Lenka

1) Hand-y Design
Remember the age of Internet innocence? That amazing honeymoon phase when we still dialed up to connect to a vast, snail-paced online world of sleek, computer-generated images? Yeah, not so much anymore. After however-many-years, we’re so used to seeing stunning, sleek designs that we’re no longer impressed. Thus, a return to the drawing board. Literally.

2) Social Media Integration
As the Faebooks and Twitters of the world have gotten bigger and more influential across the Internet, websites have started adding all kind of little buttons to their pages which allow people to link what they’re currently viewing to their chosen social networking site. It’s a wonderfully synergistic idea but aesthetically, it gets messier and messier with the constant addition of yet more buttons. In 2010, I predict (/hope) that web designers figure out a graceful way of staying linked in without being overrun and sloppy.

Chunk

3) Keeping It Clean
Plain and simple, web designers are opting for clean, white web spaces in growing numbers. It’s like we kept piling more and more stuff onto websites until we reached the apex, the height, the crescendo, the stop-it point…and now we’re wiping it away. Calm, easy-to-read websites are on the horizon.

Coder Plus

4) Lightboxes (modal boxes)
If there’s one minor web design tool that adds so much to the presentation of a website right now, it’s the lightbox. This pop-up of the future is way more aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly than it’s invasive predecessor and the way it focuses what the viewer is looking at is sleek and pleasant. Expect to see a lot more of these…and hopefully, a lot less of those ugly, annoying pop-ups of the past.

Pink Is The New Blog

5) Magazine Layouts
Read all about it! Okay, that was cheesy. But what isn’t cheesy is this increasingly popular website layout, in which designers take a tip from their partners-in-print, the magazine editor. Magazine style layouts allow the viewer to glimpse a large amount of information in a clear, uncluttered way. Navigation becomes intuitive…and a user-friendly site is an oft-visited site.

Mau Russo

6) Think Big
Specifically, think big headers. Big text, big images, big, easy, automatic memory imprint in the minds of viewers. It’s already quite prevalent and 2010 will only see this trend continue.

dafont

7) Awesome Fonts
Not that we haven’t always appreciated a totally great font, but if ever there were glory days for unique and original typefaces, these are those days. More than ever, there are whole websites, whole communities, whole professions, all dedicated to coming up with new, visually amazing ways for us to write things online. This is probably my favorite rising trend in 2010 so cheers to that!

Deviant Art

Playing With Perspective
Whether it’s making a page look like you’re viewing it through a fishbowl or a telescope or the mouth of a giraffe, there are no longer any rules when it comes to website perspective. And thank you, web designers; I think we were all getting a little tired of the same old I’m-looking-at-a-website-and-I-know-what-that-looks-like-already thing. If we’re all going to be permanently glued to our laptops from now until forever, we might as well have a little fun with the view.