Introduction
As the new year approaches, what are the Visual design trends to look out for this year? I’ve done more research on this blog than ever before on any of my blogs! We’re going to walk through a timeline of trends you may expect in 2023!
Brutal Designs
It’s a bucket filled with a collection of items, including neubrutalist, vintage, retro wave, the ’80s and ’90s, and magazine/poster-like trends. It’s a less saturated, earthier pastel colour or a nostalgic colour.
They can serve a fantastic aesthetic purpose depending on the product or service they are attempting to advertise, but they are frequently a victory of form over function.
At the same time, it’s great to see something original and utterly unique now and then.
One crucial question: are they suitable for UI Design?
Many companies that choose brutalist designs received extremely poor user feedback.Figma and Gumroad are notable outliers, but this is a design that does not suit every product. It appears that the majority of the design team responsible for the redesign was pleased with the outcome. Regrettably, forms like brutalism are rarely useful and appealing to users.
The most recent The Verge makeover is a perfect example, with roughly 5.5 million monthly views falling after the update. The major causes here were most likely the chaotic arrangement and stark contrasts.
It is reasonable to state that when it comes to digital goods, the balance of functional and aesthetic elements is critical.
Imitations of textures and materials
Real-world materials imitation include glass, clay, metal/chrome morphism etc. The frosted glass and blurred backdrop are becoming more common, especially since they allow the content to extend beyond its container and help you to understand what aspects of the UI are fixed, which aids in the design hierarchy.
The 3D design is becoming much more accessible. Softwares such as rive and spline are similar to Figma but for 3D design. Since the tooling is so accessible, we can see the output popping up everywhere.
Gigantic typography
Gigantic typo is not a new trend, but it is gaining popularity; they are responsive full-screen typography. The only reason it works is that it works in conjunction with other trends, such as gradients and motion to provide a seamless transition between large sections.
Mesh Gradient
Mesh Gradient is one of the most popular visual design trends. It is used to produce the volume or an environment that sources colours from the foreground image and fills the background, such as in Samsung’s now playing screen in Samsung music, which moves in the backdrop based on the album art; those are pretty cool. However, it can fail when colours that shouldn’t be next to each other are combined, resulting in muddy colours.
What is the attraction of this mesh gradient? Here’s my answer. Humans, psychologically, want to touch and feel smooth surfaces. To put it another way, if you had to choose between a spiky ball and a perfectly round sphere, which would you choose? One with a poky texture and one with a velvety texture. The choice would be the velvety one. That’s why there are “Don’t Touch” signs at museums and furniture stores. People may associate what they see with their emotions, and that emotion may prompt action.
There is no natural colour combination like this, especially now that we have highly saturated neon P3 colours like the Instagram logo. This type of colour does not occur in nature; if it does, it is seldom this vivid.
Cosmic Design
Dark UI has evolved into much more than a “night/dark mode” toggle. An increasing number of firms are converting to a dark version of their products and pages.
Dark User Interfaces may be more effective in grabbing the user’s attention since they are more distinct and appealing than conventional “content on a white background” designs. Using dark UIs requires adequate contrast for visual elements to stand out and for text to be readable.
High Contrast Design
High contrast or black and white (monochrome) design is hard to achieve. The greys should have the appropriate contrast levels to produce the hierarchy. It’s also hard to identify selected states.
On many websites and applications, especially those from the top companies in the market, you may observe heavily contrasting features and occasionally even entire sections.
I believe that the reason for this trend is the frequent flashing of sharply contrasting parts or surfaces as you navigate the user interface might help you focus. It also makes the UI extremely approachable because the objects and text are visible unless you use too much contrast and strain your eyes.
Motion Design
Motion design shows how an app works and what users can do by demonstrating how it is organised. It drives the user journey, defining navigation and creating a more natural experience by providing dimension to interaction design.
You can find motion designs on landing and marketing pages, but they function much better on product sites because motion design helps make things clear when something happens or makes apparent where a piece of UI came from and where it will dismiss too. That’s where animation is applicable.
Unlike landing page motion designs, we’ve gotten a little carried away this year. There are visually appealing landing pages that are useless. I don’t want to be mean, but if you have a million things moving in and out of a landing page as you scroll the page, or if the scroll speed is screwed up to match it with some animations, those sites will no longer be functional, even if they seem great. I’m split about this; I think motion design is crucial, but we’ve gone overboard.
Initially, motion design was challenging; if you wanted even a small animation, you had to sit there for hours. However, now that software SwiftUI and Framer have made it simpler, even for beginners, designers are beginning to use it more often. That is why it has gone overboard.
Clean Design
Clean design is an evergreen trend. Primitive tools for creating clean designs are becoming more available. Maybe you could see clean design as you’re doing the bare minimum to get it across, but I think there’s a lot of craft there; “More with less”. Finding the sweet spot between clean and well-designed will provide the most tranquil experience for a clean design.
My design aesthetic has changed over the years, and I’m progressively moving toward a simple, minimalist, and cleaner approach. You can never go wrong with a clean design. It might come naturally to every designer. Amid all the trends, this one remains evergreen.
Conclusion
Despite the fact that we notice a lot of trends, I feel that (since I work for a product-based company) we don’t synchronise swiftly with the trend because established companies don’t necessarily alter their designs unless and until there is a prevailing trend that the users are expecting.
So, which of these trends piqued your interest? Please share your thoughts in the comments section. See you in the future blog!
Bye!
Resources that can help improve your design
- Get inspired from live landing page design from here
- Get all colour related tools you need from here
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