Despite any economical recession or crisis, people are always in need for food, therefore, the food and drink industry will be always profitable. Being one of the richest business areas, the food supply industry is also the one with the toughest competition. As is generally known, high competition is the most fertile ground for novelties, innovations and cutting-edge ideas. Thus, when it comes to web design, websites of meal related brands are often celebrating the principles of truly creative and excellently implemented design.
In this post we would like to observe the main trends in food & drink website design and show you a collection of sites that are, in our opinion, the best examples in this area.
The Current Trends in Food & Drink Website Design
The Bread
The large-scale, beautifully presented and super realistic looking images of foods make up the major trend peculiar to this category of websites. It looks as if the main factor that is taken into account during the beta-testing of a modern food website is the extent of salivation. Just look at the design below, doesn’t it make your mouth water?
Many of us use the Internet to plan and organize vacations and holidays. When everything can be done online, from finding info about a certain destination to booking tickets and hotel, the companies related to travel and tourism industry are naturally taking advantage of their presence on the Web. Reaping the fruits of ever emerging Web technologies, travel businesses have a wide choice of tools to create attractive and engaging websites. In this post we will try to dissect the trends in modern travel website design and define the main features a site of a travel related company should include for the best impact.
Continue Reading
We continue to analyze current web design trends in various industries. The last post covered the best practices of jeans website design and today we will discuss some features typical for websites of cosmetics and beauty companies. What design elements make for the website efficiency? What’s the specific nature of this niche? What are the latest trends in the beauty website design? We’ll try to answer these questions and hopefully bring some inspiration to those of you who is currently working on design of a beauty website.
Among some common features that can be observed throughout the following collection are:
Centered Content
Many websites of cosmetics companies take up only the height of the screen with the content placed in the center. Probably the main reason for this is that fewer people go fullscreen on this kind of websites. Most beauty websites are flash based, so it’s easy to keep the content area compact, yet easy scannable, by means of slideshow galleries and dynamic blocks. The short page length also keeps everything in view and henceforth, makes for the visitors’ longer stay on the site.
It’s always interesting to observe the design trends in a particular industry. In our previous posts we analyzed websites of alcohol brands and nonprofit organizations. Another specific niche we would like to look at is websites of denim brands. Everybody wears jeans, so nearly every apparel producing company now has at least one denim collection in their product range. Tough competition motivates jeans producers put much effort into creating impressive online presentations of their products. Below you can read about some of the best practices of jeans website design and look through the collection of fancy websites belonging to the well-known denim brands.
The use of bold call-to-action elements, attractive offers and product presentations is a common trend in commerce-centered web design. Among the popular design practices that can be seen on websites of denim produces are the following:
Flash
When it comes to creating a memorable visual experience Flash is just a perfect tool to use. For instance, the European website of Wrangler features a really incredible video presentation of their Blue Bell collection which would be impossible to implement without Flash.
The basic web design principles, such as uncomplicated navigation, readable typefaces, uncluttered layout and appropriate colors, are common for all websites, whatever industry they belong to. Non-profit websites are not an exception. However, the specific subject matter surely affects a site’s look and organization. Thus, websites belonging to non-profit and charity institutions typically have a deeper social media integration and prominent call-to-action elements in order to involve people in their cause. In this post we will look at the effective practices of nonprofit web design and showcase some of the best examples in this niche.
Know your audience
Defining the target audience is a primary thing you should do when starting an online charity or nonprofit activity. Know the main purpose of your website up front: is it going going to inform the visitors about your organization, get them involved in a certain event or enable them to make purchases and donations? Once you know the questions the visitors to your site will be searching for your site to answer, you will be able to create an appropriate, hence, effective design.
