Trends change quickly in mobile App design. The year 2018 witnessed new challenges in app design, as well as the launch of many new great mobile apps.

Last year, we introduced the 10 Best APP UI Design in 2017 . It’s really an honour that thousands of UX/UI designer read our blog. The year 2018 is almost over with a little less than 1 month left. We think it’s time to do a yearly roundup of the best mobile app designs. Let’s meet the best apps of 2018 and have a look at what makes them stand out.

To explain the most useful app UI designs and newest design trends that will last beyond 2018, Mockplus has carefully selected 15 of the best app designs of 2018.

1. Rep - Influencer Marketing Platform

Design feature: Simplify the user's journey by presenting all offers in one place

Category: Social Networking

Rep is a marketplace where brands and influencers can connect and collaborate. It’s like having your own personal marketing and advertising agency.

You can present all offers in one place through Direct Offers via the Offers tool, resulting in a simplified user experience. You interact with less effort but move more directly toward your marketing goal.



2. Color Therapy Coloring Number - Coloring Book for Adults Game

Design feature: HD images directly impact user expectations

Category: Books

HD Images are a key factor of the interface, drawing the user’s attention to your app. A high-quality image creates a direct impact on user expectations. Gone are the days that images appear pixelated on a mobile screen and take forever to load.

Coloring Book for Adults is a gathering place for millions of dedicated coloring artists. With more than 2000+ stunning and free adult coloring pages, you will get the relaxation and mindfulness you deserve. In addition, you can enjoy coloring and connecting with millions of coloring enthusiasts from around the globe.

The main features include:

Enjoy beautiful, calming music and sound FX, such as fur elise, Jazz, Therapy, and your own music of course.

You are free to choose different line colors, special finishing effects and frames to customize your art.

It provides a huge color palette library with 2000+ solid colors and gradients.

3. Mi Smart Home

Design feature: high-contrast UI colors and interactive animations

Category: Mi Home App

Xiaomi is an amazing phone brand from China. Mi Smart Home is a management app for Xiaomi made by designer Stan Yakusevich. It’s animations help you navigate through your quick day-to-day interactions.

Thanks to larger, brighter, higher resolution screens, mobile app designs have more room to play with visual contrast, which not only works to enhance aesthetics, but also give designers more room for creativity. The color contrast of Mi Smart Home is bold and appealing.

4. Mobile UI

Design feature: Overlapping effect and opacity to create depth and layers

The user interface is a key focal of mobile app design. Your interface should be clean and organized. This mobile design uses depth and layers to make the UI a lot cleaner, and uses techniques like overlapping fonts, different levels of opacity, color gradients, shadow and blur and varying shades of color work to create a sense of space. Creating an eye-catching UI interface is a must requirement for UI designers in 2018.



5. Tap Bar Crypto App

What’s special: Micro animation

Micro interactions can bring your design to life no matter what App you are working with. When your users focus on a small mobile screen, micro animations can create interactive features that engage them in a fun way.

Tap Bar Crypto App creates perfect micro animations on the bottom navigation icons to attract and inform users.

6. Smart House

Design feature: Vibrant colors

Smart House is actually the portfolio of designer Yurij Prokopchenko. The Smart Home App features simple visualization by using vibrant colors. In 2018, color definitely became a powerful tool in the designer’s toolkit. Using color wisely in UI design can create a perfect UI interface. It draws attention and influence users’ emotions and actions. That is also why the design of the remote control for the attached light is a quite good and clear option for users.



7. Spotify Music

Design feature: Color gradients

Category: Music

It's true that color gradients are favored by designers more than flat colors nowadays. Color gradients are more powerful when used intentionally, such as when you need to convey emotions or highlight a certain design element.

Spotify not only has the biggest, and best music collection, it also has the best UI designs. It also uses rich color gradients effectively.

8. Letgo: Buy & Sell Used Stuff 12+

Design features: Cards and simple shapes, define location, layers

Category: Shopping

Letgo is one of the biggest and fastest growing apps for buying and selling locally. You can find great local deals on such items as second-hand phones, fashion, sneakers, games to furniture, cars, and real estate.

With such a large amount of commodities to display, Letgo abandoned complicated clunky shapes and instead uses cards and simple shapes to keep all the items in good check. The uncluttered buttons and minimalist icons allow users to navigate with ease. In 2018, mobile apps are simplifying shapes and edges to give everything a cleaner feel. So does Letgo.

9. Buy & Sell This Holiday - eBay

Design feature: Full screen

Category: Online shop

With the release of Samsung Galaxy S8 and iPhone X, frameless designs have become a trend. More screen space also means users expect to have full-screen experiences. eBay responded to this call. You can explore offers on your favorite brands frameless at eBay. In addition, this massive online marketplace gives you the freedom to buy and sell just about anything.

10. Target

Design feature: Easy payment method

Category：Shopping

Cashless payment is waived in China and more users worldwide have turned to cashless payment. Reports indicate that the number of people who use a cashless method of payment almost doubled in 2017, which means demand will only grow in 2018 and beyond. The new Wallet feature of Target provides the fastest, easiest way to save and pay in the store without cash.

11. ZINIO - Magazine Newsstand - 6,000+ magazines in one app

Design feature: Listen on the go with Text-to-Speech

Category: Magazines & Newspapers

ZINIO is the world's first and largest digital newsstand, offering more than 6,000 of the best magazines from around the world. Users used to get their news by reading, but now with the latest TEXT-TO-SPEECH function, you are able to listen to your favorite articles. Listening is convenient and frees up your eyes and heads for other tasks. Isn’t it amazing?



12. Apple Maps Concept

Design feature: Interactive animations

Interactive animations was a hot trend in 2018 and will not likely go away. Animation can mobilize user emotions and attract their attention. Interactive animation is an indispensable design strategy.

When it comes to this Apple Maps Concept example, my personal favorite is the zooming out while scrolling. In addition, a horizontal list across the bottom is really helpful in many different scenarios and use cases. Also, the time selector has an option to show sunset or sunrise times in that area by changing the map background color. These features enhance user experience.

13. 3D Transition Exploration for Travel App

Design feature: 3D Transition

This example is a transition exploration for a travel app. The designer uses 3D transition to clarify spatial relationships between screens. It creates a sense of space for the uses.

14. Marco Polo Video Walkie Talkie

Design feature: AR experience

Marco Polo is a face-to-face messaging app for one-to-one and group conversations. It brings family and friends closer than ever with genuine conversations and shared moments. In addition, you can add entertainment functions to your conversations, such as doing make-up on yourself when chatting. The AR camera helps to create a more engaging user experience.

15. Pandora

Design Features: Emotional experience feedback design

Users not only need an app to interact with them, but the app must also provide a way for users to express their user experience. In Pandora, users can tell the app what they like and don't like through the simplest choices of clicking likes and dislikes. The app then uses this feedback to provide a personalized music experience for the user.



The above is the 15 best app designs of 2018 selected by Mockplus. We hope the above designs bring you inspiration for your next project. Let us know if you have other resources to share.

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Best eCommerce Mobile App Designs to Get You Inspired

10 Latest Mobile App Interface Designs for Your Inspiration