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In the whole design field tends to be diversified today, it is difficult to appear a design style to dominate the entire field, 10 years ago, the skeuomorphism of the full collapse to flattening, the probability is no longer there. Instead, the "design direction" of various unique styles, brewing and maturing in their respective fields, moving from niche categories to mass causes, even using the word "trend" to describe it is a bit too "forceful".
These design directions are not necessarily the most popular choices for the general public, but they are being favored by more and more brands and designers. Combined with the summary of designers and platforms at home and abroad, the article sorts out 9 visual design directions that deserve attention, which are not limited to UI, flat, web pages, animations, interactions and other fields, they are usually applicable in multiple categories, and have reference and reference significance for designers who want to break inertia and seek fresh styles.
Interestingly, there is a hidden correlation between many of the design directions mentioned today, and most of the design styles and design techniques complement each other, and this relationship of mutual coupling and mutual achievement makes these design directions not exist in isolation most of the time, and it is normal for two or even multiple combinations to appear.
01
3D character design catalyzed by NFT
For NFTs, which are commonly referred to as "digital collections" in China, with the rapid expansion of the concept of "metacosm" this year, more and more designs based on the concept of metacosm have begun to develop. Is it the future? I don't know, but the expansion and expansion of the metaverse concept has led to a surge in infrastructure demand for users' own roles in this digital world, which also makes 3D character-based NFTs being released on a large scale, which is certain.
Mekaverse released 4 of the most expensive legendary NFTs
For example, Mekaverse, which was once hot last year, is this type of NFT. Of course, the rapid development of 3D character design is not without roots, it is rooted in the rapid rise of IP character design and rapid expansion of 3D design, and the popularity of the NFT field has promoted the application of 3D characters in various daily use scenarios such as UI, web pages, and H5 in disguise:
Designer Mike's work
The work of designer Masud Rana
Characters designed by designer Leo Natsume
Designer Nguyen Nhut designed the character animation
Regardless of whether 2021 is the first year of the development of the metaverse, 3D character design will develop rapidly from demand to application, and there is a high probability that it will become a popular trend to some extent. It will be an increasingly common element in visual design, a better "spokesperson" for brand and product design, and a design direction worth paying attention to.
Design work by designer Conceptzilla
Regarding the specific development of the metaverse and NFT in China, it may involve relevant policies and requirements, and it is difficult to make specific predictions here, but - but from a macro point of view, the field of 3D character design presents more and more demand, and there is a growing demand for professionalism, originality, and interest.
02
A boundary-breaking mix of 2D/3D elements
The vast majority of design visual styles pursue "uniformity", but the collage style, roughness, steam wave and even the Y2K visual style that is difficult to explain in one sentence have a strong design quality that breaks the shackles and rules in recent years.
The presence of visual elements that are clearly present in the 2D plane in the simulated real 3D space is a particularly significant design that breaks the boundaries. Unlike traditional designs that pursue unity and order, 2D hand-drawn, illustrated elements, and 3D spaces that are clearly modeled, as well as real-life scenes, are integrated to create a highly creative sense of drama.
Designer bitfuel works
By designer Gus Maia
This design not only requires the designer to be familiar enough with the two types of designs, but it also has an implicit requirement that the entry point that makes the two playful and harmonious needs to be found.
Design works from tubik.arts
03
Popularity of glass and metallic texture
Interestingly, while many visual designers are still struggling to learn which modeling software to make glass or metal elements, the UI design field has quietly reached a consensus on the matter of "glass material".
As for how Material Design/Android, Fluent Design/Windows, and iOS/macOS finally intersected on this visual element, I made a detailed enough statement in the second half of this article that interested students can poke in and take a look. But more importantly, in the more common field of flat, visual, and dynamic design, the use of materials such as glass and metal is becoming more and more common.
From designer Wes Cockx
From designer WantLine
Sovery's logo animation
Designer ROMA Nekhoda works
These elements with clear light and shadow and strong metallic texture present an elegant and advanced atmosphere in visual design works, they carry the physical laws that we can touch and understand in life, and present a unique sense of order that breaks through daily logic with the help of design software, which is a strange trait between reality and fantasy, which is an important reason for their gradual departure from the circle and favor for everyone.
04
Vintage RISO printing style
Riso is the abbreviation of Risograph, is an ancient old-fashioned printing method, from Japan's ideal science industry co., LTD., it is a unique printing technology between screen printing and offset printing, convenient and efficient so that in the 1980s, in the community, schools, government departments rapid development, and later replaced by today's color printing process.
Image source: https://campus.collegeforcreativestudies.edu/
Riso printing style bright colors, with a unique texture similar to screen printing, combined with its popular 80s and 90s, Riso in recent retro wave gradually developed, has become the mainstay of retro design.
Santed Tokyo Special Edition
Some designers and artists will choose to recycle the old Risograph's printers and ink rollers to reproduce this texture, while more designers will directly use software and texture materials to reproduce this effect.
Calendar designed by Renáta Farkas
Design work by Dennis HSU
Using the flawed qualities of an ancient printing process to create a "vintage feel" is a common strategy for most designs to create a retro atmosphere, but Riso's own color and era are highly recognizable, which is an important reason why it is favored by designers and artists.
Design by Paula Cruz
Retro has always been popular, and Riso has become the mainstream of it, which is related to its own characteristics, and in the current environment, everyone's nostalgia for the beautiful things of the past is also closely related.
