Social Media Design Trends of 2018
One of the biggest challenges of social media is staying relevant. Amidst millions of other media fighting for your audience’s attention, you need to not only stand out, but also keep up with the newest trends. As people are more influenced by social media every year, marketers have to keep an eye out for changing design trends that people are drawn towards and not be afraid of taking big risks.
So, we’ve put together a list of graphic design trends to expect in 2018.
Multiple Color Schemes
Last year’s rule was to stick to your brand’s color scheme with a constant color palette, no variation allowed. This year, things are changing. Companies are looking for new ways to stand out in saturated social media landscapes. Take DropBox for example; they threw out their two-color brand and traded it in for a vibrant color scheme with a rainbow of colors and eccentric design. Another brand with vibrant, unconventional colors is Bleacher Report. In a competitive environment fighting for audience attention, they’re using color to differentiate in sports media.
Color Gradients are Making a Comeback
This year, we’re bringing back the 90’s with design. Yes, you heard that right, gradients are literally everywhere, and designers are having fun playing around with different color combinations. While it’s a bit different from middle school word-art experiments, you might want to take a hint from Instagram’s opinion on gradients– turns out, it’s a great way to reach younger generations. Gradients, like using a wider variety of color, are used to create bold statements to capture attention and connect with audiences. Even The Pantone Color Institute chose to advertise their color of the year as a bold, gradient hue.
Bold Fonts
Designs using bold in-your-face fonts jump out at audiences and capture their attention immediately. However simple this may sound, it has to capture attention without being too crowded. Something we’ve seen that’s been successful is the use of bold hand written styles of fonts because it gives the eye something new and original to look at. Adidas does a great job of this in one of their recent campaigns (if you check out their Instagram feed, also notice their pops of vibrant colors).
Customized Brand Images – Graphics and Photography
The demand for custom imagery has always played a major role in media, but with the accessibility and quality of stock images, their importance is often forgotten about. Drawing, calligraphy, typography, and even genuine photography has been left in the backseat. Custom artwork and illustration helps brands create a visual language to add personality that audiences can connect to. For example, which article on Twitter would you click on to read, one that had the image on the left, or on the right?
Even something as simple as what Quuu did looks a hundred times better than a stock image of a computer. It makes the media one of a kind, which makes the content more attractive for consumers to actually stop and read instead of scrolling past.
GIFS and Moving Graphics
Moving graphics stick out more than any plain content alone, and they help foster a conversation that extends from your content. Don’t just slap a reaction GIF on your posts, create a brand relevant or even content unique GIF that will help explain your message. Animated GIF logos and cinemographs are extremely appealing because they make content more engaging for consumers. They add a little something that influences people to stop and take a look.
Responsive Logos
Brands have been cutting back on their logos for years now in an effort to capitalize on the charm of simplified design. This has laid the groundwork on what has become known as “responsive design” – altering logos to meet the same user demands in different contexts.
