Creative Background Styles and Trends in Web Design

It is sometimes the least noticed part of your website design. Other times it can be attention-grabbing. Mostly, though, the background sets the tone and provides context for the information on your site. Backgrounds can come from a lot of things and are wide-ranging in scope. You can use images, patterns, solid colors or some combination of them all. Carrie Cousins is going to look at different types of backgrounds that are used well and explore why they work.

There is no set rule for what type of background will work best for your website but there are some common factors.

• The content should have purpose
• The background should fall in line with your brand
• It should allow for placement of text that is easy to read (This applies to color, contrast and size)
• The background theme should be fairly consistent throughout the site (You don’t want visitors to think they have stumbled on to another page when clicking through)
• Backgrounds should download quickly and not cause the site to slow down or lag

Just as clothes and hairstyles change, so do web design trends. This is especially true of backgrounds. Right now, many sites are featuring large images on their opening page and above the scroll. While some images are sharp and easy to understand – think photos or illustrations, some are much harder to decipher. Large, blurry or faded images are appearing everywhere.