The simplicity in Microsoft’s new design, coupled with all things Apple and its flair for the understated craft of design, should be a cue to your business website design – keep it simple, using muted colors, maybe some grays. But most importantly, it’s all about the square. Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have gone “all in” on the square for their designs. Google’s long, rectangular buttons are now almost everywhere on the web. There is a slight rounded nature to the corner – but only a few pixels and only just to hint at the idea, but rounded corners are, safe to say, fairly out of style. Facebook went square (or rectangle) with their new user layout about a year ago. Microsoft – well, you can see it in their design.
Pay Pal & your pill-shaped logo – are you listening?
It is interesting how some design trends on the web seem to follow technological trends, rather than charting a course of their own. Beveled edges & drop shadows, older and now laughable trends, were made possible by enhancements in Photoshop. If you couldn’t afford a pricey copy of Photoshop, it showed on your website because there was no other way back then to accomplish the same design style without it. Paint Shop Pro was a close second for those of us who were not able to afford Photoshop, but it was still not at full capacity at that time for those design elements.
CSS has opened the door for us to use borders, gradients within an area (like a button), alter an object’s color upon an action (like a mouse-click), and yes, round the corners a bit. These are things that we can all do now without Photoshop – but it is still technology that leads the trend. As before when certain designs said, “I own Photoshop,” now these buttons (if done properly) tell the world, “I know how to use CSS.”
It is definitely an entertaining pattern to observe! For the business owner who is only interested in what design trends are here for now, not what was here yesterday – be advised! The boxy buttons of Google and Facebook and new logo of Microsoft are telling you something. It might just be time to update your website design.
