Is your school website meeting your needs? Are you feeling overwhelmed trying to keep up with the ever-changing trends that impact the effectiveness of your website?

In this post, we’ll break down new and upcoming trends and how they pertain to school website design.

Lean design:

TheeDigital writes that, “50% of users expect that when they click on a site, it should load in two seconds or less, and that they will abandon a site if it takes three or more seconds to load.”

Although you may have an incredibly well-designed website, a few large graphics can impact whether a prospective parent stays on your website to learn more or navigates away to try something else.

This is tricky, since many modern website designs favor large hero videos behind overlays, super-size photos, and other similar elements, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be compressed for optimal loading times.

If you’re unsure whether your website is making the grade, check out Google’s PageSpeed Insights for an objective website speed test.

Typography and color:

99designs talks at length about changes in typography and color schemes, including a return to serif fonts for web design, especially in headlines, headers, or other callouts where extra emphasis is helpful. Think of Medium.com and their broad use of serif fonts to convey that their website is a center of serious, intellectual thought.

99designs also called the return to black and white color schemes “strong and assertive,” lending itself well to adding a single accent color to help calls-to-action leap out on the screen.

Both these trends may be a way to modernize your school’s brand, adding a bit of the old (serif fonts) and the new (minimal color) for the perfectly impactful school website.

No straight lines:

The Next Web mentions that we are “pulling away from the straight lines that came with flat design and starting to experiment with more fluid shapes and lines.” Think beyond circles and squares, they advise: “By shedding the very straight and near-clinical lines we’re accustomed to seeing online, and replacing them with elements drawn from nature and life, these organic shapes and lines can make designs feel more approachable and in line with human nature.”

This type of design lends itself well to K-12 school websites, offering a bit of fun and play to a website, while still evoking the elements of professional, modern design.

If you’re looking into a new website for your school this year, feel free to reach out to our School Site team for a quick chat. Good luck and happy designing!