What to look forward to and what’s coming back.

I know, yet another design trends articles. You might say these trends are old, so why are they trends? Well, that’s an interesting question you might already have an answer to. Trends come and go with time. So if you are an early adopter, or old enough, chances are you’ll see your old project come back to life (over and over again). A great friend of mine once said: Trendy/Cool is how long it takes for connected brain synapses that make up an unexercised memory to die. In other words, enough time has passed without a group remembering something, until it feels new again.

These are the trends we’ll be seeing a lot of this year:

Photo: Michela Ravasio, Collage: Alex Palacios

1. Maximalism

For a while, we were plagued by minimalist design. What’s not to love about it? Clean, to the point, efficient. As great as it is though, over-simplicity can become tiring and people often just end up feeling numb to same-ness. We’ve been seeing a rise in maximalist trends that celebrate excesses, extravagance, and decadence. This framework will relate to most of the 2019 trends we’ll be mentioning.

Duck: @every6hing at Steemit, Design: Alex Palacios

2. Brutalism

Now let’s be real, when you are a good designer, ugly design can be extremely refreshing. Brutalism’s origins can be found in architecture. In the mid-twentieth century we find a group of architects having fun with raw construction materials and exposing mundane functions in buildings… on purpose. In visual arts, we see a lot of designers making unpolished and raw statements too. Often times found in websites inspired in the early days of the internet (when websites had a lot of pixelated lines and originality was celebrated). There can be a lot reasons this trend is appealing nowadays, but overall we think their lack of concern to look easy or attractive. Some of the Brutalist qualities in design: lack of shadows, lack of texture, lack of spacing, lack of symmetry, no distinct hierarchy, and stark backgrounds.

Mobile gradient: @aoirostudio at Abduzeedo, Photo: Juan Moyano Design: Alex Palacios

3. Translucent gradient & Duotone

Now, we’ve seen gradients before, but the types of gradients we are seeing dominate the demo screens of your local Apple Store are a bit more complex. They are done imitating the way light dances through crystals/prisms. There are many irregular lines and fast transitions between prismatic color palettes. It is the return of Lisa Frank iridescent motifs with a touch of the aurora borealis for our futuristic sensibilities.

Another variation of the gradient trend is the rising popularity of duotone photography. Maybe when you think of duotone, you think of Andy Warhol and Spotify. This style removes most of the colors within a composition and substitutes them with a contrasting one color halftone over another color halftone. Commonly seen in screen printing, Adobe Photoshop has made this technique easier to apply to your digital designs using the popular “Gradient Map” within the “New Adjustment Layer” menu item.

Website: memebox.com Design Agency: Pattern

4. Asymmetrical layouts

Breaking patterns has become an important way for designers and artists who wish to stand out in their fan’s newsfeeds. Repetition can cause people to ignore what they are seeing. The use of asymmetrical layouts is a great way to generate a moderate amount of tension in the user’s minds, therefore breaking the spell of your audience ignoring or becoming immune to your designs. This doesn’t mean the grid is not there, it is just a grid that’s not as obviously perceived.

5. Voice design

What a world we live in where truly invisible design is part of our daily lives. Probably not as relevant to the design trends our readers are interested in, but with rise of AI and the smart home, this trend needs an honorable mention in our 2019 list. You might be familiar already with Amazon Echo and Siri, but the interesting thing about this trend is that it is going to soon transform more than a shopping list or a music playlist. In the future, we’ll possibly be designing for voice experiences using voice tools. Wow!

6. Boho

The use of Bohemian is often applied to people who live unconventional lives, however nowadays we see this term having acquired another meaning. Boho style can be seen as a mix of earthy colors and materials with aspirational sensibilities, heavily inspired in 70s fashion. In Boho, you can see the usage of rattan, macramé, brightly colored pillows and textiles. A popular pairing is the inclusion of desert-inspired imagery or plants with script text and hints of half-drawn sketches added as texture.

7. Flexible Design Systems

If you are building an app or website, you probably know no design made in 2019 can be created without thinking of each element within the larger system. Long gone are the days where custom modifications and in-line code changes are an acceptable way to operate. A healthy design system helps the design process move faster, and for design updates to be easier to apply. What makes this so important this year is the increase in design system tools that allow for a less difficult collaboration between designers and engineers (examples: Invision’s DSM, Figma, among others)

Image: Joao Knorr modeling Versace during Milan Fashion Week, Source: satisfashionug

8. 80s Opulence

Leopard print patterns, elegant patterns, big shoulder pads, and gold are some of the elements that are filling fashion runways and Instagram Influencer accounts in the last few years. Nouveau riche glamour, which was once considered tacky has made a happy comeback through an amalgam of elements. Under this category, synthwave also deserves an honorary mention with the return of pink, purple, and blue as popular color palettes.

Paint stroke: Ana & Yvy, 3D action: Mighty, Design: Alex Palacios

9. 3D Design

This 3D trend expands to objects, characters, particles, and typographic motifs. We see a lot of our favorite shapes and patterns popularized in Twentieth Century Modernism turned 3D with the addition of interesting angles and shadows. Rather than having product photography stand on its own in the same old boring way, abstract an unusual shapes are placed in strategic ways around the object to increase interest in your product. It could be seen as the expansion of the brick and mortar display window.

Image: Books illustration by Jarrod Bryan

10. Monoline Design

A cousin of polygon art and illustrations, monoline design is enjoying a commercial high. Used in a variety of canvases—from Fortpoint beer packaging to logos and optical illusions—single stroke design has become increasingly popular as a memorable way to create original content that scales in multiple mediums (in a more interesting way than a stock photograph can).

Image: Netflix’s 2016 lettermark/app logo

11. Almost-flat

As a response to flat design, we have now Almost-flat design. This can be seen in the logos of some of our favorite brands. Netflix’s new “N” continues being simple, but with the creative use of shadows, we have now a möbius strip type of effect with a continuous surface creating the “N.” This type of effect can be seen in the Google Drive logo and the Adobe PDF logo as well. Optical illusions have become more popular as design patterns continue becoming repetitive and omnipresent.

12. New Renaissance

You saw it at the Met Gala, in Kehinde Wiley’s paintings, and with Beyonce and Jay Z’s music video at The Louvre. A new take on Renaissance inspired art is in. Rich royal patterns, textiles, sculptures, stained glass, and figures standing in classic stances are just a few of the many elements that define this trend. Although technically speaking, a lot of the elements are really inspired in 1700s art and in the Hellenistic Greek period, we can say this style embodies a desire to rediscover and redefine what opulence means outside of short-term volatile trends. These “return-to-classics” styles say: When an artifact is truly well made, its value can be eternal.

Image: ©Snohetta (photography), JeffGoldberg (photography), ©Henrik Kam (photography), ©SFMOMA (photography)

13. Museum

Many brands now want to look creative, fun, and intellectual… without appearing to be childish or cheap. They often find inspiration in museum brands such as the MOMA, the MET, the Guggenheim, Museo del Prado, among others. Characterized by white space and openness interrupted by explosions of large color tiles with minimal typography—these design systems are the ones that are more likely to find balance between the opposing forces of maximalism and minimalism.