05
The metaverse spawned a cyberpunk revival
From the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 to the release of The Matrix 4, the "Bible" of cyberpunk, it somehow represents a revival of this visual style. Although there are still many people complaining about Facebook's renaming of Meta, a large number of capital, enterprises and artists, and designers visible to the naked eye have begun to enter the metaverse and NFT fields to contribute to the virtual world.
Official poster for The Matrix Reboot
Classic code rain has been played countless times by enthusiasts and visual designers in the past 20 years, and under the influence of a large number of cyberpunk-themed film and television works, today's cyberpunk-style visual design has actually been quite rich. Scenes of urban life wrapped in a sense of technology and neon lights at night are the most recognizable types:
From the design team Annibale Siconolfi
But more bright scenes of cyberpunk are emerging:
In terms of specific characteristics, the combination of inorganic machinery and organic life is the most common combination in this type of design work:
From designer VISUAL SCIENTIST
Of course, the classic red and blue mix and match of colors is more recognizable:
From designer Diana Shakerova
In terms of application scenarios, the cyberpunk style can be said to be quite versatile, from UI to web pages, from illustrations to prints, logic as long as the subject matter is close, it can be used.
06
Visual design that violates design rules
Under today's rigorous design system, most techniques, styles, and methods have sufficient systematic rules. However, under this systematization and standardization, many designs are highly convergent and lack of differentiation. More and more designers tired of homogenization are adopting designs that break the rules completely to shape unique experiences.
From designer iku4
Unlike the roughness pursued by "roughness", they call this rule-breaking design style "anti-design", asymmetrical structure, conflicting colors, unfinished interfaces, crowded and even overlapping elements, more radical than roughism, more mixed than collage art, they rebel to dare to apply these designs to any design scene, the original intention of this "anti-design" is to liberate aesthetics from the established framework of rules.
Design by Cory Andres
This visual design approach, which no longer deliberately obeys the rules of design, has emerged since 2020 and has become more and more popular, gradually extending from the personal works of artists and designers to some commercial designs, appearing in web pages, posters and even apps in a pioneering posture.
From designer Ianrobertdouglas
From designer Bjohnson
From designer Goopanic
From designer younique
07
Bizarre psychedelic and eerie visual elements
The roots of psychedelic design go back to the hippie prevalence of the 1960s, and now the resurgence of psychedelic style is actually in line with the above-mentioned "anti-design" design trends that break the mainstream and break the rules. The main feature of the design of psychedelic wind is the expression method full of flow and vertigo, rich and strange colors and slightly weird visual effects, in terms of content, it will choose unconventional elements like dreams, slightly weird and even with Cthulhu temperament.
Design work by Satheesh Sankaran
The Chaos Order Academy
From designer Gurika
From designer Rhox
From designer Taoufik Ajdour
From designer Anita Gwara
Most of the design of the psychedelic wind will be combined with the dynamic effect to present, whether it is in H5, APP, web page, typography can be used, interesting design will usually use the cycle animation to form a magical effect, in the actual design process can refer to the various memes and memes circulating on the Internet.
08
Rich and varied and interesting candy colors
Generally speaking of color matching, the vast majority of designers will follow the general color matching rules, choose 3 to 4 colors, keep the complexity of the entire color matching not too high, and try to use soft colors to meet the needs of the vast majority of users. This is indeed quite conventional.
In the increasing bombardment of visual information, designers want to make their visual design stand out in a variety of ways, there are some tried and tested design elements that are very easy to produce results most of the time, and the cute and affinity candy color is one of them.
From designer X Five
The high saturation of candy colors and a variety of different hues, so that the attention of visual information is once again raised, they are presented in front of the user's eyes, at the fastest speed to obtain attention, this is human nature, but also to help works, content, by the user's attention of the effective means.
From designer Kenzo Hamazaki
From designer Roqueid
From designer Abinash Mohanty
From designer Tehneat Nawaz
The use of candy color is not limited to illustration in logic, in fact, it is widely applicable in Ui, web page, H5 and even 3D modeling and animation, and the difficulty is actually the control and collocation of the primary and secondary relationships of color.
09
Radical and exaggerated type design
At the root, this may still have something to do with grabbing the user's attention. There are so many things that distract users, only a more eye-catching design can better attract the user's attention, and the question falls on the font, and the answer is obvious: while maintaining content recognition, use as radical and exaggerated font design as possible. In terms of use, radical and exaggerated fonts are mostly used in the C position of the poster, the title of the Banner:
With a sense of design and form, under the attention economy, it seems to have been insufficient, and under the premise of trying not to lose readability, it uses more exaggerated brushstroke adjustments, more unexpected forms, more diverse twists, connections, imaginary positions, and substitutions to present the text - to make people remember, rather than "reach perfection".
From designer Aheichanka
From the website sddesignweek.org
From designer Connieyang
From designer ayseguldere
From designer Bella
From designer Vistalybka
At present, the inclusiveness of design style has risen to an unprecedented height, and it is not too difficult to maintain a unique and aesthetic sense while also carrying a unique style of font design. On the contrary, the demand for originality and going out of the circle has made more and more demanders gradually loosen restrictions.
Conclusion
These design directions and points are noteworthy, and most of them have been around for many years, only to be popular again in recent years. There is nothing new under the sun, which is true after all, but under different environmental influences, some things that have been dormant for a long time have become popular again, which is also a very normal change of the times.
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