Our expert panel of designers refers to a clear-cut set of metrics for evaluating multiple factors, including creativity, execution, visual identity, brand image, recall, functionality and overall user engagement, to identify the best designs for each month.
Brands and agencies who wish to be considered for the best design of the month awards must submit their designs for evaluation. The design jury then rates each submission on a scale of 1 to 10 — the average of which counts as the final grade. The entire vetting process takes two weeks, after which the winning designs are published on DesignRush and promoted on other DesignRush channels, including social media.
Artificial intelligence in web design encompasses chatbots, machine learning and automated personalization. Since 66% of customers expect brands to understand their needs and expectations, AI is a web design trend you should invest in.
For 86% of consumers, authenticity is one of the most important factors in their decision what brands they should support - and a creative, unpredictable web design layout can achieve this! Everything from asymmetrical layouts to free-form design to brutalism fit this aesthetic. When implemented correctly, they can add depth and motion to a website design.
To pull interesting layouts off, you have to know your visitors well. Will they appreciate an unexpected design? Are the rest of your design elements, such as checkout or navigation, intuitive and easy to use to counteract the unexpected appearance? Mind you, the best website design shouldn't be completely comprised of questionable layouts and unconventional elements. Big design risks should be balanced with strong user experience and tried-and-true trends so as not to confuse and scare visitors off - particularly first-timers - before they can convert.
Color psychology - aka the art of leveraging the emotional and psychological responses to certain colors - can drive website conversions. After all, the majority of consumers are more likely to engage with a company if they feel some sort of emotional connection to it.
What's more, consistent colors can increase brand recognition by up to 80 percent - and consistent, recognizable brand presentation across all platforms, including websites, further improves conversions. By understanding cultural conditioning and human associations with particular hues, brands will be able to create the feeling they desire in their web design.
Your site only has 50 milliseconds to impress visitors! This means that your website design has to be impactful, user-focused and have a special “wow factor” that pulls visitors in. What better way to catch someone’s eye than a little motion?
Motion elements like videos on website pages can increase conversions 86%. Why’s that? Motion cultivates a concrete brand identity, and draws attention to important information and calls to action, such as a purchase button or email signup. Ultimately, videos and animations on your website design can help you explain, promote and cultivate emotion in visitors.
Website design isn’t all conversions and calls-to-action - there needs to be a little humanity in there to give your website a brand a voice that people will gravitate towards. An easy way to achieve this (and increase brand consistency in the process) is through hand-drawn illustrations.
Custom illustrations can take a brand from run-of-the-mill to iconic. One-of-a-kind illustrations can foster an emotional connection with customers - and 65% of consumers who feel an emotional connection with a business believe a brand cares about them personally, subsequently cultivating a long-term bond. Plus, our brains can process images up to 60,000 times faster than words, which means these custom illustrations can also communicate important information to visitors more successfully than words alone.
We've all heard the saying "less is more," but minimal interfaces are proof that straightforward navigation and concise messaging are the keys to capturing consumers. A clean, minimal design allows users to focus on the message a brand is communicating. This ultimately fosters a better relationship between consumer and company, which is known to increase sales. In fact, 89 percent of consumers stay loyal to brands that share their values and 43% of them spend more money on brands they are loyal to.
However, a minimal website design does more than further brand identity - it also gives the brand the flexibility to adapt to trends without committing to them. Because they have such a strong foundation, they can play with creative copy, edgy imagery, and engaging videos in their online presence without overhauling their brand presentation. Ultimately, minimalism gives brands the freedom to adapt while simultaneously fostering a recognizable identity, which is why this longstanding website design trend is still going strong.
More than 90 percent of website visitors who read your page’s headline will also read your call to action. And those views often turn into conversions too. In fact, a case study from Brafton found that consistent and informative calls-to-action improved e-commerce conversion 22 percent and overall revenue by 83 percent, proving that a little persuasion can go a long way.
But the wording is also important. More personalized, friendly calls-to-action consistently see better click-through rates. Ingratiate yourself with users more by writing in first-person. This will transform your online interaction with potential customers from transactional to personal, increasing the likelihood that they will make a purchase.
88% of users wouldn't return to a website after a bad user experience. For them, finding vital information and the products and services quickly and easily is paramount to a good UX.
