It’s always tough to follow what’s happening in the technology world, andthat is all the more true when talking about the web. The internet continuesto evolve so fast and in many directions, mainly to various social media tools,making the web accessible to people who never dreamed of being a part ofit. Websites have undergone a continuous and surprisingly fast evolution.Once a playground for enthusiasts, it has now become a mature rich mediumwith strong aesthetic and functional appeal. But what exactly is makingthe new difference? What new directions is Web design heading to? Whatnew techniques, concepts and ideas are becoming important? This articleis a sneak peek into the current state of Web design and its new trends.

Print Designs - has always been a source of inspiration for the web. Webdesign has been around long enough to produce core designers who have never worked in print. As a result, we are seeing more inspiration drawn from print, as these designers look beyond the web. Serif fonts, Big Headlines,multi layered typography with columns and diagrams, Info graphics etc are seen in the recent websites for more creativity and for providing a more extended feel and satisfaction to a reader or a visitor to the a website.

Simplicity - is the key to the modern web design which prefer easy to read, easy togather information sites for improving the clarity of the message given through the websites. Minimalist designs are becoming more popular in websites as it containsonly what is to be communicated and every other things are removed. As a resultof the simple designs, greater amount of whitespace is appearing in the websites.One page websites is also becoming a trend as a result of the minimalist designs.

Typography - in the modern design is the most notalble change in the recentyears. Emergence of new capabilities helps designers to perform different experiments with the type settings and new fonts apart from the usual web safefonts. Typography is becoming a primary tool for designers to make a layout for their websites. Handwritten and other funky fonts was hated by people, but now many designers have found that, when used properly, in the right context the handwritten style is a powerful way to communicate. The future may be big, bold and typographic. Rich font families will be used not only for headlines but for body copy, bringing typographic practices from print over to the web.

CSS3 - enhances the web experience with more interactive and good looking features for the user. Rounded corners, border backgrounds and text and box shadows are some of the new features using CSS3 for a better looking website.With the emergence of Web2.0 the web industry is moving into a new era of designs. CSS3 animation is also becoming a popular technique for the designers. Animation industry which started with GIF formats now comes with a varietyof applications which allows the designer to select from Silver light, JavaScript,Flash or even CSS3 animations for making a good impression for the websites.

Horizontal Slide - is one of the new trends in the website navigation. The designers are creating websites with sliding effects which can both navigate vertically or horizontally or even a pure horizontal slide. The websites with horizontal scrolling were very difficult to navigate till now with a common vertical scroll mouse or even a vertical scroll touchpad. With the emergence of multi touch devices, new scripting technologies and plug-in’s, it is now possiblefor the users to navigate horizontally with the common vertical scroll mouse.

Key Board Navigations - gained popularity as the web designers are trying tomake their websites more interactive and more creative. The use of Keyboard navigations is the one in which a user can navigate through a website with different keyboard shortcuts. The general idea is to give users keyboard shortcuts that help them perform tedious tasks, such as moving through images in a slideshow, changing the current view and navigating between sections of a website. Key press navigation is common in Flash designs, but we are now seeing it applied to advanced CSS-based designs too. The most popularsetting for such navigation is on photo and slideshow websites.

Creativity - which is getting more diverse and designers are now amazed with eveyone else’s creativity. Not only does this raise the standards of quality of design, but it encourages ideas to be shared, which contributes to a new culture and standard of creativity and innovation. Clean illustrations are becoming more popular other than the usual images or clip arts. As a result more professionally designed and inviting illustrated designs decorate the current websites. Textured backgrounds with a morecreative design and the use of watercolour & paint textures is also gaining popularity in the industry.

Social Media - became an unavoidable element in the internet with its popularity and acceptance among the internet users and thus it becomes a new trend in the web design field also which integrates the social media networks into the websites for offering the website user an enhanced user experience.

Fixed Elements - have better support in the modern browsers and weare seeing cleverer uses of it. There are plenty of situations in which a fixedelement (e.g. a navigation bar) could serve the owner’s business objectives and make the website more usable. Fixed elements are memorable and enhance the user experience. They have many creative uses, and we will continue to see web designers take advantage of them in their designs.

Mobile-Compatible Designs - are gaining high popularity as the futureof internet browsing is becoming connected to the new trends in themobile phones and its applications. Mobile phones are getting versatile with the emergence of new 3G & 4G technologies. And the mobile webcontinues to grow rapidly. We have got to the point that every companyhas to consider whether their website will be used on the go, and if sohow. Innovative companies have already invested heavily in usefuland user-friendly mobile versions of their websites. And this will bethe future of communication for the world and will be more dynamic.

With the new technologies, designers and developers are trying to utilizethe new features to create impressive designs.In fact, we are experiencing what could be the best period of Web designnow and will continue to experience it with powerful new tools at ourdisposal (CSS3, HTML5, font embedding etc.), a pool of freely availableresources, a strong design community and also reliable support of Webstandards in the major browsers.