The influx of AI design tools has affected 2024’s creative design landscape, but will it change much in 2025? Here are my design roundups and predictions.
My Favorite 2024 Design Trends
Across the visual landscape in many sectors, we’ve seen an explosion of 90s era, vintage, and brutalism, especially in fashion which also crosses over into graphic design.
I’ve kept an eye on design and creative trends, from Taylor Swift-inspired friendship bracelets to neon-green color pops of Charli XCX’s influence. Modern-day pop culture has taken hold of digital creative design in many great ways.
1. AI Artwork
Adobe has leaned heavily on bringing new AI features to the Adobe suite, and that’s as a result of AI artwork and design being popular in 2024. While it isn’t my favorite design trend, it’s one that I cannot deny is big.
Whether AI is being used in obvious over-generated renderings of highland cows that stream your Facebook feed or craft and art fairs, or it’s being used in more subtle ways as a helpful tool, AI artwork and design features are probably one of the biggest influences on the design landscape right now.
Tools like Kittl and Canva offer great uses for AI that help improve design rather than overtake it.
2. Brutalism
Brutalism is another trend that’s really taken off within 2024. It seems to have come from some of the major 2023 web design trends that included typographic design and minimalism, only reversed.
Charli XCX’s “brat summer” green hue has popped up in many brutalist design pieces in the past year, especially paired with bold black typography in layers around the design.
This design trend takes bold and simple to the next level, really punching the design style in the face of anyone who views it. It’s been seen in web design, graphic t-shirts, and posters for all types of adverts.
3. Minimalism
Web design trends of 2023 saw an increase in minimalism in design, and it continued throughout 2024. To oppose the maximalist brutalism, minimalism allows for white space and areas for your design to breathe.
The minimalism trend has been seen mostly within a typographic design use—designs with only sleek text and little else. This might sound boring, but done correctly, it can be eye-catching and communicative for your design needs.
4. Typographic Compositions
As seen in some of the previously mentioned trends throughout 2024 are typographic designs and compositions.
There are more type and text-based logos being put front and center of large brands than before, including Jaguar’s controversial rebrand in November 2024—changing the entire intended audience in one quick swift.
With typographic compositions, we see that less is more and we don’t need heavy imagery to cloud the design like was popular in previous years.
5. Nod to Vintage
Along with the influx of 90s-era fashion trends comes to vintage design trend that encompasses it. The vintage trend can be seen best in photography, with many Gen Z designers and creative people incorporating film photography or digital photography to look like film into their designs.
The smartphones are being left in bags or pockets, and the DSLR cameras are nowhere to be seen. This nostalgia trend involves raiding charity shops or your grandma’s basement to find the technology of years past.
6. Crafty Girl
The craft design style is one of my favorite design trends, not only in 2024 but possibly in my adult lifetime. It screams nostalgia for me as a woman who grew up in the 90s, but it’s also refreshing to see a feminine-leaning design trend become mainstream and accepted.
Artists like Martina Calvi and Adrianne Paerels have taken the Crafty Girl design trend and run with it.
You’ll notice these trends among design systems in ways of using ripped paper edges, textured paper backgrounds, collaged layering effects, handwritten typography, slanted photos, and little trinkets in design.
There is nothing negative I can think about this particular design trend. It brings a smile to people’s faces and it seems like it’s woven itself a new community of creative people who previously felt they had to be creative indoors alone. Now, global groups are encouraging this free design movement—there’s no way to design incorrectly when crafting. Whatever works for you, works for the design.
Creative Design Trends to Expect in 2025
With a round-up of the trends we’ve been noticing throughout 2024, and a reminder of what we saw in 2023, it’s only right to peruse my thoughts of what the design world might trend in for 2025.
1. More Well-Rounded AI Creations
I don’t think AI is going anywhere any time soon, but with most major design software having implemented AI features since 2022 or 2023, it’s no longer just an exciting novelty.
I think and hope that 2025 design trends will start using AI design features with better intentions. By that, I mean that designers or hobbyists won’t hit “generate” and then “done” anymore. They’ll use AI as a tool in a larger toolbox and edit their AI-generated images and designs with more of a human touch.
AI itself isn’t going to take over good design. But designers can use AI in a positive way and help it transform their workflow without obvious AI-generated results.
2. More Human-Inspired Design
Physical experiences, traditional art mediums, and human intention within design are trends I expect to see appear in 2025.
Due to the over-reliance on AI in 2024, human-inspired design is sure to be coming back to the forefront. We’ve lost a lot of human connection in recent years, but I can see that with intentional accessibility, sustainability, and thought for the human audience, it’s coming back with a vengeance for the year ahead.
We’ve started seeing this trend towards the end of 2024, but 2025 is going to push it further. Mixed media design will showcase product images merged with design elements to create fluid images.
It’s already often seen with major tech companies like Apple or Beats headphones, but we’re likely to see more of this design style elsewhere in 2025. The idea of incorporating the product photo into the design itself helps the entire design be fluid as one, rather than looking like a vessel for advertising a product.
4. Sustainability and Accessibility in Design
While these are fewer trends and more directions, I think it’s important to note to expect a bigger move in both sustainable design and accessible design.
You’ll see more packaging design using natural materials and natural, more toned-down, dyes and inks compared to previous packaging that’s all about maximalist print work.
In growing education surrounding accessibility and how it can help those who require different needs, as well as any other person, a push on accessible design, is still growing. There is nothing negative about an accessible design piece, and it doesn’t shut out any demographic by being accessible to more people.
This design enlightenment will provide easier-to-read text, including accessible font sizes and colors, inclusive languages and imagery, and even innovative packaging and UX/UI to enhance user experiences with designed products.
Design trends are ever-evolving and it can be hard to pinpoint what is a trend or what was a swift moment in time that didn’t catch on. While it’s good, as designers, to take note of current and forecast trends, you shouldn’t let trending styles dictate your design work.
Especially for branding and evergreen designs, a trendy design doesn’t have longevity in those cases, and it will in fact hurt the brand’s image when the trend is no longer relevant.
