- Jenna Romano
- Jan 27
- 11 min read
Updated: Feb 9
Editor's note: This blog includes additional reporting by Margaret Andersen. Margaret is a hybrid graphic designer/journalist based in Los Angeles.
Whether you’re an aspiring web designer or a creative professional studying how to make a website that stands out—staying on top of web design trends can help your brand make an impact online.
“As a designer, you really need to look out for cultural references, and not only in terms of web design," says Yiftach Koronio, Wix’s head of Social. “Culture affects design trends across platforms—whether it's fashion or website design, UX or UI.”
Overall, this year we expect nostalgia and nature to influence web design in creative ways and further blur the boundary between physical and digital mediums. In many ways, Gen Z’s feelings will win out above the preferences of its predecessors, pushing aside Millennial minimalism for more dramatic, pop-culture infused website design. Continue reading for a closer look at the web design trends that are popping up on our radar.
Ready to put your website design skills to action? Create a website with Wix today.
Web design trends of 2025
Just a caveat before we begin: The design teams at Wix work hard to make sure our Editor is equipped with most of these elements so you can integrate this year’s over-the-top trends when you design a website. However, you'll still need to do some work to ensure your site sticks to its brand identity and facilitates a strong user experience.
While Wix offers industry-leading performance at the core of every site, too much high-density content can still affect page load speed. Make sure you follow image and media optimization best practices (as well as website design best practices) to make sure your site not only looks trendy, but functions its best. It's additionally worth studying web design statistics and the relationship between website design and SEO.
Without further ado, here are the biggest web design trends for this year (and learn about UX design trends too):
Read also: How to design a website with AI
01. Nature distilled
In 2024, designers brought a touch of warmth and humanity to the digital landscape through handmade illustrations and handwriting fonts. In 2025, the trend will evolve into the “nature distilled” aesthetic, featuring palettes that celebrate the muted, earthy tones of skin, wood and soil, emphasizing a subtle sophistication that still brings warmth to our screens. Just look at the Pantone Color of the Year 2025: PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse.
Gormley & Gamble's site, which uses neutral tones to create a sleek yet grounded visual identity, evokes a sense of calm and authenticity. The UK-based womenswear-only tailor also uses earthy shades to reflect its commitment to sustainability.
Tap into the trend
Earthy palettes and organic typography: Use muted, natural tones like clay, soil and wood, paired with handwritten or typewriter-style fonts for a grounded yet warm aesthetic.
Subtle textures and minimalism: Incorporate textures inspired by paper, stone or wood grain and embrace clean, uncluttered layouts.
Human connection through visuals: Use storytelling-focused imagery, natural lighting and imperfect elements to foster an emotional, relatable experience.
02. Tactile maximalism
It seems designers and brands are trying on a new “more is more”-inspired style after a period of quiet minimalism.
This modern web design trend puts a lot of information in one place: think symmetrical screens cleanly divided into balanced sections, but instead of delicate and minimalist design within those neat compartments, you’ll see asymmetrical elements, bright and strong typography, powerful colors, plus intense textures and vigorous movement. “Each one of the sections of the screen will be like a TV show, concert or a psychedelic trip of its own,” says Adi Huri, head of product and creative director of Wix's Wow! department.
From the looks of it, brands are aiming for overstimulation to snap us out of the monotonous drudgery of the past few years. Take Dopple Press' site as an example. The printing studio uses bright and unapologetic branding, alongside delightful animations to capture (and keep) your attention.
Tap into the trend
Incorporate tactile 3D elements: Use sculptural typography, textured surfaces and dynamic layering to create a sense of depth and touchable realism.
Animate to mimic the physical world: Add subtle website animations like pressable buttons, reactive textures, or scrolls that feel alive to enhance interactivity.
Blend playfulness with functionality: Combine whimsical 3D features (e.g., rotating hero images or inflatable visuals) with clean, structured layouts for a balanced user experience.
03. Exaggerated hierarchy
One of 2025’s other maximalist subtrends will explore exaggerated hierarchy, where dramatically oversized typography is juxtaposed with tiny text for a striking visual contrast.
