It’s normal to want to subscribe to design trends as they can be rather useful at times. However, not all trends will help you better engage your audience. Differentiating between good trends and bad trends can be rather difficult, which can lead to you adopting trends that can actually end up hurting you. To help you out, we thought it would be useful to compile a list of trends that you’ll want to stay away from. If this is something that you want to learn more about, read on as we list down three design trends that you’ll want to avoid this year.
BOLD AND BRIGHT COLOURS
After years of muted and neutral colours dominating the graphic design world, it is now time for a shift in the opposite direction with bright, fresh colours. Bright colours attract attention and allow brands to stand out from the crowd. They also convey powerful emotions to consumers and make it easier to highlight certain parts of visual information and text. But you should use these colours sparingly; they entice consumers but they are often overused in marketing.
Bright colours can affect eye comfort. We are not used to seeing bright colours, especially the artificially created and enhanced ones. In nature, we tend to see mostly natural colours, which are more comforting and less disruptive than bright colours. As such, they make us want to leave a particular setting.
ASYMMETRICAL LAYOUTS
Asymmetrical layouts are a compelling graphic design trend that makes the graphics truly stand out in the crowd of perfectly balanced identical layouts. Because these designs demand attention and create an effect of wonder and discovery, the viewer scans the image without knowing where his eyes will catch the next bit of information.
While asymmetrical layouts can be effective, the content or text might get lost. The user experience is a delicate thing. Once you present important information in a certain way to customers, they will expect to see it at that same place on any other page with that same layout. If the layout is asymmetrical and forces customers to deviate from this well-established behavioural pattern, they might miss some of the information.
BOLD TYPOGRAPHY
Bold fonts are another trend in graphic design that many designers are following these days. Bold fonts are a great way to communicate a company’s message and make an impression on consumers. With simple text, you can turn a line of words into a powerful statement that conveys the brand’s values. Bold fonts might not work for visual brands, but they can be useful for software startups, coaching companies and educational businesses, where a slogan or custom text could help relay the company’s message to the consumer.
Bold type is hard to read. The average eye has been encoded with visual data for millennia, making our minds easier to comprehend visual stimuli. When you use bold type creatively, you are turning text into images. What does this mean for the customer? That they have to read and analyze images – all at the same time. This can be distracting – but only for a split second.
CONCLUSION
We hope this article proves to be useful when it comes to helping you figure out which design trends to avoid. While design trends might be useful to help get you started, it’s important to only make use of the ones that will be effective. Be sure to keep all of this information in mind so that you can make the most informed decisions possible.
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