Ecommerce design trends for your online store

In this article I’ll outline three current design trends you can use to make sure customers are impressed by your site.

Before I begin though, I need to draw your attention to two key factors. The first is that your design, colour choices and product photography should keep your target market in mind. How you style your site should reflect who you want to sell to: not all trends will appeal to all age brackets and demographics.

You also need to consider how closely you want to follow trends. Do you want to be always up to date with what’s trending, or think outside the box and set your own trends? If you’d rather focus on being more individualistic, there’s no harm in taking these suggestions and adding your own spin to them.

1. Create styled product photography.

At the moment a huge trend is knolling. Knolling is when products are laid out to tell a story, and photographed from above. Chances are you’ve already seen images structured like the one below!

A key part of product photography at the moment is telling stories. Instead of just posting isolated product pictures the way you always have, consider showing your products in motion: such as being worn, or used in the way they’re designed to be. If that doesn’t take your fancy, consider giving people an idea of their scope and size by contrasting them side by side with other products, or by suggesting good product combinations through knolling.

Product photography doesn’t have to be just of products, either. Consider introducing other elements into your photoshoots to reflect the nature and purpose of your products. For instance, if you sell eco-shampoos there’s no reason why you couldn’t style your product photos to include wild flowers.

Another key trend has been close-up photography, designed to give customers a better understanding of what they’re buying. This can give customers a better understanding of fabrics and product construction, as seen in the image below.

Your goal should be to showcase your products in ways which better contextualize and illustrate them.

2. Brush lettering fonts.

Brush lettering fonts have been trendy for a few years now, but their exact style has shifted over the last while. While relatively structured fonts such as “Lobster” used to be a total hit, overuse has seen them fall out of favour.

Now, the best brush lettering fonts are the ones that look organic, natural, and hand crafted.

The key thing to keep in mind when using brush fonts is that they should be used sparingly. They’re only really good for headings and banners: using them as standard text would be too messy and difficult to read.

If you’re ever unsure about whether a font is too difficult to read or not, remember that most people will view your store on their phones. If you test out the font and it shows up as too small on a handheld device, you’ll need to pick a different font.

This image above is a good example of two current design trends. Combining unstructured, messy brush font with clearer, standard fonts creates a stunning headline, and bold oversaturated colours make for an eye-catching visual.

3. Bold Colours

We’ve all gotten in the habit of being conservative when it comes to colours. For years we focused on the value of white space, and the contrast a white background gave to content.

But in 2018, there’s been a strong and sudden shift towards dramatic colour statements.

If you want your website to pop, consider using colour in expected ways. Just make sure that you don’t combine colours which make your font difficult to read, or which give your customers headaches! It’s best to err on the side of caution before you introduce too many colours either: always ask your friends, family and coworkers if they think your colour decisions are overwhelming or just right.

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Brush fonts, photos which showcase your products, and bold colours can all help make your website stand out, but which methods you use and how you implement them is entirely up to you. Be creative! The last thing you want is customers confusing your website for another because it’s too stock standard. ShopFactory has a whole host of customization options: so get in there and start expressing your individuality.