It’s been said before that web design is a lot like fashion. It’s constantly evolving and it follows trends. The thing about trends is that some people can actually pull them off really well and others not so much. The perfectly-toned, green smoothie drinking yoga instructor who walks with a glowing aura of enlightenment, man bun bobbing in harmony with the karmic waves of the universe, turns heads every time he leaves his ascetic dwelling,. Your father’s personal banker, on the other hand, is going to lose a lot of clients if he doesn’t get a haircut. When it comes to your business and its online needs, it may just be that implementing the latest styling trends will serve you just fine. However, you may find that seeking custom website design – leading rather than following – is exactly what you need to set your business apart from rank and file.
Pitfalls of Current Web Design Trends
The most important asset you lose when you use templates or follow basic design trends can be boiled down to a single word: memorability. The first time you saw the standard bootstrap layout, you were probably blown away by how sleek, smooth and well-organized it looked. The second time you came across the same layout, you probably thought “I’ve seen this before…” and eventually by round 15 or 20, your memory of every template website you had ever visited blended together to form one vague image of minimalist icons and bands of HD pictures or patterns.
Another thing to consider is that the fashion metaphor breaks down on a certain level when it comes to web design. It’s not just about how pretty a website looks. There are functional considerations to be made and a number of trends present serious technical pitfalls. Carousels are sleek and pretty, but they also reduce page content and thus valuable keyword space, making them difficult for SEO. Another example is the hamburger menu, which is a great way for saving space on mobile layouts and can really streamline user experiences, though it can also lead to lazy navigation design and ultimately high bounce rates.
The Strengths of Custom Web Design
When it comes to custom web design, again, the biggest advantage is memorability, but there’s a little more to it than that. People surf the web for fun. If you’ve ever been deep in the grips of a mind-numbing web binge, you may have come to realize that you’re not really soaking in the content of the website(s) you’re browsing. At some point, your experience of the content becomes passive. What’s really happening is that well-designed websites are tapping into your underlying neurological framework to deliver an experience that triggers just the right amount of positive feedback to give you little rushes of dopamine that keep you scrolling, clicking and staring.
Custom web design, when implemented by a talented professional, creates a unique user experience. Beyond SEO and other functional concerns, a custom website pops out at your users as something they’ve never seen before. Rather than quickly glazing over your navigation, trying to get in and out as fast as possible, users are confronted with a memorable and enjoyable interaction. That’s what keeps people coming back for more and what this translates into, in terms of your business, is consumer loyalty and conversion rates. The bottom line is that if you’re looking to leave a mark on the web, there’s really no doubt that custom web design still sits firmly in its throne.