The best among website design awards winners make UX a priority. No matter how impressive your sight might look, UX is what makes the ride enjoyable. Easily improve user experience on a website by creating intuitive navigation - after all, visitors landed on their site because they want to find something. Why not make it easy for them?
A majority of visitors want to find a contact page after arriving on a website. But is it really that detrimental if you don’t have one?
The simple answer is - yes. Simple contact forms with three fields have a minimum conversion rate of 25 percent.
Top website designs that give users what they want will always have a contact page - and you should, too. Service-based companies in particular benefit immensely from clear and simple contact forms. The small form, readable text and clear messaging make this the perfect catch-all for potential clients.
Other sites benefit from contact pages as well. E-commerce sites can strengthen customer relationships by answering questions through a contact form, while informational sites can field suggestions, allowing users to feel more engaged and understood by a company.
Content marketing may only seem like a rudimentary website element, but that is certainly not the case. Over 80% of marketers use content marketing to create their brand awareness and build credibility and trust. Plus, content marketing creates more than three times as many leads as traditional marketing - yet it costs 62 percent less! In short, it fosters a very strong ROI.
The good news is that content marketing isn’t all just fluffy blogs or long-form content. Anything from white papers to videos to social media can all constitute content marketing - so long as it’s telling your business’s story in some way or informing your consumers on topics they care about.
In addition, content marketing initiatives hosted on your website can be integrated into many platforms, such as email marketing campaigns and social media posts, ultimately driving more traffic to your website. Finally, content marketing helps websites rank better in search engine listings for select keywords, making your business more discoverable for new customers.
A beautiful website design isn't enough to grow your company online - instead, you need to invest in a consistent design across all pages and platforms. A dependable brand identity across all platforms can increase your revenue by up to 23%.
A great web design that matches the brand's image on social media, print ads, apps and partnerships fosters the trust of users. They are likely to believe that the brand is credible if they encounter matching imagery, tone of voice, colors and messaging across multiple platforms.
2022 is all about big personality and bold design, and the nostalgic influence of the 1980s and 1990s is propelling this forward with more emphasis on geometric shapes, patterns and textures over flat design.
This web design trend doesn’t just win web design awards or simply boost a site’s aesthetic appearance, though - it is able to strategically draw attention to important information, featured products and calls to action. Plus, repetitive and symmetrical patterns create the illusion of movement on the site, which, we all know, increases conversions.
It turns out that the appearance of science on website pages is just as compelling as science itself! According to research, people will believe anything they read in a chart. So why not capitalize on that and add the appearance of science to your website design.
While you definitely shouldn’t fudge numbers or fib about your services, showing that information instead of saying it will likely resonate more deeply with your consumers. After all, about 90 percent of the information sent to our brain is visual, which means we are well-versed in processing imagery over text.
Sixty-five percent of consumers say that they are more likely to give a brand their business because they feel a connection to the company - and typography can influence this.
Many fonts are impactful due to cultural significance - such as art deco and the Roaring ‘20s. Typography can also strike a chord in our semantic memories - this is often seen with the font Helvetica and government associations (did you happen to notice it on your latest tax forms?).
Typography can also create an overarching vibe. For example, a thin, clean and capitalized font is chic, while a scrawling hand-drawn type is viewed as intimate. By determining the atmosphere you want to create on your site, you’ll be able to choose a typeface that will help you achieve your goals.
Decreasing site page load time by 0.1 seconds lead to the lead generation pages' bounce rates improving by 8.3%. If loading times are delayed, visitors can develop interstitial anxiety, causing them to wonder if something is wrong with the site. But this anxiety can be reduced with the use of creative loading animations or interesting page transitions.
Interesting transitions also boost UX by creating a seamless experience. A strong interface design can increase conversions by up to 200 percent, and strong user experience design can improve conversions by up to 400 percent.
Unique page transitions add motion graphics - such as a mask header and products that swell and reduce in size in conjunction with the scrolling - take users through a compelling timeline-like journey and place emphasis on information like dates, products and life achievements that the readers should take note of through simple motion.
Optimizing for mobile isn’t really a web design trend - it’s an absolute necessity. Mobile e-commerce sales account for nearly 54 percent of all online sales in 2022.
In fact, Google places an even higher emphasis on mobile optimization vs desktop when it comes to search engine rankings. To get yourself closer to that coveted no. 1 spot, create a responsive design and ensure the loading time is quick - 53 percent of mobile sites are abandoned if they don’t fully load in three seconds.
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