Retro Design Trends of 2022
Staying on top of the trends in the graphic design industry is crucial when creating relevant content for your brand and business in general. Often, trends in other industries, such as fashion and marketing, allow those in the design industry to forecast what will be popular among designers and consumers alike.
Over the past several years, nostalgia has run rampant through the design industry with bold color schemes and unique typefaces that haven’t been used in decades. In Kelsie Rimmer’s article, “9 Creative Graphic Design Trends For 2022: From 3D Design to Dreamy Gradients”, she explains, Minimalist retro features old-school fonts, organic color palettes, warm tones, soft shadows, and natural textures. A stylish and nostalgic nod to vintage 70s magazine layouts and record covers, this versatile trend lends itself especially well to business logos, editorial features, and product packaging.”
Credit to Envato
As designers, when we feel lost, we often go back to our roots, or the past when certain concepts were in style. Doing this encourages us to step back and understand why specific styles went out of fashion and if they should make a comeback in some capacity. Groovy and 70s-inspired typefaces and patterns can be seen making a thriving splash throughout the design scene on various social media platforms including mediums such as custom typography and portfolio layouts.
Along the lines of retro style, colorful gradients, distinctive and eye-catching patterns have also made consistent reappearances in designs across a wide range of industries. There are a handful of design concepts that bridge the gap between classic and modern styles and even blend into the futuristic genre. Enina Bicaku states in “Top 10 Graphic Design Trends for Cutting Edge Design in 2022”, “Gradients and blurs have drifted into graphic design with a dreamy and tranquil effect. They have a futuristic allure that’s equal parts modern and psychedelic. Gradients create a soft smoky effect that gently morphs colors from one hue to the next.”
By Mockup Box on Behance
These elements add another level of precision and focus to your design that allows the viewers and consumers to immediately recognize the brand and ambiance you are creating. Gradients also allow designers to further incorporate their color scheme in the design campaign and expand on their ability to create cohesive projects.
Very few designers have shied away from involving captivating and technically difficult patterns in their work, for many reasons, one being they are constantly curious about new techniques and the applications that they can be created with. On Looka, Bicaku elaborates, “Statement patterns are repeating themselves this year, so we’re seeing original patterns that aim to stand out. From overlapping geometric shapes to unique fluid-like swirls, patterns can instantly distinguish your brand identity without crowding your composition.”
This trend is consistently appearing all over social media, including Instagram, where many designers share their custom patterns with fellow artists, more so recently due to the increasing popularity of the IOS application, Procreate. Along those lines, creating patterns with colors has been a trend for as long as design and art have been around in history. In usual fashion, designers take something old and commonly used and turn it into something unexpected, such as the trend of holographic design.
Credit to Design Hill
“The holographic design is one of the brand identities trends that help attract the audience. A hologram is a photograph of light that is displayed in a three-dimensional way...It offers various features involving patches, holograms, or stripes for laminates or polycarbonate,” Eshley Jackson writes in a piece for Design Hill. This type of visual design doesn’t seem to be fading into the background anytime soon. Since designers and most of the world is constantly fascinated with what the future holds for us all.