The pendulum swings: predicting design’s next move
History doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes. What decades of design tell us about the next trend for designers.
Design is dominated by trends; some chase them tirelessly, while others avoid them like the plague. For trendsetters, followers, and critics alike, let’s examine what history tells us will be the next trend in graphic design.
I’ll be the first to say that I’m not a prophet or a trendsetter. I do believe that history can provide patterns to help us contextualize and understand current events, giving helpful glimpses into possible outcomes. For this article, I’ll be using the metaphor of a pendulum that swings from the right, representing right-brain, humanist creativity, to the left, representing analytical, structured design.
The pendulum swings right: Art Nouveau
As I mentioned in my brief history of design, Art Nouveau represented an undeniably humanist approach to design. The lettering was hand-drawn, and the art was organic and flowing. Driven mostly by artistic expression and technical limitations, design had little choice but to be hand-made.
The pendulum swings left: Bauhaus
The Bauhaus Movement set the stage for modernism with its reductive approach to design. Simple, clean, geometric shapes and flat colors dominated Bauhaus design, laying the foundation for Swiss design.
The pendulum stalls: Modernism peaks
The 1950s and 1960s represented the peak of modern design in the eyes of many observers. The introduction of the Swiss/International Style and the deft execution by some of design’s greatest minds were on full display. The absolute dominance of modernism was ubiquitous and ripe for a reactive movement.
The pendulum swings right: Post-Modernism
Towards the tail end of the 1960s, psychedelics and a rediscovery of Art Nouveau emerged. The hand-drawn typography of Herb Lubalin and the illustrative style of Milton Glaser began to move away from the geometric perfection of Modernism. Design started to explore a life beyond the grid as it became more human-centered.
Post-Modern momentum: the 70s and 80s
During the 70s and 80s, designers blended humanist designs with illustrative elements. The 70s introduced hand-drawn type, illustrations, and varied color palettes. In the 80s, there was a significant shift away from the clean, sans-serif layouts of modernism, as the era embraced Memphis style, bright colors, and airbrushed title treatments.
The pendulum stalls: Post-Modernism peaks
In the 1990s, David Carson became famous for his hand-made, gritty collage design work, which defined the visual language of the time. The aesthetic was cynical, self-referential, and ironic. Casting off the polish of the 80s for an organic, grimy authenticity, post-modernism had reached its peak.
The pendulum swings left: Maximalism
Still picking up the pieces from the 90s, design started to reorganize itself. The grittiness of post-modernism gave way to Maximalism, layers, collage, and the collision of 3D and technology. Previously reserved for Hollywood, 3D art became more accessible, and platforms like Myspace provided millions of bored teenagers with a creative outlet for animated GIFs and MP3s. The web was dominated by Adobe Flash websites, robust multimedia platforms that were ahead of their time due to constraints with HTML and JavaScript.
More broadly, the culture of the early 2000s was unwittingly all about excess. Everything about the late ’90s and early 2000s was about more, more, more: more diamonds, bigger cars, more celebrities. The show “Pimp My Ride” was almost a commentary on how ridiculous capitalism and the culture of more had become, although it lacked self-awareness to do so. The show became a meme for how they would transform cars into a turducken of whatever given theme was in play for that episode. Looking back, this phenomenon can be seen as a dead-cat bounce for post-modernism and the age of excess.
Momentum picks up: Apple introduces skeuomorphism
In 2007, Apple launched the iPhone, introducing Skeuomorphism as a design language that used physical objects as a reference for interactive elements. Although later criticized as kitschy and unsophisticated, Skeuomorphism played a critical role in helping users adopt this new technology. While the level of detail may seem excessive in 2023, compared to the previous decade or two, Skeuomorphism represented a clean and modern approach.
The momentum increases: Steve Jobs declares war on Flash
In 2010, Steve Jobs dipped his pen in venom to author a letter regarding Adobe Flash, expressing his skepticism towards its future. Jobs saw the potential of HTML5 and felt no need to support Flash on Apple devices. At that time, Flash websites were incredibly common, showcasing cutting-edge video content and high production value, but they came at a premium — long load times.
Flash was originally just a plug-in from Adobe and was never intended to be a cornerstone of the internet. However, it was powerful for its time and allowed us to envision the possibilities of the web. In hindsight, Steve Jobs’ decision to move away from Flash was critical for the advancement of the web. This move had a ripple effect, flattening out design to some extent due to the constraints of HTML.
The momentum continues: HTML 5 and Material Design
In early 2014, Google rolled out Material Design as if to thumb its nose at Apple, embodying a flat design aesthetic. Material Design provided developers with the necessary tools to build apps on Android and websites using HTML5. If I may editorialize for a moment, I personally was never a fan of Material Design as it felt too flat, dry, and lacking finesse for my tastes. Nevertheless, Material Design had a significant impact on product design for nearly a decade.
The pendulum stalls: Modernism peaks once again
Between 2018 and 2020, cracks started to appear in facade of the modernism revival. The conversation shifted from excitement over simple geometric designs to exhaustion with the now homogeneous approach to design.
The pendulum swings right: iOS 14 and Neumorphism
In 2020, Apple released iOS 14, which introduced more spatial depth, shadows, and transparency to the user interface. These updates gave the UI a more tactile, rich, and intuitive feel, reminiscent of the launch of the iPhone.
Momentum accelerates: Burberry reverses course
Surprising many, Burberry made an about-face and leaned back into its heritage for its new logo design. While this move is specific to one company, it is intriguing considering the influx of modernist designs.
The momentum continues: Apple launches Vision Pro
On June 5th, 2023, Apple announced Vision Pro, a spatial computer. What’s fascinating about this development is that a spatial device like Vision Pro almost requires more depth in the UI. Adding depth of field, blur, shadows, and perspective are just some of the tools that will need to be considered. In a way, history is repeating itself, as the designs created for Vision Pro are likely to be closer to the designs for the initial iPhone launch than material design.
It’s hard to say whether the Vision Pro will be as successful as the iPhone, but I don’t think the shift to more tactile design is dependent on the commercial success of the Vision Pro. This announcement signaled to me that designers will be designing for z-space again, similar to the years of Flash. In fact, all of Apple’s augmented reality features have indicated that. The fact that the company sees the Vision Pro as a viable product tells us that AR is ready for the masses, and with it, a new design language will take shape.
Conclusion
Everything I’ve written here comes with the caveat that design doesn’t move in unison. It’s possible to have multiple various subcultures and trends influencing the field at any given time while a major trend is underway. What I’m attempting to do here is track the big picture oscillations to provide a suggestion of what the future may hold.
It’s difficult to say for certain, but it appears that design is shifting towards a more humanist approach once again. One theory I have for why humanist phases seem to last longer than modernist phases is due to the variety and diversity in humanist approaches. Since modernism is more prescriptive in defining good design, it gains momentum faster, burns brighter, and fizzles more quickly than the eclectic approach of humanism.
I look forward to exploring how modernism and humanism can coexist during this transition. It certainly seems like the tools are coming together at just the right time to make humanist design more possible in the digital landscape, where previously adding more organic shapes to digital products was more difficult. I hope I’m not alone in watching with intrigue as we venture into this new, yet somewhat familiar, territory.
