The world of graphic design is ever-changing, continually evolving with new technologies and refreshed styles. Just as you think you’ve got one design trend down to a tee, a new one arrives. Not that we’re complaining – we love watching and experimenting with the changing landscape of design and sharing these new ideas with our clients. After all, if your client’s company and offerings are progressing, why shouldn’t their brand evolve as well?

Now firmly into the new year, the top graphic design trends of 2024 are emerging thick and fast. We’ve picked some of the most popular – and our personal favourite – trends to take a closer look at, alongside how and where to apply them.

AI Enhanced Design

Oh no, the dreaded AI It’s a very debated topic in the creative world and we understand why. However, if used in the right way, see it as the tool to elevate your workflow, rather than to replace it. It’s also a great addition to help expand creative ideas and decode tricky briefs.

Utilising software that can understand and visualise your ideas helps to aid in the decisions of colour palettes, imagery content, and font possibilities. Think of all those vague ‘like this but different’ briefs it could speedily decipher. Alongside the suggestions, AI software also offers automated tools to save time on smaller requests. Colour correction, resizing, and expanding/removing backgrounds are all handled swiftly and almost instantly. One of our favourite examples of background expansion is the album covers collection by Alexander Dobrokotov.

More and more AI software is arriving, each expanding the possibilities of what can be created. Firefly, Midjourney and DreamStudio are a few of the most popular generators available. Even stock libraries are providing their own generators to subscribers including Generative AI by Getty Images, and Generative AI by iStock, powered by NVIDIA Picasso. Generating mock-ups of products, advertising locations or interior design using AI doesn’t just add speed to a project, it helps cut initial prototype production costs too.

Recently AI video has been making waves through OpenAI’s Text-to-Video tool, Sora AI. Previous attempts at AI video have been less than impressive, and in some cases, quite frightening. But the latest examples that Sora has released are incredibly life-like. Once given a prompt, Sora will create a video up to a minute long which matches the description in the prompt. At the time of writing, Sora is unavailable to the public and will be provided to testers before any official launch. Once fine-tuned and openly available, we predict a high likelihood of Text-to-Video Tools becoming a powerful component within the graphic design industry.

Cartoon & Illustration

Jumping in the opposite direction of AI, hand-drawn illustration and cartoon elements are fast becoming prominent routes in the world of graphic design. By choosing bespoke illustrations, clients can visualise their brand tone and values distinctively and originally. With repetitive and reused stock illustrations available, there’s always the worry a competitor may license the same ones. But by creating your own, they are unique to you.

Shifting from generic stock illustrations also allows a better representation of a brand’s origin. For smaller businesses, such as craft beer companies or cottage industries, a lot of a brand’s identity is based around its story. The illustrative design lends itself perfectly to the world of storytelling, creating a relatable connection with the target audience. As well as strengthening a brand, it showcases an agency’s adaptability to the world of design, embracing the simpler foundations of art.

Ultimately it offers a more cheerful experience to the consumer, some playful escapism against the day-to-day mundanity. Illustration can also birth memorial mascots that carry a brand throughout the years, evolving alongside it. Think Tony the Tiger, Michelin Man, Julius Pringle or even the Duolingo owl. You can visualise them all in your mind’s eye, maybe even before remembering the products they represent.

Incorporating illustration into designs benefits from experimentation, defining the right kind of doodle or cartoon style for a brand’s messaging and personality. Illustration may not be suited to the core of a brand identity, but its light-heartedness could instead be introduced through social media presence or web design.

Retro Visuals

What’s better to trend alongside the cheeriness of illustrative design than the nostalgia of retro visuals? The old-school pixel gaming and vintage advert styling are coming back into play, sparking pangs of childhood memories for the Millennials and Gen X amongst us.

Injected with a modern twist, pixel art is appearing strong and bold in the graphic design trends of 2024. Although it’s bold, it’s also beautifully simple. A great example of this is Lacoste’s collaboration with Minecraft, a game that’s popularity is built upon its retro visual simplicity. The block-by-block animation blends two popular brands whilst keeping them individually recognisable.

