Just like any other field of design, web design trends come and go with the passing of time. As a brand, you need to be relevant. If you haven’t updated the look of your website for five years or so, now is a good time to do it. Otherwise, you risk falling behind competitors who also have websites. What new trends will pop up? Which ones will finally be laid to rest?
In this article I’m going to share the new web design trends for 2016 that I see will shape it in the coming year. Let’s examine some of the most popular for this and the coming year. You may want to take a look at the following related articles: Free Online Wireframe Tools, Responsive WordPress Templates, Typography in Web Design Examples and Free WordPress Legal Adviser Themes.
1. Illustrations
Illustrations have forever been a part of web design however we’ll see even a lot of lovely illustrations enforced in web site experiences to represent the complete, tell a story and connect with the visitor.

2. Material Design
Material Design is one of the biggest webdesign trends of 2016. It uses shadow effects and the concepts of movement and depth in order to create designs that appear more realistic to the user.

3. Cinemagraphs
Cinemagraphs are a combination of both still photography and video. The end result is a truly beautiful and mesmerizing cinemagraph that you can easily argue is an art medium in itself.

4. Animation
Animation is among the most important. Animating elements of an interface serves both a functional and aesthetic purpose: when applied thoughtfully, it can increase a user’s delight and make an interface easier to use by providing context.

5. Grid
Grid based web design, the images are given special priority and it has the potential to attract our attention more than the text. You’ll quickly notice the photos of this website stacked on top of each other.

6. Microinteractions
Microinteractions happen all around us, from turning off the alarm on your mobile phone to liking that cat picture on Facebook. Each one done without a second thought. It’s likely that you started your day with a micro interaction.
