Bright Colours: Make it Pop!
The average European is exposed to approximately 5,000 ads per day! Over 1.8 million photos are also uploaded to social media channels each day. This array of plentiful marketing messages challenges a designer to use bright, vivid colours to catch the attention of the viewer. Just like web design trends for 2018, loud colours are here to stay in graphic design.
This does not necessarily mean the need to use ‘sparkly’ backgrounds and ‘blinking’ fonts to grab your audience’s attention. With a variety of both online and print tools, a designer has the ability to mix and match colours in a harmonious way.
In this situation, Spotify is noticeable and can be termed the leader of the pack. The technique used here is mainly that of Duotone: two colours overlaying each other on a grayscale image.
Responsive Logos
It’s been a decade since the era of responsive design began and ever since, companies have been simplifying their logos through to meet user demands by paying attention to colours, typography and shapes. This has been the obvious evolution of logo trends: to fit in a world where screens come in all shapes and sizes.
UK-based digital designer Joe Harrison published an interesting experiment scaling some of the world’s biggest companies’ logos.
Movement / Microinteraction
GIFs, animations/microinteractions and cinemagraphs are valuable tools to convey animated information.
GIF: multiple images pieced together to create a looping visual.
Cinemagraph: a hybrid of both cinematography and photography, animating only one spot of the photograph, while the rest remaining static.
Animations/microinteractions: The satisfying little magic details that a user meets and is engaged to come back again. Even when performing the smallest of task, that animated feedback is particularly useful and an amazing tip to keep in mind for a killer UI experience. After all, the devil is in the detail.
A catalyst that applies to many of the new trends in 2018 is the new Google logo.
Hand-drawn illustrations/custom typography/patterns/elements
Emerging from 2017, hand-drawn illustrations are emerging increasingly for multiple reasons. One being simply because we want to avoid generic, ‘cheesy’ staged up stock photos and replace them with something of human essence, customized and specific. 2018 will be a time to personalize as much as possible.
Other forms of hand-drawn imagery that are predicted to be popular in 2018 include hand-drawn geometric patterns, surrealistic depictions, use of the stippling technique, and, 1980’s-inspired aesthetics.
Timeless Trends
Even though the following aspects of design will surely be featured in other blogs as main trends, it is my humble opinion to believe that these elements are everlasting trends, not just an annual thing.
Typography: Always being flexible and changing based on each year’s trends, typography is a seriously strong weapon that needs to be used wisely to enhance viewers’ experience. Google fonts as a dominant source of use the past years, paired with generally keen fonts, demonstrate that typography will always be a powerful style of presentation.
Color Transitions / Gradients: A timeless trend in the field of design! Due to their striking increase of use the past 3-4 years, they have made a bigger impact, especially after big brands implemented them. One of the greatest examples is, of course, Instagram.
Minimalism or highly-detailed: This is not anything new, but both styles will remain strong on 2018. They are able to convey sophistication and both are considered classic and timeless.
“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful” John Maeda
though, also consider the following that cannot be disputed:
“Simplicity is not the goal.
It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations” Paul Rand
By: Stephanie, 1 Dec 2017
