In the fast-paced world of web design, staying current with the latest trends is crucial for appealing to users and standing out from competitors. With new technologies and innovations emerging constantly, it can be challenging to parse the passing fads from developments that have real staying power. However, identifying and smartly implementing key website design trends at the right time can provide a distinctive competitive edge.
In 2025, several key website design trends have risen to prominence that savvy businesses should consider incorporating. Used strategically, these trends can increase conversion rates, boost SEO, and create an overall cutting-edge yet intuitive user experience. Let’s examine some of the top website design trends to leverage in 2025.
With mobile internet usage now exceeding desktop usage, adopting a mobile-first or even mobile-only approach in website design is no longer just smart - it’s absolutely essential. Google itself has made mobile-friendliness a key ranking factor, so ensuring your site looks great on smartphones and tablets needs to be a top priority.
Some best practices for mobile-friendly design include:
Going mobile-only, ditching the desktop site altogether, can make sense for some businesses targeted wholly at mobile users. For most though, finding the right responsiveness balance remains key.
Athleisure company Fabletics redesigned their site in 2018 to be mobile-first. Their new site loads fast, with clickable product images upfront rather than buried in text. Clean UX and one-tap checkout optimize for mobile shoppers. The result: 28% higher mobile conversion rates within a year.
Ordinary system fonts tend to look, well, ordinary. Typographic details like weight, slant, width, and more used to require loading separate font files. Variable fonts change the game by enabling all these variations within a single font file.
This allows for subtle typographic tweaks that can make a site’s headers and text really stand out. Designers can finely tune fonts for a custom look. Variable fonts also load faster and simplify typography across devices. This trend expands creative possibilities while improving performance.
Presentation site Pitch introduced variable fonts to customize their bold display type in 2019. The variable font lent their headings a distinct lightweight, rounded aesthetic. Yet it loads faster than all their old fonts combined. Their site perfectly balances custom typographic flair with speed.
Smooth, muted websites have had their moment. The new era is all about eye-catching, vibrant designs. Bold graphics, bright colors, and immersive animations now take center stage.
Examples include:
Vibrant imagery grabs attention while conveying brand personality. Of course, stylish visuals must still direct users logically. Pairing bold graphics with clear CTAs and intuitive navigation prevents overkill.
Subscription shaving brand Archer redesigned their site in 2020 using playful, engaging illustrations and animations. Vivid colors, fun characters, and subtle animations bring their branding to life while showing the superior shaving experience. Sales grew by 250% year-over-year following the redesign.
As a counterpoint to flashy maximalism, the brutalism design trend relies on extreme minimalism and rawness. Websites feature very little: Sparse layouts, plain fonts, no images, and intentionally harsh aesthetics.
Benefits of brutalism include:
This stark aesthetic clearly won’t work for most brands. Those with artsy, hip target markets can potentially pull it off. Brutalism lends an edgy, anti-mainstream vibe suited to some. When executed correctly with restraint, brutalism provides an intriguing alternative to overdesigned sites.
Backpack maker Herschel Supply Co. adopts a brutalist look for their minimalist site. With colorless pages, plain text, and almost no images, their design is uber-minimal. This places full focus on their quirky products and lets the lifestyle brand’s non-mainstream identity shine.
Photorealistic images have dominated websites for years. In contrast, hand-drawn illustrations and elements add a fresh, human touch.
Hand-drawn aspects websites can implement include:
Hand-drawn design adds approachable, personalized flair. It combats the stiff, generic feeling of stock photography. When balanced with clean layouts, it avoids looking unprofessional. Hand-made elements especially suit brands with artistic, retro, or nostalgic vibes.
Snoop Dogg’s cannabis site Leafs by Snoop features a hand-drawn style with multiple custom illustrations. The pencil and watercolor textures and fonts provide a chill, artistic feel that well represents the brand. The custom drawings help the site strongly stand out in a crowded industry.
Split-screen and asymmetrical layouts are replacing the former standard of symmetrical, grid-based designs. Splitting pages into distinct panels adds visual interest while better accommodating varied content types.
For example, a page could contain:
Or, a multi-column layout with:
Strategic use of split screens streamlines consuming different types of information. It also lends websites a modern, structured feel versus the stale “wall of text” effect.
Messaging platform Slite used a split-screen layout to highlight their varied features and content. Cleanly dividing sections helps users easily digest dense information. The asymmetrical layout provides visual variety while supporting the UI’s functionality.
Another rising trend is integrating cinemagraphs. A cinemagraph is an image with subtle motion in parts of the frame, such as flowing hair or shifting clouds. These mesmerizing “living photos” blend photography with animation.
On websites, cinemagraphs can:
Subtle motion captures attention while conveying energy and vitality. Yet cinemagraphs don’t distract like excessive animation. Their uniqueness makes them inherently shareable across social media.
Home renovation site Houzz implemented cinemagraphs in sections like their outdoor living category. Swaying palm trees and flickering fire pits bring scenes to life. The understated motion attracts viewers while smoothly looping for a serene effect befitting their brand.
Grid-based layouts dominated web design for years. Their neat aligned boxes provided order. Today though, broken grid layouts are on the rise. Websites structured with overlapping, irregular shapes have an energetic, deconstructed vibe.
Examples of broken grid elements include:
Broken grid designs feel fresh versus the formulaic constraint of perfect grids. Yet they require skillful execution to avoid looking like a disjointed mess. Aligning objects to an underlying grid while artfully breaking in places balances order with dynamism.
Adobe Express enlivens their marketing site with a broken grid approach. Tilted shapes, overlapping asymmetric sections, and text extending into margins add excitement while reflecting the creative freedom their tools provide.
While trends come and go, several website design styles clearly have momentum in 2025. Mobile-centric adaptive design, vibrant graphics, variable fonts, and split layouts provide just some of the latest ways to stand out. Brutalist minimalism, hand-crafted elements, cinemagraphs, and broken grids offer alternatives to expected mainstream approaches.
Rather than blindly chasing every trend, conduct in-depth competitor research to identify website strengths worth emulating. Evaluate trends against your brand identity and goals to find the best fits. Use A/B testing to optimize implementations. With an informed, strategic approach, leveraging the right trends at the right time provides that crucial competitive edge. The web is constantly evolving - monitor these and other trends to keep your website looking uniquely contemporary.
Copyright © Zach Sean Web Design
