Infographics are arguably the hippest way to consume information on the Internet today. They’re easy to digest, highly shareable, and packed with content. We have scoured the internet for the best web design infographics for you today. Some are serious, some are funny, and all of them are informative!

Web Designers Vs Web Developers (Via HongKiat)

This is a humorous look at the difference between web designers and developers. If you didn’t know how they were different before, you do now!

Designers vs Designers (Via SloDive)

This infographic is another humorous look at the design industry, with statistics for different types of designers including salary, job satisfaction, etc.

The Most Common Resolutions (Via Okilla)

A great infographic that presents a concise summary on the most common resolutions used by different devices today! Definitely worth taking a look at if you are building responsive sites.

Flat Design: Just a Trend or a New Staple of Web Design? (Via CreativeMarket)

A company named Usabilla conducted testing websites and surveyed web professionals to figure out what people think about flat design. The results are pretty awesome!

Flat design is taking the web design industry by storm. And it’s set to grow even more. So what is it exactly? What does it look and behave like? Are there any benefits to adopting this style in future designs? Let’s take a closer look:

Flat design is about usability and minimalism.

No fancy shadows, 3d effects, or anything else that can distract the user. Flat design is just flat. This minimalist approach promotes end-user usability at any cost. Any extra feature that gets in the way of streamlined navigation and ease of use will be taken out. Flashiness takes a back seat to user friendliness and functionality.

Bland is not flat design’s middle name.

What is the best example of recent flat design? Personally, I think it’s Windows 8. Do you think that OS is boring with its vibrant colors, backgrounds, and icons? I hope not! Again, this vibrancy helps to promote functionality by making important programs/features jump out at the user. You can easily tell what’s important when looking at a well-executed design. So while there is a minimalist approach in flat design, it doesn’t mean the final product will look bland at all.

Benefits of Flat Design:

• Clean look
• Concise
• Easy to use
• Awesome functionality
• Efficiently conveys information
• Works in a variety of color schemes
• Great for mobile screens

Cons

• Not suitable for every business.
• It’s most suitable for companies that want to convey information efficiently, and not in a flashy, visual way.
• There has been some criticism that flat design can look a bit funny on large, high definition screens.

There have been dozens of articles written leading up to, and immediately following New Years. We’ve taken the liberty of poring through a lot of these and collecting the best and most interesting for your reading pleasure! Check it out:

Melissa Cale’s 2014 Design Trends Pinterest

Melisa Cale, a Pinterest user and professional photographer, has assembled a plethora of web design trend related articles, infographics, websites, and much more. She used a ton of reliable sources to create a very thorough and broad spectrum of information for what to expect in 2014.  Definitely worth a look!

Collis Ta’eed’s 2014 Design Trend Article

While many designers/writers are focusing on aesthetic changes in their trend rundowns, Collis, a web designer/CEO, also looks at other factors. For example, he takes a analyzes the CMS industry, and how that will impact design, as well as indie design tools that will make an impact quickly. Definitely worth reading if you want to see a part of the bigger picture!

The Next Web’s 2014 Design Trends Slideshow

The Next Web is a great resource for designers. If you haven’t heard of it before, take a look, because it is awesome. In related news, their slideshow on the biggest emerging trends is fantastic. It provides informative visuals to go along with detailed descriptions. If you want a comprehensive breakdown that you can read through in 3 minutes, check this out!

John Croft’s Web Standards Killed The HTML Star

While the other links/articles have been mostly positive, and looked at aesthetics and tool changes, this one analyzes web development/design as a profession. Croft takes a look at how being an HTML & CSS guru is no longer good enough, and states that developers/designers need to ‘diversify or die.’ Tough love! Also, if you’re interested, check out this response piece by Jeffrey Zeldman for another view. Great stuff!

Creating a blog is one of the best ways to generate organic traffic to your website. It’s also useful for branding, becoming a thought leader, and being trusted by consumers. Many people get scared by the idea of having to write consistently, and think that they don’t have enough time or experience to do so. That is just ridiculous! As long as you don’t have a tenuous grasp on English, you can blog! Check out these tips on how to get started:

Figure out whether you need to use a third party blogging site or can implement a blog on your existing website.

This bit is extremely important. Does your existing business website have blogging functionality? If it does, great! You can start writing immediately. If it doesn’t you may need to choose a third party solution like WordPress and link to it from your site. Using a service like WordPress means you will have to set up a smaller second website, but this is fairly easy. They have a ton of templates, and are very affordable. Just make sure your branding matches up and you are good to go!

Create a manageable schedule.                                       

This varies from business to business. You need to figure out what works for YOU. If you can only blog once a week, than do that! Do whatever is comfortable for you. Once you start getting used to blogging you will be able to write more efficiently and produce content at a faster pace.

Make all your content shareable!

The point of blogging is to generate engagement with your customers. Make sure all your content is easily shareable via ‘Share This’ buttons. That way, users can share anything they like with various social media networks.

Share EVERYTHING on social media.

If you don’t have a business social media account yet, get one. Having a social media presence is pretty much mandatory for practically any industry at this point. People won’t know about all this great content you are creating if you don’t share it with your networks! Also, be sure to use a service like bit.ly so you can track click throughs on your articles. It will help a ton with regards to seeing which articles resonate with your target audience, and which don’t.

2013 has been a great year for web design. New trends have emerged, and designers have created some truly innovative websites. If 2013 was any indication of the future, 2014 will be an even bigger year for web design. Keep your eyes peeled for these trends:

Huge hero areas

A hero area is the intro section at the top of a website. More often than not it contains a bit of text with a large image in the background. Many websites used to use sliders to showcase their website, but this is quickly changing. More and more websites are using these large hero areas to create a great, simple introduction to their business.

Less text more video

Video is becoming more and more popular on websites as computer power, bandwidth, and availability of video editing software increase. Embedding video can make any website dynamic, heighten click throughs, and increase visit times. It’s also great for educating users as an audiovisual substitute to reading paragraphs of copy. Many mainstream sites like YouTube also offer free tools to analyze views which helps make video a valuable marketing tool!

Mobile everything

Responsive design was optional for a lot of businesses in 2013. This next year is when it becomes a mandatory feature. The variety of devices used to access the Internet has grown significantly, which means that businesses will need to cater to them. Invest in a responsive design or you will get left behind! Websites will also take a more mobile friendly approach to the way they present information. Attention spans are getting shorter, and important information will be displayed in a short and sweet manner like on social media sites. Online information will be more easily digestible than ever before.