No longer confined to video games, pixels are becoming a modern choice for branding, web design and animation. 

If we roll inspiration back another decade or two, the faded retro colour palettes of the 60s and 70s will emerge again in 2024. These earthy tones lend themselves to subtle branding styles, but without falling into the predictable monochrome colourings. Paired with retro patterns such as stripes, swirls, and floral shapes the 70s provide some nostalgic respite to the ever-evolving futuristic styles.

Alongside the 70s pattern revival, the vintage advertisements and branding of yesteryear are popping back into our lives. These older designs are brought forward with a modern twist, presenting a newer style to younger audiences. As well as a nostalgic one to those who recognise them from the first time around.

Maximalism

For the past few years less has been more in graphic design, but 2024 is turning that around. The trend of ‘more on more’ sees clashing colours, loud fonts and fearlessly mixing patterns with textures. Safe to say this trend is perfect for those wanting to make a statement.

Embracing maximalism in graphic design takes away the ‘this or that’ obstacles when presenting a narrative or brand. With the freedom to show multi-levels of a narrative the results are visually stimulating. Grabbing the viewer’s attention from a distance and holding on to it for that little bit longer. Focused more on an eclectic client, the imagery demands attention and takes up space within the branding landscape.

The beauty of maximalism is that it throws together several graphic design styles, many of which we’ve mentioned in this post. Of course, constructive creation and a critical eye still need to be applied when playing with maximalism, but the more rigid constraints are lifted.

Bold Minimalism

Yes, we just said maximalism was in, but there’s a place for both. This is a new take on minimalism. Rather than monochrome black-and-white minimalism, this version is all about colour.

Traditionally minimalism evokes an emotion of elegance and simplicity, favoured more by brands projecting a serious tone. However, it could be seen as rather cold or lacking personality. Infusing colour into the style injects emotion, which leads to a stronger response from the viewer. For a brand identity, bold minimalism creates a perfect balance of energy and style.

Brands such as Mastercard, Google and Apple all use a minimalist approach to their identity, playing with bursts of colour and imagery for campaigns or products. Their personalities are evident without being overpowering to the messaging. With visual imagery that is recognisable and styles many start-ups look to for inspiration, these brands have used minimalism to their advantage.

Minimalism in its simplest description is all about removing clutter. By doing so, it lets the designer direct the viewer specifically to their intended message. Removing the additional elements and replacing them with colour within negative space, it creates a simplified user flow. And with such a fast-moving world, people want information quickly and easily.

3D Design

3D is not new, but the graphic design trend of hyper-realistic, almost immersive 3D is strong in 2024. With VR becoming more accessible, it’s no surprise that static branding elements are being transformed and brought to life. Depth and dimension in static imagery add another level to your branding, providing stronger, lifelike imagery. Along with the inclusion of depth, realistic textures and materials elevate imagery to give a photorealistic style.

Font and typography are also included in 3D design experimentation. Instead of focusing on the way it looks, 3D design explores the way the characters flow and expand, giving the impression of motion. The best way to implement 3D typography is with simplicity. With such strong visuals, the typography speaks for itself and minimises the need for complex additional elements.

In a more practical sense, 3D design is a perfect addition to the architectural and retail industries. With the use of renders, realism is added to product visualisation and architectural design. Visualising a product before prototyping saves on both time and budget. Similarly visualising an architectural structure or interior design allows a clear view of the goal a team needs for a project.

3D design demands attention, and quite literally stands out. Applied in the right way, 3D techniques become more engaging, offering something the viewer could reach out and touch.

As with all areas of the ever-evolving creative world, trends are constantly emerging and dispersing. Trends introduce perfect opportunities for creatives to expand and experiment with their work. However, it’s also important to stay true to your unique style and most importantly, true to the brand.