The key lies in the interplay: the oversized text commands the screen, serving as a visual anchor, while the smaller text invites closer inspection, drawing the user in for a more detailed engagement.
Take inspiration from Laurenz Marsau's online portfolio, where oversized text dominates the layout, exuding confidence, while delicate, understated copy punctuates the design. It’s a visual language of extremes—simultaneously commanding and inviting—that reflects the growing demand for designs that are both visually arresting and strategically communicative.
Tap into the trend
Contrast as communication: Pair dramatically oversized typography to anchor the viewer's attention with tiny, understated text that invites detailed engagement.
Balance confidence and subtlety: Let bold, dominant type make a strong visual statement while delicate text punctuates the layout, offering nuance and depth.
Design for impact: Create a visual rhythm of extremes to craft layouts that are both striking and strategically engaging, ensuring the design is memorable and functional.
04. Retro revival
Legacy brands are refining, not reinventing, their historical designs. And the results are surprisingly modern. That’s because the key to pulling off this trend is balancing nostalgia with contemporary aesthetics.
Mountain Dew’s rebrand reclaimed its full name, reintroduced vintage mountain imagery, and incorporated "Est. 1948" to celebrate its heritage while appealing to modern tastes.
On the flip side, Jaguar’s overhaul misfired by discarding its iconic leaping cat logo and adopting a generic sans-serif wordmark. The brand arguably lost its luxurious and storied appeal—and let’s just say, people had feedback.
Retro web design translates into digital branding strategies that integrate nostalgic visuals, storytelling and modern typography. This trend lets brands celebrate their roots, connect emotionally with audiences and stay relevant in a constantly shifting digital landscape, bridging the past and future seamlessly.
Tap into the trend
Refine, don’t reinvent: Modernize historical design elements like logos, typefaces or color palettes instead of starting from scratch. Highlight iconic features to retain familiarity while giving them a contemporary twist.
Emphasize storytelling: Incorporate your brand’s heritage into your digital presence through visuals and messaging. Use nostalgia-driven narratives to evoke trust and emotional connections with your audience.
Blend nostalgia with modernity: Pair vintage-inspired aesthetics with clean, modern design principles—simplified shapes, updated typography and fresh color schemes—to create a seamless balance between the past and present.
05. Museumcore
If you consider the retro revival trend an early stop in your web-design time machine, this one blasts you way back to opulent aesthetics of the 16th and 17th century. This maximalist web design subtrend borrows from the excess, ornamentation and teeny-tiny details of the Renaissance and Baroque artistic movements.
We’ve seen it on TV (Plains of Yonder’s White Lotus intro sequence evoked the murals of 16th century Italian villas), perfume, tinned fish and even dog shampoo. It was a welcome respite from the sans-serif sameness that’s dominated screen design for years.
This renaissance is possible, partly because of improved tech, which can now support more visual details due to higher resolutions and bigger screen sizes. It begs designers to ask, "What would the Mona Lisa look like if it were a website?" No pressure.
Tap into the trend
Old-style fonts: Choose fonts like Garamond or Caslon for their historical significance and vintage feel, or spring for a more decorative font pack with speciality glyphs and vector elements to create a unique monogram logo.
Rich jewel tones and subdued neutrals: Pops of colors like burgundy, navy blue and emerald green add sophistication when paired with cream, taupe and antique white backgrounds.
Patterns and illustrations: Look for vintage floral patterns, ornamental frames or Toile De Jouy to add decorative elements that summon the luxuries of the past.
06. Dopamine colors
These vibrant, high-energy palettes—think neon pinks, electric blues and bold bright reds—are everywhere, infusing websites with optimism and unapologetic joy. Initially a response to a post-pandemic craving for positivity, dopamine colors have evolved into a mainstay of digital design.
These colors aren’t just a visual trend; they’ve become a tool for brands to communicate confidence and vitality, appealing to users on an emotional level. Expect to see more designers pushing the boundaries with hyper-saturated palettes in 2025, transforming every scroll into a serotonin boost.
