Web Design Trends to Know for 2023

If you think of social media as the window into your business, your website is your front-of-house. It’s the first space they enter that needs to accurately represent the brand they are about to interact with. You need to step into the mind of your consumer and create an online experience that will motivate them to take a deeper look at your brand. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at 10 essential design trends for wellness brands (and beyond) that will help you build a stronger brand in 2023.

Before you read on please note, that I don’t advise following trends simply because they are trends. Only pursue a design trend if it feels right for your brand and business. It’s so much more important for your brand to be up-to-date rather than “trendy”. Always refer back to your brand strategy and values before updating your design.

Click to jump to the trend you’d like to read about:

1. Motion Effects
2. Unexpected Colors
3. Thin Serif Fonts
4. Statement Typography
5. Chatbots
6. Accessibility in Mind
7. White Space
8. Gradients
9. Dark Mode
10. Humanized Design

1. Motion Effects

Social platforms have been prioritizing video and that expectation is certainly extending beyond Instagram and TikTok to web design. There are several trending ways to add a bit of motion to your website.

Video

The simplest way to introduce motion is in video backgrounds, automatic image galleries, and subtle gifs. These all add interest to a layout and catch the eye of the visitor. Word of warning: always make sure your video or gif sizes are optimized for the web – under 500kb. Otherwise, it will slow down your load speed and negatively impact your SEO.

Animated Cursors

All the rage in the late 90s, animated cursors are gaining popularity once again. This could be a cursor that changes appearance when it interacts with different elements across the site or one that animates as it moves around the screen. Please only follow this trend if it absolutely makes sense with the vibe of your brand because it walks a very fine line between cool and cheesy.

Scrolling Effects

Scrolling effects cause some sort of motion or visual event upon moving up and down a page. Apple all throughout the iPhone sales page. It’s a truly show-stopping effect that takes a lot of custom work to pull off in a big way. However, you can implement the scrolling effect more easily and on a smaller scale.

For example, in Showit, it’s possible to have the background color of a section change upon scrolling without any code. You’ll notice this type of scrolling effect built into Meteor Street Studio’s Creator website template.

Parallax scrolling is another technique that is pretty popular and adds a sense of depth to a webpage. This is when an image is a background of a block and seems like it’s sitting behind the rest of the elements. As you scroll, you’ll notice a subtle motion of the image moving up and revealing more.

2. Unexpected Colors

Greens, blues, and muted earth tones are typically associated with wellness or self-care brands. In 2023, those tones will be set in unexpected color palettes. Think neon orange, lime, or vibrant pink. Pantone’s 2023 color of the year, Viva Magenta, fits right into this trend.

As an example, Expectful (a mindfulness app for fertility, pregnancy, and motherhood) recently refreshed its entire branding and executed this trend flawlessly.

3. Thin Serif Fonts

Thin condensed serifs started gaining huge traction in 2022 and are only going to become more popular in 2023. This style would work so beautifully with self-care businesses that have soothing, nurturing, or elegant vibes. Some lovely examples can be seen below.

4. Statement Typography

It’s been typical to find large imagery at the top of the primary pages of a site, but there is a new fad appearing that replaces this with bold, eye-catching text. This style could work very well with strong brands that identify as Rebels, Creators, Heros, or Jesters.

To make this trend work really well, use expressive fonts that command attention.

5. Chatbots

Ever notice a little popup greeting you in the lower right-hand corner when visiting a website? Enter the chatbot.

In an effort to bring more personalization and customer service to a website, chatbots and messaging features are on the rise. What is interesting about current chatbots is that brands customize their language to be more casual and human-like making it a more enjoyable experience for the visitor.

Popular chatbot services for small businesses are Intercom, ManyChat, and FG Funnels.

6. Accessibility in Mind

While I wouldn’t necessarily call this a “trend”, it’s been a factor that people are prioritizing more than ever… finally. It’s time to focus on creating a digital environment that is accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. You’d be shocked to find out how many websites don’t follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

New to these accessibility standards? Start with Level A (the lowest level of compliance). For example, make sure the contrast throughout your site passes the test. All pieces of important text – from headlines to buttons to paragraphs – need to have enough contrast from the background.

7. White Space

White space is an important component to any layout as is helps elements to “breathe” – helping the user focus on important information or imagery. Unfortunely, this is often overlooked as many business owners desire to cram as much information onto a site as possible.

Lack of white space (aka negative space) makes it very difficult to properly read your website. Luckily, people are beginning to prioritize white space on their websites, even in more extreme minimal ways. Let’s take another look at Apple who is famous for their striking use of negative space. You’ll notice there isn’t much on the screen, but it’s still making a huge impact.

White space allows for a composition to focus easily on the mission of the message.

8. Gradients

Gradients have been having a moment and it’s still going strong into 2023. They are a lovely alternative to solid blocks of color behind text or as an illustrative element to highlight aspects of a brand.

You’ll see an effective use of gradients on my client Prism Face Lab‘s website. As a magician brand, the soft gradients throughout the site help boost the feelings of transformation as well as relaxation. To further push the idea of auras and prisms, I added organic shapes with gradient fills to mimic light reflecting off surfaces.

9. Dark Mode

With in the introduction of dark mode on mobile phone, designers are leaning in to the aesthetic for websites too. Super dark colored websites are very modern and give a sense of luxury, so these types of designs are best suited for luxe and mysterious or bold and rebellious brands.

For a perfect example, take a look at my design client Alessandra Maria. We customized the Creator template for her in a dark mode to reflect her moody artistic style.

10. Humanized Design

Move over perfect geometry. Make room organic rounded forms and handdrawn detailed. Nature is blending with the digital world and this is a wonderful trend for wellness and self-care businesses!

Organic shapes are incredibly diverse and can add interest to any website. Just use them with care and don’t go overboard. They should enhance your design, not distract from your message. You could even use organic shapes as subtle background patterns and textures to really breath life into your digital space.

Handdrawn details are also on the rise. Keep things classy here. Think more fine art rather than crafty. A great tip is to reflect the vibe of your physical space as much as you can to seamlessly tie the customer’s experiences together.

Final Thoughts

That was a roundup of my 10 biggest predictions for website design trends in 2023. Interested to see if any of these trends would would for you self-care business’s website? I’d love to chat! You can schedule a free 15 minute connection call with me to chat about the future of your brand and website. In this call we will discuss the best path forward on how to get you a brilliant brand that attracts regular clients in 2023.