Digital Design Trends for 2018

Generally, I’m not into design trends. I don’t know the current music, the classics are good enough for me. I don’t wear trendy clothes, give me a converse anyday. My general philosophy on design is that good design doesn’t really rely on trends. Good design is good design… BUT Advertising does rely on trends. I DO think it’s important to know what elements are resonating with certain tribes/audiences/demographics for the client’s advantage.

2017 was an amazing year. We have narrowly escaped nuclear war caused by twitter roasting from Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump. Emmanuel Macron wins a resounding victory in France’s presidential election on May 7th and ‘#MeToo’ opens the floodgates to stories of harassment. It’s now 2018 and we all know that the one consistent thing in life is change. We expect the internet and design to be no different. Here is what we think will be the digital trends of the coming year.

The continued growth of Video

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is the best way to tell a story. Expect to see more full screen video on websites and LIVE Video on social media. We would also expect YouTube and/or Vimeo to make a drastic change in their UI in the next year or so. Mainly to compensate for the rapid growth of 4K video and the rate at which this content type is shared.

Responsive Logos

This one is the easiest. Don’t give me any credit for this one because it’s probably the most obvious. The computer you owned 12 years ago isn’t even half as fast as the mobile device you are probably using to read this blog right now. Mobile design will come before everything else and users will expect a wider adaptation of Responsive Design. Along with this will see the growth of Responsive Logos and Corporate Identities. Companies have been refreshing their logos to meet these new standards. Expect to see more modern, sleeker, smaller and simpler versions of you favorite brands identities over the next year

Vivid Color

Bold use of color was a hit in 2017 and it will be back in 2018. Expect vivid color, high saturation and brightness, look out for more neon in design. Those intense pallets that were popular in the 80s and 90s will return in a fresh new way. Along with this vivid use of color, another trend making the comeback is Gradients.

Gradients

We have been seeing a lot of flat design over the years and naturally following this trend, gradients. We clearly see this adapted in the new iOS UI and a number of other apps like Asana and Instagram and Tinder. Gradients have also made their way onto a number of websites. Asana, which is currently used by NuArtillery for task management, has adapted it intensely on their website.

Color Channels

Essentially how the color channels effect work is that your image is spit via color the RGB and/or CMYK channels. The layers are staggered onto one another and the transparencies allow the colors to acquire a brand new perspective. We are seeing this very frequently, mostly on text and photography.

Interacting Typography

Seeing typography interact with photography is very intriguing. It does something special to the brain. Bringing the text into the scene and making it part of the composition make them seem like real life objects.

Diversity!

This one is my favorite. Even though there are still a lot of barriers to overcome where racism is concerned, We feel that we can look forward to a whole lot more diversity in the visual content we consume this coming year. From Female leads in our favorite Star Wars films to an amazingly diverse cast in the movie Black Panther scheduled for February 12th. More colored faces and more mixed ethnicities.

Bold Text on Dramatic Photography AND Video

The digital age is here and our attention span has decreased significantly. A recent study by Microsoft has shown that the average attention span has been reduced to about 8 seconds. This is even less time than most advertisers give audiences to read billboards. In 2018 TYPE will be Bigger and Bolder. Big, Brutal, Bold Type is BACK!

Illustrations and Hand drawn images

We think that this will be where artists will win again. With everything going digital, media will maintain some sort of humanity. Organic, hand drawn images will start to rise again, ushering in a breath of fresh air and delivering more personality than the geometric designs we are starting to get used to.

Animated GIFs

We all remember them, and… They’re back. Those goofy 5 frame animations that were popular in the days of ICQ and Napster have returned in a fresh new way. With more robust animation formats out there like HTML5 and Shockwave, designers have returned to the simplest of them all. You just can’t beat the GIF format on simplicity. Advertisers are looking for the most basic way to transfer their message without having to worry about your browser’s capabilities. The GIF format will run on a toaster.

The Decline of Stock Photography

Everyone is getting into Photography now. Everyone has an amazing camera on their phone and/or the ability to create amazing photographs. The Best DSLRs on the market are getting cheaper and more people are taking up photography as a hobby. It’s easy to predict an increase in the production of original photographic content.

Augmented/Virtual reality Design Trends

In 2017, A-ha did some really incredible stuff using augmented reality. They recreated their entire “Take On Me” video in augmented reality. Check it out here in this video. The app puts the user into a hand-drawn world similar to the one in the music video. We expect to see so much more of this in 2018. We also hope to experiment with this technology more myself.

Glitch Effect

We enjoyed sharing with you and we do hope this adds value to our readers and followers. We’re looking forward to using more of our work in the next “Trend” post we create. Look out for more inspiring and informative content in the future.

Coming to the end of 2017 We have seen this effect so many times with increasing regularity. We expect to see even more of these “corrupted images” in the coming year. This is an effect that really needs relevance to work well however, so I wouldn’t go glitching your work up because its trendy.