“Everything will be saturated with bright colors,” Adi says. “[Designers] will make the audience open their eyes wide, smile and go wild.”
Colorful overlays, website gradients and imagery are all ways to incorporate the dopamine-inducing colors onto your site. Adi adds that imbuing your site with multiple colors, can create a grungy, noisy feel that is cool enough to attract the likes of the trendsetting Gen Z generation. For example, she says you can decorate each section of the same page differently or using a variety of hues across paragraph text, headings and calls-to-action. Take Ayelet's site as an example.
Read more about this year's website color trends.
Tap into the trend
Embrace vibrant palettes: Incorporate bold, high-energy colors like neon pinks, electric blues and bright reds to infuse your design with optimism and vitality.
Communicate emotionally: Use hyper-saturated hues strategically to evoke confidence and joy, creating an uplifting emotional connection with users.
Push boundaries: Experiment with unconventional color combinations and saturated gradients to make every interaction feel dynamic and exciting.
07. Hyperreality
Hyperreality lives in the world between reality and simulation, making the simulated version feel more real or impactful than reality itself. This idea, introduced by Jean Baudrillard, often applies to media, art and culture, where simulations can seem more compelling than real experiences.
We see this now more than ever largely in part to the global rise of AI. Within the last two years Google Trends has shown a 1,700% jump in searches for AI design tools and a massive 8,500% increase in "Generative AI" searches.
But AI is just part of what’s fueling the trend. Designers and creators are pushing limits of what’s possible in design both online and IRL. See: NPC characters on TikTok and Superorganism’s misty animation overlay that gives the feeling of being immersed in a tropical rainforest.
Lennnie's website is also full of surreal inspiration, creating a virtual experience that you could get lost in for hours. Filled with warped illustrations and animated elements, the Lennnie site provides a space for people to meet, chat, shop or simply listen to music.
Tap into the trend
Interactive 3D elements: Integrate interactive 3D elements that users can manipulate, like clickable objects that change state or appearance with each interaction, to create a more immersive experience.
Surreal animations: Use animations that alter the perception of the digital environment, like overlays or dynamically changing backgrounds, to give a sense of immersion and otherworldliness.
Unexpected design features: Implement playful design features, such as warped videos or animated elements, to surprise and engage users, making the online experience feel more dynamic and intriguing.
Pro tip: Explore website gamification to better understand how to introduce interactive elements to your website for better engagement.
08. Elevated brutalism
Whether it’s the climate, geopolitical changes or the uncertainty of our workplaces, we live in uncertain times. While designers have grown familiar with chaos over the past few years, web design has tried to find order among the mess. But now, designers are embracing the wreckage. Welcome to the world of anti-design.
With its roots in Brutalism, anti-design draws on harsh qualities that aim to break the principles of design, recreate the chaos around us and make a strong observational statement. This web trend is characterized by heavy, aggressive elements that broken and disproportional in appearance, such as clashing textures, overlapping elements, big fonts and asymmetrical, unstructured layouts.
Because designers use anti-design to push creative limits and connect with new audiences, this attention-grabbing style won't fit every website and brand. Many online businesses depend on having a specific website structure and user flow, so anti-design’s nature may limit its success. However, if you have a portfolio, special project or initiative, anti-design may help you portray a specific subtext. For example, Isshī's website is intentionally unconventional.
“If there’s a rule set in place, then I’m definitely breaking it,” says owner and artist Rolly Robínson. (Read our full conversation with Rolly.)
Tap into the trend
Less is more: Stick to a limited color palette like black, white and one bold pop of color like red.
Get creative within constraints: Give system fonts like Times New Roman or Ariel more impact by increasing their point size.
Elevate Utilitarianism with high-impact photography: Transform functional and minimalist designs by integrating high-quality photography to add emotional depth and visual appeal.
09. '80s excess
The resurgence of ’80s and early ’90s excess will continue to influence web design as part of the broader maximalism trend carrying over into 2025.
