What are some of the current Design Trends people like?

[Tina]

Just for Fun.

[Brett Stoppel]

I like the wallpaper trend/look when done well.

http://www.lawrence.com
http://www.msichicago.org
http://www.espn.com

There are lots of examples around. These are the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

[Michelle Mierzwa]

I also really like the background trend. I even like when small elements are attached to the bottom background as displayed in this example:
http://www.pitzer.edu/admission/why_pitzer/index.asp

Also, I am fan of the the "navigation footer" - although I have not read any research to find if this is preferred by users or not.
http://www.msichicago.org
Perhaps a more subtle approach is shown here: http://www.biola.edu/undergrad/apply/now.cfm?rsrc=applynow

[Brett Stoppel]

Nice examples.

I think navigation footers are great for large sites. Universities with their diverse audiences and robust information architectures are good candidates for them.

To point out the obvious, there is also a growing use of rich ui elements like tabs, accordians, carousels, modal windows, video players, and others. One of my favorite not so common ui element is hulu.com's "Dim the Lights" features. It's a great example of simple and appropriate ui.

[David Jaeger]

I like the modular page layouts and the prevalent use of white space.

[Brett Stoppel]

I have also noticed that organizations are including twitter feeds (as well as flickr and other feeds) on their sites.

[Chad Hietala]

I'm a real big fan of white space, large font faces, ribbons, 1px highlighting, and gradients.