Design Trend: Dark Color Palettes and Animation

Have you been noticing all of the super dark design styles recently? Designers are exploring with some unusual, dark design patterns that use the same color palette and include animation.

Web Design Toronto team state that these transitions include everything from basic movements that execute on their own to complex hover effects and complete cinematic experiences. Let’s have a look at some ways to apply this website design style to your projects.

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About the Trend

A cool animation and a dark monochrome color palette form the basis of this pattern, which is popular among designers. The end result is a beautiful layered design that’s subtle and moody.

The rise in popularity of the cartoonish style, while it may be difficult to execute well and does not always provide a great mobile user experience, what drives this visual pattern is interest. Because of all the dark pieces, the user is compelled to look at the design.

There’s a certain degree of intrigue in these projects since the user becomes absorbed in watching what will happen with the animated element and looking for small modifications and effects. What happens next?

Each of these designs is created differently. There’s no best style of animation or required color, although many of these designs utilize a palette of dark blacks and grays.

Animations might be as basic as a hover effect or as complex as a molding form. It looks to work because it conveys an air of mystery. Users want to figure out the solution, so it seems to work.

Why It Works

It’s difficult to describe why this pattern works in a few words. When you consider it without seeing the website design projects, you wouldn’t imagine that gloomy animated patterns would be successful.

  • There’s not a lot of color.
  • There’s very little contrast.
  • The designs are almost overly simple.

Perhaps it’s because of this that design concepts that break the rules are so popular. It breaks enough of the rules to entice users to explore it further.

The second reason is that darkness and intrigue go together. And people adore a good mystery. They live in a world where they can see hidden parts or solve a difficult problem. The dark color scheme with an action-packed animation allows users to solve a mystery.

The color combination of these initiatives is also appealing. Colors such as black, dark gray, and dark green have a brooding feel to them. These palettes include a lot of different colors (from a design perspective anyway). There’s something subtle yet fascinating about it.

The design pattern of the hourglass is one that will keep you guessing. Take all of the passion, intrigue, and mystique away, and you’ll have an idea why people are attracted to this visual pattern.

It Doesn’t Have to Be Black

While most of these designs have a black color scheme, they do not have to.

In addition to whites, other dark colors may be employed and allow designers to produce an animated design pattern while remaining on brand with the color palette.

Regardless of color, the key to making a monochrome color palette work with animations is having a wide variety of colors. A range of tones (using gray) and shades (using black) can provide a large choice for a monochrome color scheme. Look at the various purples in the FedEx design, above.)

Although this design trend lacks contrast, it is still significant. The animation will be lost in the background if there isn’t enough contrast in the monochrome design, making the design ineffective.

A Few Precautions

This design style isn’t for everyone, and it’s exceptionally difficult to execute well. The disadvantages of dark color animated designs include

  • On mobile devices, they don’t look nearly as good.
  • There are some inherent accessibility problems.
  • There may not be enough of a wow affect for some users.
  • Navigational and call-to-action location might be difficult.
  • The design may be difficult to see if the lighting, temperature, and other factors are not optimal.
  • The gloomy tone might be off-putting to some people.
  • While it’s easy to use, the user interface may get old fast, resulting in less time spent on site.

Tips for Trying This Design Trend

If you’re not afraid of the obstacles presented by this design style and have a content model that fits with its ominous tone, there are a few things you may do to boost the project’s chances of success.

  • Stick to a one-page design: A wild design feature might be overwhelming. If you intend to utilize this concept, keep it simple and limit it to a single page in the design.
  • Use a bright color on the text: White text looks fantastic on black backgrounds. The same may be said for other features. Make sure that buttons, navigation components, messaging, and the call to action are easy to spot and comprehend. While there won’t be much of a contrast between the animation and background, other elements must be simple to find.
  • Simplify the animation: This design is likely to be overwhelmed by overly intricate movements. Follow a simple movement and movement that isn’t too quick.
  • What makes this idea work is the careful layering of elements. For an effect that feels somewhat tactile and real, make a distinction between the background and animated components. You may use layering to help you calculate adequate contrast to make things visible.
  • Use strong, bold typefaces: Not only should text components have a lot of color contrast, but you’ll almost certainly need to use a strong, bold typeface to prevent the design from collapsing. It’s supposed to spring out at you. To guarantee maximum comprehension, seek for typefaces with thicker lettering and simple lines.

What’s Next?

As with any design movement, this one is likely to change. While we can’t be certain about what will come next, certain designs offer a hint.

In the world of virtual reality, dark color and movement might be used as a motif. The gaming and movie industries are already heavy users of dark colors in VR.

This design style may be appropriate for projects like the new Blair Witch Project video trailer/game website, shown above.

Conclusion

Color schemes have been around for a while, but this new twist with similar action animations is intriguing. It’s one of those things that designers either love or despise because of the difficulties it presents to users.

However, regardless of the case, it is being utilized more often. While certain sorts of projects (note the abundance of corporate and portfolio websites in the examples) benefit from it, it may be an intriguing design technique to experiment with on a single slide or page. Try mixing up your design with this style for a single slide or page before investing in an all-out internet site overhaul.

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