the style. Other visitors may find the impression busy and cluttered, which can make it harder to retain website visitors and fulfill the website’s purpose.
Bento
“Bento” is the name of the layout where content is placed in boxes of varied sizes with a background color. The name comes from the Japanese lunch box. The layout design, which has become more and more common over the years, has now increased even more in popularity.
Example of web design bento boxes at walmart.com
The boxes do not need to be used to present exactly all the content on a page, but can be added in certain contexts when information needs to be clarified or structured.
Examples of web design with bento boxes at apple.com
The trend is in line with effective and converting websites, as the bento layout excels at presenting a lot of information (including Call to Action links) in a clear way.
On the technical side, it’s still a while before Masonry layout can be used in CSS, but with the tools that have been included in Google Baseline* in recent years (container queries and improvements to CSS grid with sub-grid), it is becoming easier for web developers to implement the design.
*Read more about what Baseline is in our article ”What’s to Know About Baseline”
Custom Cursor
Treep Tours changed their cursor to a snail.
Using a unique cursor on your website is a way to show your individual expression and stand out from the crowd without being too loud or annoying.
The arrow that usually follows the mouse cursor is replaced or accompanied by an image or symbol that better aligns with the brand’s identity.
Custom Illustrations
Adding (seemingly) hand-drawn illustrations is a trend to emphasize the human factor and show the visitor that the content on the website (truly!) is not sloppily AI generated. Although these illustrations can of course still be trained on an AI model like exactly.ai and then generated by AI.
Model for creating AI illustrations at exactly.ai
Accessibility
We see a great divide in terms of accessibility adaptations on websites during the year. On the one hand, the EU directive on extended accessibility requirements for B2C sites comes into force this Summer. Read more about the directive in our article “Get Ready for European Accessibility Act EAA”.
On the other hand, there are strong forces that clearly avoid investing in accessibility. When Donald Trump took office as president, the accessibility statement was quickly removed from the White House website. The 404 page can be compared to previous administrations’ accessibility statements that are saved in the White House archives:
Lingering Past Trends
White Space and “Negative Space”
The spacing between elements in web page layouts is allowed to become more prominent. The gaps don’t have to be symmetrical, and can be used to enhance other design objects or content on the web page – for example, large headlines, which are another trend that has lingered on from previous years.
Big Typography
Large, bold headlines remain popular, and go hand in hand with the clean and simple trend. This also goes well with allowing white space to become part of the design. Typography and white space together can make up the majority of a design.
Credible Image Content
This has become even more important with the rapid evolve of AI-generated imagery. While there will be a lot of AI-generated material because it is so readily available, trust and confidence are built by showing images that appear genuine. Whether the imagery is in fact truly AI-generated or not is another question, the important thing is that the viewer believes the image is authentic.
Mobile First
“Mobile first” means that websites are designed and adapted to primarily be viewed and used on mobile phones. Web design that prioritizes the appearance and function of websites on mobile is becoming more common as more people use their mobile phones primarily to visit websites. Perhaps this is also a shift that is gradually happening as younger generations grow up and account for an increasingly growing target group and market share.
Speculations that this would mean a renewed interest in Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs) is interpretated by us as AI-generated content on the subject based on older AI models. The AMP project lost momentum and was phased out from many leading platforms as of 2021.
On the Horizon
Voice-Controlled Navigation and Search
We have seen the rise of voice-controlled assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple Siri. There are already voice-controlled AI assistants and voice-controlled commands for AI chatbots. Generalizing, typing in long prompts or reading long texts is something that is perceived as cumbersome. We also believe that it suits the younger generations particularly poorly. Therefore, we perceive that in the future, websites may also be equipped with voice-controlled controls.
