We’ve been under house arrest for most of 2020. As lockdowns ease and work beckons, here are 6 post covid19 trends for web design businesses:
Working from home
You’ve baked 100 banana breads, tried all the jigsaw puzzles, washed your hands and behaved yourself. Now it’s time to get back to work. The thought of waking, showering, actually wearing clothes and driving to an office seem alien concepts. It’s much easier to work remotely from your home space. Agencies need to re-think the flashy corporate offices, expensive rents and weigh up the dead time stuck in traffic. Rather scale down, stagger shifts, use hot desks and aim for minimum in-office presence.
Meeting apps have matured
Lockdown has provided us with the time and opportunity to get to grips with new group chat apps that allow colleagues to get around an electronic table. Where there was once only Skype, Zoom is now flavour of the month thanks to Covid19 with 200 million daily meeting participants in March 2020, and a month later 300 million! Likewise Google Meet has upped its game. Don’t forget to dress for a virtual meeting even if only from the waist up. Think about your appearance. Look professional. Control your kids and pets. No cheesy pictures on the wall.
The possibilities are endless
Web design is advancing at the speed of light. The array of tools and apps now available together with their corresponding tricks and shortcuts is mind-blowing. You need to keep up. Post Covid19, just about everyone is experimenting with Dark Mode – it’s easier on the eye, looks ‘next level’ and is architecturally hip. Perfection is so pre-covid19 as designers are adding imperfections to pristine photographs and hand drawing their own icons and backgrounds. Whilst neon, as a colour, was previously deemed far too cheap and nasty; watch out for electric pastel neon against a black background. It so works.
Tighter Budgeting
The virus has exposed many weak web businesses that were already failing in their systems, with sloppy accounting, late client invoicing and inconsistent quotes. Tighter budgets require more accounting precision. Yes, web design is a very creative business but without attention to the business side, there will be no creative.
New methods
Business will never be the same again. You need to dare to build new structures and throw out old conventions that no longer fit. Your clients are also feverishly restructuring and innovating and have no doubt switched their strategies to accommodate the new ab-normal. Talk to them ASAP about how they prefer to work now. Check key changes in their staff hierarchy and any radical new thinking.
Increase your market share
Your web design competitors may have thinned out but this is no time for complacency. First you need to outthink everybody else and be top of your game with your social media and website. Get in first. Reminders, promotions and polite welcome-back communications re-acquaint clients with your offering. Also, if the digital marketing business down the road has closed, it’s a good time to pick up any of their hot web designers.