How To Find Design Trends In 2022

Graphic design trends might just be the most useless thing in existence or they could be a powerful tool in your workflow. This largely depends on what kind of graphic designer you actually are.

But here’s a serious question, Are You Getting Left Behind?

How does someone keep up with design trends? According to Behance glass and crystal is a design trend this year.

So should that matter to me or to you as graphic designers. If say for example I’m designing a stranger things promotional poster. I decide to slap on some gradient-styled crystal or glassware onto my design is that the right move. In this case, it’s more than likely not, but we’ll get to that later.

Firstly, How do we grasp the trends?

We need to look at how to properly grasp what is trending in the graphic design world before we can determine if it’s worthwhile or not. You can decide towards the end of today’s post. If you are in team trend or team I don’t really care about trends.

When it comes to identifying what is trending in the design world here’s what you need to be doing.

Let’s jump into one of my favorite all-time places online www.httpster.net. This website showcases awesome examples of website designs it’s kind of like website exception.

But as I’m looking through these websites I’m looking for patterns.

For example, I can see that a lot of these designs are focusing on decorative fonts. Actually often serif decorative fonts. That’s as seen here on the Milton textiles design. Then further down here with the yellow and black Filtro design. You’ll soon see where these fonts lie in terms of design trends.

I then move to my mood boards and I can take screenshots of the design trends. That I see and place them under the typography section.

Basically, here I’m just building up an overall landscape or image of the current design world. And this is very powerful to do because you can have it there as a resource whenever you want to embark on a new project. And keep changing things as the graphic design world evolves from month to month.

So the fonts we just looked at are a direct representation of the art nouveau trend. That has graced us with these fonts being used all over packaging website design and logo design this year. When it comes to adding things to your mood board for design trends. It’s just a case of literally using google and having a good search around. But that brings me to the meat of this post the crux of everything.

Does it even matter? Do graphic design trends make a difference at all? Well the short answer to that is well (maybe? ). You see it really comes down to what you’re designing and who you’re designing it for. I will explain this with some relevant examples very soon. But first, we need to lay down two unbreakable rules when it comes to design trends.

Rule Number One: Prioritise The Brief

Is to keep your client’s needs and their brief as a priority. Trying to jam and fit a design trend into a project brief that just doesn’t need it is not going to end well for you.

Rule Number Two: Make It Your Own

Is that making useful design trends doesn’t mean you turn into a photocopying machine. Where you command c and command v your way through a project. You need to make it on your own and you need to use design trends as part of an overall design.

One instance where using a graphic design trend could be a very good idea is designing things for a brand. I don’t actually mean the brand’s identity. I mean products or assets that the brand exports out in terms of marketing and advertising.

A trend for 2022 that is pretty hot right now, is design nostalgia from the 90s. If you’re designing something for a brand that targets people who were kids or in their 20s during the 1990s. Playing on that nostalgia with fonts, colors and themes linked back to that time. Will help to target that audience and they will resonate with your design a whole lot more. Something else very popular now is brutalism and experimental design or typography. This is also known as anti-design. Now should you be splashing a ton of brutalism all over your projects of course not.

But if you’re working on a project. where you want to or you need to make a bold statement that delivers a shock to the audience. Maybe this could be an option for you to use.

Design trends are a tool that exists in society because humans like to move and think in packs. Making use of a design trend can actually align you in specific communities and can help deliver a message more efficiently. If the trend conflicts with the message then ignore it completely. So with that being said are you team trend or team I don’t really care about trends.

Finally, what are some of the strongest trends right now in 2022?

I’ve already mentioned art nouveau typography brutalism and also crystal and glassware. But quickly here are three more trends that are rising in popularity right now.

3D/2D Combined

So combining 2d and 3d graphics into one single design. 3d graphics and the software that make them is becoming more and more adopted with each passing month. There is a trend occurring where those graphics are mixed with 2d assets as you can see with this Facebook base design.

3D Characters

Next again we have 3d but this time exclusively 3d characters. I personally see these a lot on websites like Freepik or Envato Elements. I see them as downloads for designers to actually use on their projects. As more and more people learn to use 3d programs expect these sorts of trends to grow even further.

Holographic Designs

The third trend is holographic designs. Now I personally here at satori graphics love this style and it’s often mixed with bold sans-serif fonts. They’re actually really great to use on social media posts and things like that. But just remember always to consider the message and the audience. For me using design trends isn’t a black or white thing it’s not all good or bad. That is of course if you don’t talk about logo design which is a different post for a different day.