Practical website tips and personal stories for small business owners in Montana, Utah, and beyond.
Web design trends... do we love them or hate them? As a freelance web designer and developer based in Salt Lake City, I strive to stay up to date with knowing the latest trends, and intentionally applying them when applicable. By staying ahead of the trends, your website can look fresh, modern, and relevant for years to come.
Without further ado, let's get into my picks:
Whether it's section dividers, image frames, or illustrative elements, I see these wavy shapes to make more of an appearance in 2026 web designs. Squiggles pair especially well with playful designs as well as tropical and beach brands.
In some ways, your website is like a letter to your audience. We're bringing nostalgia online with postage stamps, embossed logos, and imperfect illustrations with inky-texture. This trend is perfect for western, vintage, and hyper-personal brands.
Section background images can pack a powerful punch in elevating your website. It's easy to opt for solid colors or gradients, but this mosaic-tile trend instantly adds more personality to any section. Any food related website can draw from kitchen backsplash inspired patterns, travel blogs can bring in cultural patterns related to places they have vistied.
Calling all outdoors and adventure brands! Mountain silhouettes are not a new idea in the industry, but web designers are getting more creative integrating them into website section dividers, photo frames, and background images. This trend makes your website looks like like a PDF and more like a cohesive journey...just like a hike through the woods.
In an age of craving physical connection and tangible media, this scrapbooking trend is a breath of fresh air in our sterile online landscape. Creative businesses will especially benefit from layering paper scraps, stickers, paper clips, receipts, polaroid pictures, washi tape, post cards, and more in a digital collage.
For powerful gyms, business coaches, and startups, this trend is for you. Solid black and white designs place all of the attention on your loud voice, while punches of a staple neon color brings the energy and personality.
Website visitors are tired of digging through paragraphs and long pages to find information. If you have lots to share, considering breaking up your website into simple cards that users can skim. Add clickable and hover animations to make this trend even more functional.
That's all for now! Looking forward to another amazing year in the web design world!