Bootstrap is the most popular CSS framework ever. It is currently used on over 22% of all sites on the web, and despite the rapid rise in popularity of front-end JavaScript frameworks, it continues to grow. And with each new version (currently v5.0), it gets better and better.
Built on a mobile-first twelve column grid system, bundled with an endless list of components, utilities and helpers, and add in the fact that it is easy to customize and extend, it is no wonder that web designers and developers continue to use and love Bootstrap. It truly is the perfect framework for quickly getting started on any type of web project.
To help make life easier for you, we have collected forty of the best free Bootstrap 5 templates for you to use on your next project. We have purposefully omitted all of those starter and barebones templates from this collection, of which there is already a multitude available on the web. Instead, we have focussed on highlighting all of those fully-featured, beautifully designed, and of course, free Bootstrap templates that you can use straight away.
All of the responsive templates come packaged with pre-styled ‘ready to use’ components, and many have come bundled with additional extras, like charting libraries, pricing tables, tabs, and much more. All of these templates will save you hours of extra work and are all waiting for you to add your content and creativity.
If you’re new to Bootstrap, the best place to learn how to use the framework is to follow the steps on the official quick start guide, and you’ll be up and running in no time.
This elegant and minimally designed free Bootstrap template comes bundles with a filterable portfolio, smooth slider, and many other useful web elements.
Lendex is the perfect foundation for building your portfolio. Built using Bootstrap 5. It comes packaged with multiple page layouts and sections, so you can develop and design your portfolio exactly how you need it.
Kriss is a bold, single-page portfolio template that seamlessly uses smooth scrolling to link the beautifully designed sections. This Bootstrap template could be used as a portfolio, resume, or as the homepage of a small agency.
Bundled with eight various page layouts and designed in an elegant modern style, Andle is an excellent Bootstrap 5 web template for creatives and design agencies.
Built for both creatives and small businesses, this Bootstrap 5 template features a modern design and layout, and offers just enough to help get your website off the ground quickly.
The Qexal Bootstrap 5 web template comes bundled with nine different homepage layouts and multiple other page templates, like services, pricing, blog, contact, and much more. This is the perfect foundation for launching any type of business.
You can’t get simpler than this free Bootstrap template. It has one single purpose: to allow you to build a landing page for your new products or services quickly. As well as the landing page layout, Simple also comes with an about, blog, and testimonial page templates.
The beautifully designed Peyso is a Bootstrap 5 web template for startups and businesses. It comes with six different homepage layouts and three authentication pages.
DevBook is a minimally designed Bootstrap 5 landing page template for promoting or selling books or ebooks. It comes with all of the components needed for converting visitors into buyers.
Agency is a single-page template that has recently been updated to Bootstrap 5. It is perfect for design agencies or small businesses that need to set up a basic landing page.
This simple Bootstrap 5 template comes with all of the basic features you need for quickly building a landing Page for showcasing your products or apps.
This bold, dark, and minimally designed Bootstrap 5 landing page templates could be used to promote or launch any type of service or product. It would be the perfect option for either a start-up or a single product eCommerce store.
This Bootstrap 5 eCommerce template comes bundled with multiple homepage, store page, product page, and blog page layout templates. It may be too extensive for smaller stores but you could simple pick the pages and components you need.
Majestic is a clean Bootstrap 5 web template for eCommerce websites. It does only come with a homepage template, but if you’re an experienced web designer, you would be able to easily create a multi-page site by cleverly using the many beautifully designed homepage sections.
This unstyled Bootstrap 5 template is the perfect foundation for building a modern eCommerce website. There are just enough features to help you get started quickly.
This Bootstrap template comes bundled with multiple homepage layouts (including a single-page layout) and templates for about, services, pricing, blog, and contact pages. This flexible and easy to edit template could be used as the homepage of any business.
Zinc is a clean Bootstrap 5 web template for small businesses. It does come with various page layouts but works best as a smooth-scrolling single-page layout.
