Loris Stavrinides

For about 2 years now, I haven't made any design predictions on future trends in web design. The main reason is that personally I did not notice any drastic trends emerging. Instead, the last two years had lots of similarities between them with very slow differences. This year, I’m bringing re-enforcement's by also sharing what our design team thinks will trend in the new year.

And it is finally here!! Anyone in the industry will know how much of a challenge it is to get around and design and build your new agency website. Technologies and trends evolve rapidly and ideally your website as a digital agency should go along with what’s current. This should reflect your skills, creativity, brand positioning and make you stand out. But one of the challenges is managing to find the time and resources to do this before you change your mind on your initial concept. It is a project where you would like to consider that the sky is the limit, and you expect to do your most creative work without anyone holding you back. But as it turns out, you yourself ends up becoming your most demanding client.

Design trends in 2018 Time again for my annual design predictions of what we can expect next year, in 2018! As per my last year’s post, this is not necessarily backed-up on any special research for an accurate prediction. But mainly what I personally expect will become bigger and what I would love to see trending during 2018… or at least from the BLEND design team! So, here are my 2018 Digital Design predictions:

So it is time again for my annual web design predictions for what we can expect next year, 2017! As per my last year’s post, this is not necessarily backed-up on any special research for an accurate prediction, but mainly what I personally expect to see or would love to see trending during 2017. Or at least from  the BLEND design team! So, here are my 2017 design trend predictions:

Just like traditional artists need to keep drawing or painting to improve their skills, professional designers should do the same. Each client project is an opportunity to improve a skill, learn something new and challenge yourself. However, real world client projects many times tend to be either uninspiring, too controlling or without enough creative freedom. More often than not due to client involvement or project restrictions. And that’s ok as is part of our job to make it as interesting as possible for the best and most appropriate outcome. But many designers are still artists at heart and we all crave the need to do something really inspiring and creative. Our own personal projects with no restrictions and complete freedom. If we don’t do this every now and then it could affect our daily work, our motivation and aspiration to become better at what we do. Read more to find out the importance of personal projects:

One of the most common challenges we face in web and interactive design is to decide when you need to position creativity over usability. Or even usability guidelines over creative freedom. As experienced web designers based in Nicosia, it comes easy for us to know when our design should be purely user-experience focused without any unique creativity. Or when we can afford to break the rules to be creative and innovative without worrying about usability best practises. However, most of the times our aim is to strive a perfect balance of the two.

We are half-way through the year 2015 and as we are still keeping an eye how this year’s web design trends are turning out. I’d like to predict what we may expect for next year. Not necessarily backed-up on much research, this list is mainly what I personally expect to see or would love to see trending during 2016. Either way, you should still expect that our web design team at BLEND will be embracing the following.

Developing the right brand image for your company is not as simple as providing your company name and requesting a logo. Designers and agencies need to understand who you are, where you want to go and who you want to speak to. Defining the right brand direction is a process that most companies and individuals underestimate and don’t take as seriously as they should. This results to the poor production of further work based on a weak brand.  You only get one shot to get it right before you start basing the rest of your company design needs on your brand, such as your website, stationery, etc. So if you are serious in investing on the creation of a successful brand for your company we suggest the following points to be followed: