5 Graphic Design Trends For 2022: Retro Uprise & Bold Ideas

What the future holds in graphic design trends 2022? Let’s get acquainted with the most distinguished ones.

Standing on the borderline of a new year in graphic design got us thinking about the red-hot flow of creative movements, that are going to prevail in the next 365 days. Briefly, the urge for experiments mood persists catapulted into 2022 and got visualized in more curious shapes.

Having absorbed all the year’s ups & downs, creative breakthroughs, social spirits, and environmental events, trends in graphic design are all ready to become a beacon for your artistic spirits that needs to keep burning. We took the responsibility for harvesting the showiest ones, shaping the nearest future of the graphic design world. You’ll be excited to discover a sparkling comeback of retro (roaring Art Deco and wild ’90s), raging typographic experiments, visionary glass textures, bold 3D mashups, and other fortuitous graphic design trends 2022.

More Inclusive Solutions

Starting with the stock illustrations and ending with the adaptive website settings, concern for the inclusive nature of a developed product, fortunately, becomes a matter of high priority for new graphic design trends. The major positive tendency, directed at engaging people irrespective of their personal traits, keeps thriving. It’s undoubtedly a good thing for society in general and a certain adventurous challenge for creative designers to introduce unique solutions in this or that scope of application.

The sufficient level of contrast, readability, accessibility to the voice-over systems, and the rest of the inclusive practices — these web standards are meant to be established. Still, the next year is high time to start! Dealing with the ready-made product should represent a coherent experience, where the users are welcomingly guided through the process without any exceptions. Luckily, more and more resources are starting to prioritize the inclusive approach while crafting the sources for “brand-audience” interaction, which bears a myriad of exciting socially-oriented graphic & web design solutions.

Glass & Crystal Textures

It’s no surprise that the holographic texture trends have been on point lately. Glass is making a comeback in tons of fresh, reinvented looks & shapes: this trend has been seen everywhere and promises to stay for quite a while in the graphic design projects of the upcoming year. The transparent texture is more than convenient for all kinds of visualization, providing vast space for implementing various ideas: from simple glass overlays to 3D models, having conserved (or better be said “frozen”) some branding elements or concept art pieces inside the imitated icicles.

As for the crystal holographic glow, coming hand-in-hand with glassmorphism, there can be dozens of iterations: the extraterrestrial pulsating, shining crystals look exceptionally splendid in the form of added accents for the finished products while being also used as a focal point for delivering the projects from scratch. Let there be a dispersion in the infinite dance of lighting and color refraction!

Amid the modern graphic design trends, this one carves out the look of web and graphic design, like it did with Windows 11 and has been an accepted part of the iOS design language. Glass will be encountered more often, which means eventually it’ll get more diverse.

Good Old ‘90s

The era of sweet nostalgia found its place in present realities, giving people the desired sense of comfort by perceiving something the mind is already well-familiar with. Having played around enough with the ‘80s vibes, in the next year, all creative minds are going to be about the following decade in the world’s pop culture history — the ‘90s. Somewhere in the pile of old TV shows and movie reboots, resurrected baguette bags and low-rise jeans, the new graphic design trends in 2022 will have a distinct voice. All in all, there are so many outstanding trademarks of that time, deserving to be brought up again; therefore, retro is granted a second life. And notably, this life promises to be splendid!

Metallic chains, flamboyant colors, grainy textures, simple shapes, pixelated art, and bubblegum feeling — the elements, which are are awfully familiar to some of us. As for a later generation, these artifacts are perceived as something conceptually new, motivating to take the precious items from the upper shelf, blow the dust off and remake them into attention-grabbing materials. Not all the gimmicks were laid on the table, so 2022 will supply us with new manifests of love to the distant ’90s.

Art Deco Revival

Regarding the overall graphic design trends for vintage and evocation of tested, visual techniques, the timing couldn’t be more fortuitous for adding Art Deco smart symmetrical geometry to the modern graphic design discourse. The presence of metallic shades and chrome shine is not strictly necessary but can totally nail the visuals, enhancing the impression. Fair to say, the trend for glass and reflections, which has already been mentioned before, can easily be blended with Art Deco style, coming as another characteristic trait of the brought-up movement.

Where this luxurious, decorative, lined, and layered design signature can be implemented aside from masterly-drawn illustrations? The trend is eager to get along with web design first, where the geometric shapes’ and symmetrical elements’ placement reduces the visual stress, building the informative, to-the-point carcass of the elaborated design solution. Logos and branding, on the whole, would appreciate the same approach greatly if the task requires carrying out minimalistic yet strictly lush aesthetics.

2D + 3D

The increasing might and fame of Blender, 3D support for drawing on voluminous objects in the latest Procreate versions, professional and at the same time accessible software like Spline — all of it can’t mean anything else but an imminent, spreading impact of 3D designing, that’s destined to become bigger and bigger. Exploring the new dimensions will be made explicitly by letting the 2D and 3D worlds merge, complementing each other greatly.

Even adding the single 3D object into the hand-drawn, flat setting causes the resonating feeling, completely changing the attitude to the presented concept. The tactics that might troubleshoot the sparse of a genuine zest in a project think about it. Besides, there’s a huge flow of freshly-published portfolio projects by graphic designers, fortunately discovered this curious combo, come take a peek sometime. Hope to see tons of arranged multi-dimensional plots, where an eye can hold on to so many daring 3D and 2D crossovers!

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