Built for developers, CoderDocs is an open-source Bootstrap 5 documentation template. Its modern design and simple layout make it very easy to customize to suit any project.
Space is a simple one-page Bootstrap 5 template for small businesses. It features a clean design and flawless, smooth scrolling between each of the homepage’s sections.
Even though this template has been marketed as a travel agency template, it could be easily used as the homepage of many types of websites. It comes with a beautiful hero header section, sticky navigation bar, services section, smooth animated hover interactions, and much more.
Little Squirel is a clean multi-page Bootstrap 5 template for education and learning websites. As well as a multi-section homepage layout, the free template also includes course selection, pricing, and blogging templates.
The Bunzo Bootstrap 5 web template comes with everything you need for building a modern blog your readers will love. The bundled layout templates give you the flexibility to create the blog or online magazine you need.
Swipe is a simple Bootstrap 5 template for quickly building a homepage or landing page for mobile applications. It also features a testimonial, FAQ, and downloads section.
Brushed is a beautifully designed single-page Bootstrap template for design studios and agencies. It could also be the perfect template if you’re a creative looking to build a portfolio quickly.
Due to its clean design and simple layout, Scout is a Bootstrap template that could be used on many different types of sites. Easy to edit and build upon, and comes with all of those useful web components you would expect from a professional template.
The Mountain King Bootstrap Template comes with a clean and responsive layout and includes Typicons vector icons, masonry galleries, off-canvas menus, and smooth CSS animations.
K!sbag is a clean Bootstrap template that comes with six pre-built page layouts, including homepage, blog, about, contact, portfolio, and single project page. It could be used as either a personal portfolio or design agency website.
With its fifteen various HTML layout templates and super-simple design, Strane is the ideal Bootstrap 5 template for creating a startup or business website.
Avana is a modern Bootstrap template built for either design agencies or personal portfolios. It features a smooth-scrolling homepage, a user-friendly blogging section, and it is all brought together perfectly by its beautiful typography.
Amoeba is a simple one-page Bootstrap 5 template for design agencies. It features an about us, services, portfolio, team, and contact us sections, that scroll seamlessly with each other.
Ssssoon is a simple landing page template for anyone that needs to quickly create a basic coming soon page for their new website. With this template, you have a choice of having either an image or video background.
This simple Bootstrap 5 coming soon template features a countdown timer and an about section for adding information about your business. Just enough features to get your coming soon page online quickly.
The Material Design Bootstrap 5 template allows you to use Google’s Material Design specs in your favorite front-end framework. The template includes 500+ Material UI components.
If you’re a fan of vintage video games, then you’re going to love this free Bootstrap theme. NES.css allows you to give your websites a nostalgic 8bit-like look and feel.
Jumping forward from the 1980s, We’re now going to take a step forward into the 1990s. Win95.CSS is a free template that will allow you build incredible websites that look like the GUI from Windows 95 and 98.
This time we’re stepping back into the early days of the web. Do you remember how websites looked back then? Not pretty at all. Geo is a free template that will allow you to recreate the way websites looked back then. Not sure why you would want to do that, but a fun project all the same.
As people who design and build for the web, we are pretty lucky that there’s such a wide range of other designers out there that can help us. Whether it’s from answers on StackOverflow, to tutorials on sites like this, to freebies that we can use in our designs, the design and development community have always been great at helping others improve.
One thing that I’ve found especially useful when working on web apps and sites are the beautifully designed UI kits that have been released for free. UI kits can be extraordinarily useful when you want to get an app up and ready quickly, without compromising on the aesthetics and usability. A well designed UI kit can help a website build its visual identity and feel, instead of looking like a mishmash of different buttons, checkboxes and form fields.
To help get you up and running with your next app or website, I wanted to bring together a roundup of some of my favourite UI kits that are all available for free. The UI templates are available in many different formats, with PSDs, as expected, heavily represented, but there is also a noticeable increase in the number of templates that are available in Sketch format as well. Enjoy!
