WordPress Design Trends

I am Mel Choyce

Today, we're gonna talk about

THEMES

Themes are becoming more

FLEXIBLE

Themes are becoming more

SPECIALIZED

Themes are becoming better

DESIGNED

Flexibility

Responsive Web Design

Term coined by Ethan Marcotte

Helped inspire "mobile first"

(which then turned into "content first")

...Which went on to inspire "content first"

#1 requested feature on Theme Forest in 2013

Source: Helen Souness's PressNomics Presentation 2013

Not a trend, but an expectation

Go responsive or go home

If you've ever designed a responsive website or theme...

Resolution Independent

Design for Retina

(But "retina" is only the beginning)

CSS > Images

If you need images, include @ 2x

Scalable

SVG

Grunticon / Grumpicon

Icon Fonts

Specialization

Generalization → Specialization

WordPress for ___

Customers want niche

Source: Helen Souness's PressNomics Presentation 2013

E-Commerce

Beyond "CMS"

p2

Capsule

Visual Design Trends

Trends are just tools

Flat Design

Alfie

Characterized by:

  • Lack of textures, gradients, and shadows
  • Blocks of solid color
  • Really clean typography, often using humanist sans-serifs

Flat =/= Skeumorphic

Flat can also be skeumorphic

Roots in the Swiss style of print design

swissted.com

Metro

Flat Design, iOS 7, Skeuomorphism and All That

Post-Metro

Aspects of flat design have been picked up by Google, iOS7,
and the design community at large

Lack of Affordance

Bigger is Better

Big Images

Forefront

Big Text

Wentasi

Animation

Flatco

Web → Mobile → Web

Collapsible Navigation ("hamburger buttons")

Reader First

Translucency and Blur

Thanks!

@melchoyce | choycedesign.com | melchoyce.com