With every new year, comes new trends and web design is no different. Sure, it’s July 2010, but it’s never too late to tweak your old website with the latest web design trends and features.   The Internet is constantly evolving and expanding, and with the various social networking tools available, people who never jumped on the Internet bandwagon are now on board. It’s time to make sure that your website is catching the eye of all users, new and old.

After much research, here’s my Top 10 of 2010:

Fonts are meant to be explored, twisted, and sculpted to fit your needs, so don’t be afraid to try new and different ones on your site. Incorporate typography into your design and it will become more interesting to your visitor than bland fonts and photos. Even consider trying slab typefaces or serif fonts to stand out from the competition. Make sure to pay attention to typographic details such as line height, leading, and choice of font.

To ease the transition from traditional press to online, designers have moved toward the magazine layout, where information is organized on a single home page, giving the visitor a chance to explore as interested without having to flip pages. In addition, retro designs and layouts are here to stay. The key to retro designs is for visitors to be moved by its tone and underlying playfulness. Also, consider mobile design. Create a layout that caters to a mobile version of your site that can be pulled up seamlessly on a smart phone. 

A modal box is like a pop up, only more sophisticated. Modal boxes are so easy to design and easy to use, making them the perfect solution for any designer concerned with usability. They are clean, crisp, and focus on the information you are presenting, be it a picture, video, or text. 

White space is clean and easy on the eyes. It is a great background color to make something pop. Sometimes simplicity is key.

The upper left area of a website is prime real estate. It is the first place a visitor’s eye comes to when visiting a website. Take the message in the block and make it bigger, put it in an unusual place, or try coming up with a catchy pick up line. No more boring “hello” from designers these days. Come up with a unique way to say “hello” but remember to keep your message concise.

Social Networks and Media Sites have been the big thing the past couple of years, and it will only continue to get bigger. If you have a page on one of these sites or networks, link it to your website. Even if you don’t have a page but share a common interest with a network, link to it. Doing so will help build communities and networks around products, ideas, and causes. People are looking to connect with people with similar interests to share information with, so give them an easy way to connect with you.

You don’t have to be an artist to create your own sketch for a web page. If you can doodle, you can sketch for web design. In fact, the whole infatuation with hand drawn designs and sketches stems from blurring the line between the cold web and personal interaction so feel free to add any personal touches to your doodle. Sketches are even becoming more of an elemental part of corporate design for that reason.

To make an unforgettable impression on your visitors, be sure to have oversized logos on an equally oversized header on your site. These large images and headers can take up the whole page but the message should not. Keep your message or point simple, small, and important to prevent your visitors from having to click. The page should just scroll if necessary.

Single page layouts force you to edit away what is unnecessary. Think of a single page website as a business card. It is more of a quick and easy way to locate you, your information, and your work. For today’s busy society, this is the solution to get the visitor the information they need quickly. 

Stylistically rendered icons, not clip art, are more quickly recognized by your visitors than plain text. Just look at the iPhone; all icons, no text. Just be sure to use icons that represent what the message or section is about accurately or even well known icons to portray common ideas.

Next time you are in the market for a new website design or update, try incorporating a couple (not all) of these trends for a website that will stand out from others. Don’t be afraid to venture out and try new things for new results. Remember, your website should be updated frequently, so if it’s not working for you, change it!