Lando UI Kit is a large user interface kit that will help you prototype and design beautiful websites. It contains 95+ cards in 13 different categories!
Fashion Magazine App Kit with Envato Elements subscription
Fashion Magazine is a diverse and rich UI Kit worthy of checking out for anyone who want to dig into a clean, minimal layout in either fashion or design
Exeo UI Kit with Envato Elements subscription
Exeo is a vibrant, modern, fully customizable user interface kit
Vanilla UI Kit with Envato Elements subscription
Meet Vanilla UI Kit for Photoshop and Sketch, a pack of responsive blocks for creating wonderfull resources.
Flatter with Envato Elements subscription
PRO FLATTER – is a FLAT user interface elements template for business, creative company, mobile programm or personal website. You can use these elements anywhere
Photogency is a UI design one page for home page and about page agency. This design use container 1170px. Fully editable layers and free fonts , hope you enjoy download it. PS : images not included
4Boutique with Envato Elements subscription
4Boutique is a Responsive Ecommerce Web UI KIT PSD
4ocal UI Kit with Envato Elements subscription
4ocal is a professional web UI kit for your business presentation and promotion
So there you have it – a roundup of my favourite UI kits, all available to download for free. If you know of any others, or if you’ve created any that you’d like to show off, I’d love to hear about them in the comments.
Like, Simon Wardley, I think that serverless computing is an interesting space because the billing is granular (pay only when your code executes) and you don't need to worry about maintaining and provisioning servers or containers. So much so, that I maintain the Open Source PHP Runtime for Apache OpenWhisk which is available commercially as IBM Cloud Functions
There are other serverless providers, and AWS Lambda is the market leader, but until recently PHP support could most charitably described as cumbersome. That all changed at the end of 2018 with Lambda's new runtime API and support for layers.
Let's look at the practicalities of serverless PHP on Lambda with Serverless Framework.
TL;DR
The source code for a simple Hello World is in my lambda-php-sls-hello-world Github repository. Just follow the Notes section and you should be good to go.
PHP runtime
The runtime API allows for any runtime to be used with Lambda. In some ways it looks a bit like the way OpenWhisk runtimes work in that there's an HTTP API between the serverless platform and the runtime. One very obvious difference is that with Lambda, the runtime calls back to the platform to get its invocation data whereas OpenWhisk calls an endpoint that the runtime must implement. More details are in Michael Moussa's article on the AWS blog, which inspired my work.
To get back on track, we need a PHP runtime for Lambda! This will comprise the PHP binary, the code to invoke our PHP serverless function and a bootstrap file as required by the platform. We put these three things into a layer. Layers are re-usable across accounts, so I'm quite surprised that AWS doesn't provide a PHP one for us. Stackery do, but they aren't using PHP 7.3, so we'll build our own.
We'll put all the files in the layer/php directory in our project.
Building the PHP binary
We need a PHP binary that will run inside Lambda's containers. The easiest way to do this is to compile it on the same platform as Lambda, so we use EC2. Michael's article explains how to do it and so I turned those commands into a compile_php.sh script, so that I could copy it up to the EC2 instance, run it & then copy the binary back to my computer:
This makes it nicely repeatable and hopefully it will be fairly simple to update to newer versions of PHP.
Bootstrapping
As we are using the runtime API, we need a bootstrap file. This filename is required by Lambda and is responsible for invoking the function by making relevant API calls in a while loop.
Essentially, we need to sit in a loop and call the /next endpoint to find out what to invoke, invoke it and then send the response to the /response endpoint.
while true
do
# Get an event
HEADERS="$(mktemp)"
EVENT_DATA=$(curl -sS -LD "$HEADERS" -X GET "http://${AWS_LAMBDA_RUNTIME_API}/2018-06-01/runtime/invocation/next")
REQUEST_ID=$(grep -Fi Lambda-Runtime-Aws-Request-Id "$HEADERS" | tr -d '[:space:]' | cut -d: -f2)
# Execute the handler function from the script
RESPONSE=$($(echo "$_HANDLER" | cut -d. -f2) "$EVENT_DATA")
# Send the response
curl -X POST "http://${AWS_LAMBDA_RUNTIME_API}/2018-06-01/runtime/invocation/$REQUEST_ID/response" -d "$RESPONSE"
done
(You don't need to understand this code in detail as the three comments explain the required process well enough!)
