15 Innovative Redesigns of 2013

What's This?

By Will Fenstermaker2013-12-15 11:38:28 -0500

While "flat" was certainly the biggest design buzzword of 2013, perhaps the most important trends of the year came from the mainstreaming of responsive and adaptive design, increasing collaboration between designers and developers.

Even average web users began to think about their consumption habits, with Harvard Business Review calling user experience "the new black in business." With that in mind, and as innovation in the space continues to expand, we've compiled a list of the best redesigns to come from 2013 in social media, media, retail and tech.

See also: 15 Pinterest Users Every Designer Should Follow

Big design changes have popped up across various industries within the past year — just think of parallax scrolling, popularized by The New York Times' "Snowfall" piece published in December 2012. JavaScript innovations have the potential to revitalize longform journalism and other static content with high bounce rates. However, parallax and those loud jQuery tricks can be dizzying, and even flattening carries its own risks: loss of hierarchy, low contrast and oversimplified work that appears unfinished.

As companies like The New York Times and Vox Media have served as an effective avant-garde in previous years, others have struggled to work the tools well. Yahoo, in an apparent attempt to streamline their user experience, over-rectified by removing well-liked features. Slate is cluttered to accommodate every imaginable type of user. Target, as AdWeek pointed out, is just plain ugly.

With all this change, what dictates success, as always, are the foundations. While Apple's iOS 7 has been criticized for its disorienting animations, its beauty lies in its flow and living, breathing hierarchy. Refinery29, another redesign on our list, balances JavaScript usage with dynamic typography.

Our selections for the best redesigns of 2013 practice restraint, avoiding trends-for-trending-sake, but have successfully evolved to satisfy the 2014 web-user.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Mashable, Nina Frazier

Topics: design, dev and design, Dev & Design, end of 2013, Facebook, Marketing, Media, redesign, Tech