Trends · measured, not predicted
Web design trends 2026, measured
What 2,642 real marketing homepages actually do — accent colours, hero imagery, fonts and section order. Every figure below is counted from the sites in our library, captured 21–24 Sep 2026, and labelled with its sample.
48.9%
have no chromatic accent
1,292 of 2,642 homepages are monochrome
48.8%
of heroes: photography
automated label, 2,507 heroes
5
words in the median hero headline
1,955 headlines
7
sections on the median homepage
mean 7.1, 2,617 homepages
UIDiscovery colours of 2026
The most-used accent colours, clustered by eye-distance in OKLab. Vivid red leads at 9.4% of homepages. These are counts from our captures — not a forecast, and not Pantone's Colour of the Year. All colour trends →
Accent = the most saturated palette colour that stands off the background, across 2,642 homepages captured 21–24 Sep 2026; 1,350 had one.
Vivid red
#ed3833
249 sites · 9.4%
Blue
#066bbd
131 sites · 5%
Vivid blue
#0052f2
93 sites · 3.5%
Deep blue
#002b5c
81 sites · 3.1%
Vivid yellow
#f5e211
73 sites · 2.8%
Red-orange
#f08030
61 sites · 2.3%
Green
#337047
49 sites · 1.9%
Yellow
#f4b223
47 sites · 1.8%
Dark or light
14.9% of homepages are dark-themed. Dark is most common in entertainment (42.3%) and rarest in travel (3.3%).
Theme from each site's measured palette, across 2,642 homepages captured 21–24 Sep 2026.
What heroes show
Photography 48.8%, Product UI 19.1%, Type only, no imagery 17.9%. 25.2% of hero bands are dark. Hero trends →
Imagery style from an on-device image classifier (Apple Vision labels + pixel metrics), across 2,507 homepage heroes captured 21–24 Sep 2026. It's a best guess: UI screenshots shown with people tend to count as photography.
- Photography48.8% (1,224 of 2,507 heroes)
- Product UI19.1% (478 of 2,507 heroes)
- Type only, no imagery17.9% (449 of 2,507 heroes)
- Abstract, gradient or 3D14.2% (356 of 2,507 heroes)
Fonts
Inter is the most-used heading face, but only on 4.1% of sites — we found 1,449 distinct heading fonts. 58.9% use one family for headings and body. Font trends →
Declared CSS font families, across 2,384 homepages with a named heading font captured 21–24 Sep 2026.
- Inter4.1% (98 of 2,384 sites)
- Montserrat1.6% (39 of 2,384 sites)
- Poppins1.6% (38 of 2,384 sites)
- Suisse Intl1% (24 of 2,384 sites)
- Open Sans0.9% (22 of 2,384 sites)
- Geist0.9% (21 of 2,384 sites)
Page structure
The median homepage has 7 sections. Right after the hero, features is most common (33.9%). Only 1.6% put pricing on the homepage. Structure trends →
Section types per homepage, across 2,617 homepages captured 21–24 Sep 2026.
- Features69% (1,805 of 2,617 homepages)
- Content62.8% (1,644 of 2,617 homepages)
- Footer58.2% (1,524 of 2,617 homepages)
- Showcase43.2% (1,130 of 2,617 homepages)
- Statement37.6% (985 of 2,617 homepages)
- Call to action11.7% (307 of 2,617 homepages)
- FAQ7.7% (202 of 2,617 homepages)
- Blog6.5% (171 of 2,617 homepages)
Award-winning sites and motion
542 homepages in the library come from design-award galleries. Compared with the other 2,100, they are dark more often (31% vs 11%), lean minimal (46% vs 25%) and run shorter (4.6 vs 7.6 sections on average).
We record a scroll-through video of 2,548 homepages, but we don't yet measure animation itself (scroll effects, WebGL, transitions) — so we don't publish motion percentages. Award status comes from the gallery each site was found in.
| Trait | Award sites542 | Everyone else2,100 |
|---|---|---|
| Dark theme | 31% | 11% |
| Serif display type | 4% | 6% |
| Colourful palette | 10% | 19% |
| Minimal | 46% | 25% |
| Type-only hero | 23% | 17% |
| Abstract / 3D hero art | 19% | 13% |
New this month vs the library
Every homepage here was captured in Sep 2026, so there is no month-over-month comparison yet. Once the monthly re-crawl runs, this section will compare each month's captures with the library. What's new →
Capture dates run from 21 Sep 2026 to 24 Sep 2026.
- Sep 20262,642 homepages
How we measure
UIDiscovery captures each homepage in a 1440px browser, cuts it into sections and records its palette, declared fonts and each section's headings, buttons and images. Section types are verified against each section's own words. Imagery style is labelled on-device by an image classifier and is a best guess (1,279 of 2,507 hero labels are high-confidence). The sample is the sites we chose to capture — curated and award-gallery sites are over-represented, so read these as “what well-designed sites do”, not the whole web. The raw numbers are at /api/v1/trends.