We want to do the same thing in PHP and while I could write it myself, Parikshit Agnihotry has already done so in
Truncated by Planet PHP, read more at the original (another 4439 bytes)
The WordPress administration area (aka the Dashboard) can be customized in many ways. Menu items can be added, hidden, or rearranged. Access to settings can be set for specific user roles. Custom widgets can be added to help guide or pass important information on to users.
No matter what kind of tweaks you’re looking to make, there is most likely a WordPress plugin available to make it a reality. Let’s explore 10 WordPress plugins you can use to personalize the Dashboard to meet your needs.
A stock installation of WordPress doesn’t feel very personal. That’s why White Label CMS exists. It allows you to integrate your brand into various areas of the back end.
It starts with a custom login page, then moves on to the admin header and footer areas. But it doesn’t stop there – you can also choose which admin menus to display, and create a completely custom dashboard. As a bonus, it also works with page builders such as Beaver Builder and Elementor.
Remove Dashboard Access offers a solution for those who want to keep certain user roles from accessing all or parts of the back end. This is great for membership sites, where users typically have a front-end profile (optional back-end profile access is possible).
In addition, the plugin lets you redirect users to a custom URL and display an optional message on the login screen.
Widget Disable works on both the front and back ends of your WordPress website. It allows administrators to easily turn off access to specific widgets.
With regards to the dashboard, it’s a great way to remove clutter for your site’s users. Too often, plugins litter the screen with widgets that are little more than advertisements. Widget Disable helps to make for a cleaner back-end experience.
There are times when you need to access the ID of a particular post, page, category, or user. Catch IDs is a simple plugin that makes this information readily available.
Once installed and activated, the ID number is displayed within the various admin content and user listings. Oh, and it also works for media attachments!
Admin Columns is a commercial plugin (with a free version) that enables to you add custom columns to page /post listings and more.
There are over 160 columns to choose from. For example, you can easily add a featured image column to the post listing. Not only can you display various columns, but you can also sort and filter posts by them as well. It works with all content types and can integrate with lots of plugins, including Advanced Custom Fields and WooCommerce.
Simple History doesn’t add some major functionality to the WordPress dashboard. But it sure is helpful. A widget is added to the dashboard home page that shows you which users recently added or updated posts when a widget has been added or removed or even uploaded an image to the Media Gallery.
It also tracks things like plugin activations, user profile updates, logins, and more. Very useful for administrators who want to stay on top of whom is doing what.
While somewhat similar to Adminimize, Admin Menu Editor Pro does have some unique features worth checking out. For instance, not only can you hide dashboard menu items in general or by user role, you can create your own items as well.
Those custom menu items can point to any internal or external URL. The plugin also lets you move individual items to different submenus, change titles and even icons. A free version is also available.
The WordPress dashboard can get a little cluttered. Custom Dashboard Widgets helps alleviate some of that clutter by allowing you to replace all the standard home page widgets with simpler versions.
Consisting of a label and a FontAwesome icon, each widget can be displayed or hidden based on a user’s role. You can also add your own custom links as well.
Ultimate Dashboard Pro lets you take control of the WordPress dashboard homepage. You can easily disable any and all default widgets, as well as those from third parties.
Create your own simplified widgets with either text-only or icon-based options. The plugin is compatible with WordPress Multisite. A free version is also available.
A seemingly ignored part of WordPress is the cumbersome approach to managing large amounts of pages or posts. Nested Pages is a plugin that aims to fix this by turning listings into interactive tree-style menus.
It also allows you to add pages in bulk, right from within the page listing. The slick drag-and-drop interface helps to make repositioning content less stressful. A native WordPress menu is also created and updated to match your nested structure.
