Whether you’re a freelance designer, are employed by an agency, or are a student still learning the ropes of graphic design, it’s important to keep abreast of what’s going on in the industry. Not necessarily so you can follow trends – you should be setting trends! – but so you can be aware of what brands are doing and how they might reflect the current cultural zeitgeist.
This can also help you keep track of which trends are flash-in-the-pan viral “fads” and which represent the beginnings of new movements in the design world. It’s also a great exercise for design students – can you recreate these aesthetics? If not, what do you still need to learn?
Here are five graphic design trends making waves in 2025 that it’ll be worth keeping an eye on.
Trend 1: Neo-Minimalism
This trend modernizes traditional minimalism. It still has clean lines and strategic use of negative space, but brings in unexpected pops of color or a quirky typeface. This style keeps user interfaces simple and clean, while still keeping things visually interesting. This trend often goes well with natural and/or sustainable branding, as it evokes simplicity and quality – it conveys that a brand invested less in bells and whistles and attempts to grab attention and instead focused on quality, natural products.
Example: Aesop. Their branding and product packaging use clean design and muted colors, perfect for a skincare and beauty company focused on “products of the finest quality” made with “meticulous attention to detail.”
Trend 2: Dopamine Design
Nearly the opposite of the previous trend, Dopamine Design focuses on bright, saturated colors, playful visuals, and tech-forward aesthetics. This style is meant to evoke joy – it’s maximalism with an explicit emphasis on pleasure as opposed to aesthetics. Other common aspects of this design trend include 90s / 2000s nostalgia, high-gloss or iridescent, sticker-like graphics, and bold, dynamic fonts. This trend was born on social media and aimed at the influencer generation – it’s intended to grab attention instantly, even on a busy social media feed.
Example: Starface. This acne patch and skincare brand even uses a smiley face motif along with its extremely saturated color dymanics.
Trend 3: Hyper-Real Texture Play
This trend is about using ultra-detailed 3D renders or photorealistic illustration to highlight a product’s details. This works best with electronics, because graphical elements can be introduced to emphasize things like modernity or innovation. It also works well. This can help make the digital feel tactile and can replace product photography that might seem generic in 2025. It’s also often combined with Augmented Reality elements or scrolling animations to great effect – when scrolling down a page, for example, a piece of electronics might rotate so that it can be seen from all sides.
Example: Wacom. Digital renders on the drawing tablet brand’s page for Cintiq Pro 27, their flagship pen display, shows the pen gliding across the device’s screen as you scroll down the page with dynamic animated graphical elements.
Trend 4: Modular Retro-Futurism
This style uses vintage aesthetics, like metallics, chrome, and transparent plastic, and early graphic design elements that approach skeuomorphism, like cut-and-paste and paper or grid textures, all wrapped up in clean, modern layouts. It merges vintage and modern in a way that’s fun while still being clean and usable. Other elements can include things like combining pixel art with modern typography.
Example: Nothing. Their marketing conveys cutting-edge smartphone innovation with a playful nod to minimalism and simplicity.
Trend 5: Editorial Energy
This design aesthetic is inspired by the high-end magazine layouts of yesteryear. This often means oversized typography, lots of bold, dynamic, high-impact photography, and clever usage of white space. This is ideal for brands that want to evoke luxury, like fashion or beauty brands. It can often work well with minimal aesthetics or copy-heavy digital experiences. Like many current design trends, it’s a mixture of old and new – in this case, “print-meets-digital.”
Example: Glossier. This beauty brand’s website and marketing often mimics editorial spreads, and its ads are often photo-centric with prominent bold text.