Brands like suncare startup Vacation, members-only winery Rochambeau Club and the ultra-stylish Rocco wine cooler 1500 are embracing a visual identity steeped in this era’s opulent aesthetic.
Similarly, the revival of print magazines as collectible elevated products—like special editions from Nylon, Saveur and Field and Stream—has sparked a nostalgia-driven design movement that prioritizes quality and storytelling.
When translated into the world of web design, this trend often features grainy background textures, soft single-color gradients and heavy use of vintage photography and styling, creating a luxurious timeless appeal.
Drawing on old-school magazine layouts, websites can incorporate thin-line motifs, bordered images and retro typefaces like neutral semi-serifs or thin serifs paired with elegant secondary scripts.
Tap into the trend
Grainy background textures: Add grainy textures to backgrounds for a vintage feel.
Soft single-color gradients: Use gentle gradients, like pastel pink to light peach.
Magazine layout techniques: Frame images with thin lines and use bordered sections.
Retro fonts: Pair condensed serif fonts like ITC Garamond and Benton Modern with neutral sans serifs like Optima for a balance between over-the-top excess and readability.
10. Dial-up design
There’s a nostalgia for the early web, when there were more niche online communities and fewer brand guidelines. Today, web designers are tapping into the spirit of experimentation from the Geocities era of the internet by utilizing low-fi social assets like memes and Y2K callbacks, like MS Paint and Word Art in their work.
Look to the recently launched internet culture site Byline; the new Gen Z myspace-inspired app, NoSpace; and the female-run media startup for the “chronically online,” Boys Club. We’d be remiss if we didn’t include Charli XCX’s viral album Brat, too, as an example of peak Dial-up Design aesthetic, with its low-res sans-serif font against an aggressively slime green background. It’s all part of the Y2K craze and points to the continued dominance of this design approach moving into next year.
As another good example: Ryan Haskins' portfolio, which resurfaces the joy and chaos of collage and early graphic design tools. But, if you're looking to see this trend in the wild, all you’ve got to do is scroll Instagram.
Pro tip: Explore nostalgic web design and Y2K website design to get a better understanding of this trend.
Tap into the trend
Pixelated fonts: Use bitmap fonts like Press Start 2P or Neue Pixel Grotesk to emulate the low-resolution text style of early web design.
Bright and brash colors: Opt for a color palette that includes bright, neon colors and contrasting backgrounds, like black with neon green (#39ff14) or blue with pink (#ff69b4), to reflect the vibrant, sometimes clashing hues of ’90s websites.
Early internet UI: Incorporate retro-style buttons with bevels and shadows, using large, blocky buttons in bold, capital letters. Integrate animated GIFs and tiled background images for an authentic throwback look.
11. Retrofuture femme
The internet is getting cuter, thanks to web designs inspired by Kawaii, an endearingly cute Japanese aesthetic.
Consider this trend the kid sister of dial-up design. This web design trend is hyper femme and glittery, covered in hearts, bows and butterflies. This overlaps with fashion trends like balletcore and coquettecore. And it’s gaining traction at the same time as girly, feminine fashion from designers like the sell-out-level popular Sandy Liang.
Girly, femme design emerged with force in 2023 as yet another counterpoint to traditional corporate web design tropes, another indication that consumers—especially younger ones—are tired of the same old sans.
As creative consultancy Digital Fairy explains, the creative expression of the early internet (as found on sites like Myspace, Tumblr and Blingee) still resonates with designers today. They’ll continue to repurpose the cute aesthetic for brands looking to cater to younger, fluently online audiences.
Tap into the trend
Y2K fonts: Use futuristic typefaces like Orbitron or Space Mono combined with retro-inspired, psychedelic fonts like Cyber Angel to create a nostalgic yet modern look.
Softer color palettes: Integrate a pastel color palette with shades like mint green, baby pink and soft lavender, accented with metallics like silver or rose gold for a futuristic touch.
Bling those buttons: Design buttons with a combination of neon glow or glitter effects and vintage-inspired shapes, such as rounded rectangles or pill shapes, to blend the old with the new.