Make it Your Dashboard
The main idea behind tweaking the WordPress administration area is to improve your workflow. By adding helpful information and streamlining what gets displayed (and to whom it’s displayed), we’re making site management that much easier.
The plugins above feature creative and practical ideas for lessening the learning curve for new users and saving administrators loads of time.
Added DNS cache to improve the connection speed of external network services, default TTL60s, capacity 1000 (#2250)
When swoole_strerror the second param is 9, it will convert the swoole-specific error code into the text
Fixed the problem that the connection timeout does not take effect after the client triggers the DNS query. It may cause the coroutine to hang for a long time and connection resource occupation, please update the affected version (v4.2.10) as soon as possible
Restore CoClient backward compatibility, connect timeout parameter will change the default timeout of the client
Fixed the problem that the change does not take place immediately when the client calls the set method after the connection
Fixed the problem that the error code was not updated after the MySQL handshake failed (#2234)
Fixed a memory error caused by buffer expansion when MySQL executed a large amount of data (e3c5a28)
Fixed static compilation problem (#2230)
Async write files to increase the reference count to prevent premature shutdown (028ddf4)
Fixed Redis Client use illegal parameter would lead to coredump (5af9f3d)
Fixed the bug that stack_size set by Co::set is set to the page size of the PHP stack. It is recommended to use the configuration name of c_stack_size. Please do not set it without knowing. If your application has C extension hook to zend_execute, you need to pay special attention to setting the C stack, or you don't need to set it
Remove enable-debug-log from PECL compilation configure option, kernel debug logs must be compiled manually to enable
WordPress themes can run the gamut from niche uses to all-purpose. They can also vary considerably in both quality and price. Note that, just because you’ve paid for a theme that doesn’t guarantee quality.
While there is no shortage of premium themes available for purchase, the quality of free WordPress themes can sometimes exceed the expectations that you would have for something that can be downloaded and used for free.
We’ve collected some of the best free WordPress themes for building your site in 2017. The themes have all been developed to the highest of standards by some of the top names in the WordPress community, all are responsive, so will adapt to any screen size, and all have been designed with latest design trends in mind.
Not a professional designer/developer? Not to worry. Some of the themes below feature page builders, allowing you to create complex, feature-rich layouts with no coding necessary. Likewise, there are themes aimed at professionals looking for a basic starting point in their site development. There is something here for just about every need and skill level.
Built to let your words stand out, Libre is a theme that specializes in long-form writing.
Longform
Longform lets you tell your story in unique ways with the ability to publish posts in chapters, timelines and other attractive formats.
Qwerty
Qwerty is a WordPress theme that doesn’t come with many frills or dependencies. It’s built for speed and putting your content front and center.
Editor
Editor features beautiful typography and a uniquely functional tabbed sidebar. The tabbed sidebar content allows you to go well beyond the standard collection of widgets.
Radcliffe
Radcliffe is a simple, yet lovely theme featuring large, full-width images and stand-out headlines.
Pho brings a masonry-styled layout to feature your photography. There are also several font choices included to help your words make an impact.
Tography Lite
Tography uses CSS animations to add an interactive feel your photo blog. The included filterable portfolio lets users quickly view the various categories of your work.
Fullscreen
Fullscreen is a one-column theme that features a unique, side-scrolling home page with a clickable gallery.
Gridsby
Like the layout of Pinterest? Gridsby offers a similar grid layout that opens your photos up into an opaque window.
Tracks
Tracks is a “bold and beautiful” theme that really gives each post its own moment in the sun. Large photos and bold typography make for an attractive, yet uncluttered feel.
Isola
Isola is created by the folks at Automattic, so you know this clean theme will both look great and use WordPress best practices.
Espied
Also from Automattic, Espied is a responsive, grid-style theme that provides great visuals of your work.
Themes for Building a Creative Portfolio
Daily
Daily comes with a full screen intro panel and a very clean, well-spaced interface.
