Graphic design trends are more than just passing fads: they reflect a year’s worth of limitations and clichés being thrown out in the sake of trying something new. Because consider how monotonous life would be if design remained constant.
This year’s graphic design trends indicate a hesitant second wave, echoing the almost palindrome that is 2022. The globe is slowly but steadily recovering from a lingering plague. Styles from previous decades are being resurrected. And a few experiments are attempting to replace the old with the new. As we’ll see in the next 3 graphic design trends, our path through 2022 promises to be nothing short of surprising.
1. 90s nostalgia
Stranger Things and It appear to have pushed 80s nostalgia back into the public, ushering in an era of gothic serifs, neon hues, and vaporwave landscapes. The 90s are finally making a comeback in 2022.
The 1990s are making a comeback in a number of forms, as seen by several of the trends on this list. However, this specific tendency is based on nostalgia—that wistful, romanticized look back. To that aim, we’re reliving the 1990s with Memphis design patterns, basic emoticons, and archaic internet frames. Through vivid color blocks and pouring slime, fond childhood memories reign supreme. Turn the clock back to the 1990s whenever your design project requires a sense of ease with a touch of old-school
2. Anti-design
The app race has established rigid design rules centered on usefulness above everything else during the last decade. While this has resulted in interfaces that are easily understood by the typical user, it has also resulted in homogeneity throughout the digital environment. Many artists have reacted by breaking the norms. Some intend to completely destroy them by 2022: come the anti-designers.
Anti-design (related but not fully synonymous with Brutalism) is exactly what it sounds like: it rejects established design principles and aesthetic preferences. Asymmetry, clashing hues, minimal interfaces, packed components, and sharp typography challenge us. While we encounter it most frequently in the digital domain, its rebellious attitude may be applied in any design setting. According to its detractors, the style is ugly for the purpose of being ugly. But, according to its supporters, it develops designs that are free of aesthetic criteria that others have erected.
3. Grunge revival
Grunge is the destructive teen to 90s nostalgia’s child and Frasurbane’s yuppy adult. Grunge is anguish personified, and its resurgence is a reaction to an out-of-control society. It has rough textures, shadowy images, and zine-like collages. This design exudes unbridled energy, with ink trails and splotches creating an expressive sense of movement. Its slapdash nature also resembles the rapidly produced films that younger viewers watch on TikTok.
Grunge, in particular, has a tactile presence (through analog components such as tape, ripped pages, and scrawled handwriting) that rebels against the clean, flat aesthetics of the digital era. This emotion comes as a welcome release after a year of confinement spent primarily online.
