Welcome to the new decade in web design!

In the last decade we witnessed new emergences in the world wide web. This new emergence not only marked newer and more innovative applications of the internet and its contents, it also opened up a whole new galaxy of trendy, stylish and useful designs.

And as the decade turns, I see the web design community predicting newer trends in the beginning of 'the teens'.

I have assessed other opinions and am happy to present my predictions for popular design trends for 2010 and beyond:

It has long been said that it takes two to tango. Web development is exactly like that. Web design cannot do it alone without backend support. But to a majority of users, website design has a big space in their consciousness; for them it is dependent on whether a certain site will be a success or a failure.

There is a sudden surge in demand for a beautifully made websites. Users don't want poor presentations anymore; they all like something else, something new to their eyes because they have become web-sophisticated. With the advent of css 3, almost any kind of design is now possible in web. It's like photoshopping your way to the world wide web.

True Beauty Comes From The Inside

Informed web designers and business owners alike know that design is vital to a successful website, and its beauty must go far beyond looks. While design needs to support a company's brand positioning, it must also effectively inform, communicate and provide positive experiences.

We have recently witnessed strong advancement in the field of website layout and design. Everything evolves. Flash movies, gigantic animations and other graphic media have become increasingly widespread over the years.

However, in the effort to have the ‘coolest' website layout design, website owners tend to forget to whom they are creating their website for: their target audience.

The web has evolved a lot since its boom in the late 90s. Especially web typography. Web typography deals with the font usage among websites. The clearer the font, the better.

Web typography deals with the line-height, text-spacing and colour, which are all text properties. Font styles and usage will greatly affect the design of a website as a whole. It can be boring or exciting.

There are still advancements in web typography, including using the image replacement technique. Using css, some use images rather than web type fonts. It enhances someone's site significantly. Of course the negative of this option is that text within images are not readable by search engines.

Regardless, good old web type fonts are best for corporate websites after a clean look.

With fonts like Arial and Times New Roman considered "default" fonts for some, there are other alternative fonts that web designers should consider. Here are my Top 5 (in no particular order):

As web designers, I think we all have experienced the hard task of finding new ideas and inspiration. Read on to find out how my work habits and how the environment influence my design.

Working at home kills your creativity.

My work habits and environment have a big influence on my work. So I’m going to talk about my work environment first.

Being a full-time designer, I get to work at the office and surf the web for the next big thing. Personally, I find it very boring working at home. I can lose my focus and concentration on the design I'm doing. To think about it, how can you find new ideas if you are constantly facing your work and computer.

Yes, you can browse the web or CSS gallery sites such as Best Web Gallery to find inspiration. But since my work is web design, I also prefer to find inspiration offline (this way I can avoid being overly inspired by other websites).