Illustratr
Illustratr features bold typography and a grid-style portfolio layout. There’s also an expandable footer area.
StanleyWP
StanleyWP is a WordPress theme based on Twitter Bootstrap that features a drag-and-drop home page builder. A very simple and clean layout.
Proper
Proper exudes class with its simple layout and use of CSS animations/transitions.
Gridby
Gridby is a lovely Bootstrap theme that places your portfolio in a stunning grid display. There’s also an equally exciting storytelling layout that adds in bold typography.
Beetle Go
Beetle Go is aimed at those who want a clean, attractive way to display their portfolio. It features parallax scrolling, lots of built-in icons and several interesting layouts.
Sketch
Sketch is a very clean and minimal portfolio theme that lets your images do the talking.
Pure
Pure includes lots of great layouts and built in features like pricing tables, tabbed content viewers, buttons, icons to bring your portfolio to life.
Themes for Business Sites
Primer
Primer is a clean and spacious WordPress theme that’s perfect for small businesses.
Sydney
Sydney brings bold imagery, built-in features like a slider, animated charts, filterable portfolios and a stunning layout to promote your business.
Make
Using a drag-and-drop page builder, Make provides a number of gorgeous layouts. It’s great for online stores as it is compatible with both WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
BLDR
BLDR features a page builder and enough goodies packed in to create just about any type of website. Special page templates are included for testimonials, service lists and projects.
Zeal
Zeal is a stylish multi-purpose theme that can be used to build any type of site quickly.
Windmill is a free WordPress blogging theme with the bonus of being compatible with WooCommerce.
Hew
Hew includes a nice splash of color and an expandable header that opens up to navigation and other available widgets.
Eighties
Eighties is a single-column blogging theme. There is a sidebar, but it is only available by clicking an icon, which opens it up into a nice overlay window.
Intergalactic
Intergalactic uses large photos along with bold typography in order to create a slick look while also being highly readable.
Nulis
Nulis was built as a single-column blogging theme that makes great use of whitespace and featured images for you posts.
Casper
Casper, inspired by the Ghost blogging platform, is a super-minimal WordPress theme that ensures your content is front and center.
Gateway
Gateway features an elegant look with an array of useful shortcodes through use of a separate plugin.
Rams
Rams is simple and stylish. The theme is compatible with many JetPack features like infinite scroll and tiled photo galleries.
Vito
Vito sports a very simple layout along with some CSS animation to add a touch of class.
Lingonberry
Lingonberry uses WordPress post formats to create an attractive way for different types of content to stand out.
Yuuta
Yuuta will feature your posts as a “visual diary”. You can even add a background image to each post.
Hoffman
Hoffman is a great theme for showing off your photos. There is a nice slider feature for individual posts.
Themes for Magazine Layouts
Good Magazine
Good Magazine is a clean and responsive WordPress theme that’s perfect for any content-rich publication.
Bloggr
Have a lot of content to feature? Bloggr is a magazine-style theme that makes good use of columns to help you feature multiple articles.
Semicolon
Semicolon uses a simple grid-layout of posts that lets you display lots of content without overwhelming your visitors.
JustWrite
JustWrite displays content in a way reminiscent of some of the top news sites. It’s advertising-friendly, as well.
Themes for Masonry & Tumblog Layouts
Fukasawa
Fukasawa is a masonry theme that is great for displaying photos or perhaps even Pinterest-like news and resources.
Crates
Crates is a “tumblog” theme that uses a grid system. There’s also an optional 2 column blog layout to make an extra impact.
Nova
Nova uses masonry to get your content seen in an elegant way. It’s also WooCommerce friendly.
Pieces
Great for showing off your artwork, Pieces can help you create a lovely collection of content.
Themes for Landing Pages
LandingSumoWP20
LandingSumoWP20 takes advantage of a drag-and-drop page builder to let you quickly create a stunning landing page.
2019 is upon us and it has me thinking big. And since everyone else out there is telling you what will happen in the new year, I’m going to do the same thing: But with a twist.
You see, this isn’t any old set of predictions. No, these will be more like trekking up a mountain to see a soothsayer. But only way better, since you won’t suffer from the fatigue of having to climb thousands of feet just to hear my thoughts.
This old grumpy designer has read literally tens of these “predict the year ahead” types of articles. And I’ve discovered that, although they mean well, they’re neither very fun or useful. So, I’m here to change the narrative.
But before we begin, just a word of warning. These predictions are absolutely huge. Like you’ve never seen before. And they are completely tongue-in-cheek, so don’t wager anything of value on them.
If you want to know what 2019 will bring, you’ve come to the right place. So, settle in with a cup of your favorite beverage and prepare to be dazzled.
Prediction #1: JavaScript Will Run Everything
I’ll be the first to admit that I can’t take full credit for this one. Back in 2015, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg told us to “Learn JavaScript Deeply”. And JavaScript is absolutely everywhere these days, including the new Gutenberg editor, which is powered by React.
But JavaScript isn’t just changing the way we create content for WordPress. That’s really just the tip of the iceberg here. It’s going to do so much more.
In fact, JavaScript is set to completely wipe out all other standards and languages. CSS? Gone. HTML? Gone. PHP? It’s been real.
This will create a seismic shift in the web design industry. Earnings for freelancers will go through the roof as what used to take mere minutes will now require thousands of lines of buggy code to approximately emulate.
If you know JavaScript at all, then I would consider placing an order for that Maserati right now. I’ll take mine in black.
Prediction #2: Google Will Host Many Websites
One of the easiest ways to predict the future is to study the past. Therefore, we know that Google has been on a mission to shape the web as it sees fit. Their unique blend of standards and search engine algorithms have had a massive effect on our daily lives. We can’t escape them. And Bing isn’t coming to save us.
You may be wondering what’s next. What more could Google possibly do? Well, that’s what I’m here to tell you.
In 2019, Google will decree that the web is completely unsafe. First, they will admit that their previous insistence that we all use SSL certificates, lest we be branded as “Not secure”, didn’t go as planned. It turns out that there were a few rebellious souls who didn’t heed the warning.
To make things right, Google will offer “free” hosting services that are completely optional. By taking them up on this kind offer, they will in turn make sure your site is indexed in their search engine. However, since they can’t guarantee the security of any websites hosted elsewhere, they will simply remove outsiders from their index (you can’t be too careful).
Thus, the web will finally be made safe for us all. And, after the subsequent merger with Facebook, we will be pleased to have so many eyes watching over us.
Prediction #3: Retro Design Will Go All the Way Back
As a designer who has been around since the 90s, I’m heartened by seeing some websites adopt a more retro look. It brings back memories of a simpler time.
My psychic powers tell me, however, that this is more than a fad. In fact, it will be looked upon by history as more of a tidal force that reshapes web design permanently.
Think about this moment in time. Websites have gotten way too complicated. UIs are dense, while ads and modals litter our screens. And don’t get me started on the unreadable typography.
Therefore, I predict that 2019 will see a mass movement to design based on the limitations of the early web. We will see a mixture of plain system fonts and large, uncompressed images that bring about a more user-friendly and primitive look.
Ironically, every new site will be full-width and able to take advantage of the extra screen real estate afforded by 4k monitors. Yet, it will also be mobile-friendly. Amazing!
One thing that will stay the same is the need for a great debugging tool. Because, even though the look is completely barebones, it will still be built using JavaScript.
Another Historic Year
You may be wondering why I’ve only made three bold predictions. Let me explain. Change in both our industry and world is usually more iterative. There aren’t many sweeping transformations that happen overnight. Instead, we tend to see things change slowly over a period of years.
When you think of it that way, to have these three massive events all happen within one year may be unprecedented. Also, the longer this post goes on, the more opportunity it has to really go off the rails.
But regardless of what 2019 brings to the industry, I do hope it brings all of you much joy and success. Thank you for reading and for continuing to support this grumpy designer!
