If you were thinking about taking a risk with a new design, go for it! 2018 is the year for breaking boundaries in life and graphic design, because that’s going to be the only way to stand out.

At this point we all know that there are millions of contents fighting for the audience’s attention. Bitcoins, Trump, fluffy cats, cheesy burgers. Things like that are all over the internet catching people’s thoughts, consuming time and leaving very little room for anything else.

That’s why we encourage you to be dramatic, to be creative and change! Here is our guide for 2018’s design trends.

Colorful brands

Traditionally, companies choose a pair of colors to use across all of their branding and design work and to ultimately represent their brand. This used to help people recognize them out in the real world and online. However, this design tradition is changing as brands look for new ways to stand out by using a varied and bright color palette.

The gradient’s comeback

When we think of gradient colors we can’t help remembering the now ugly rainbow Word Art from Microsoft Word that we used to love in school. Somehow we are falling in that love story again, and if you’re not, get ready to see gradient colors everywhere. Instagram predicted this with its new branding and now the rest of the world is starting to catch up.

Be authentic

Stop using material that you spent two seconds selecting and is not yours. People spend their everyday time online looking for better content, if you don’t care enough, why would they? So our recommendation is: take your own pictures, write your own texts, produce your own content and that way your audience will be grateful. If you don’t have time for this, or you ran out of ideas, you’d better start considering hiring someone to do it.

Lettering is back

It seems that we are slowly moving from minimalist aesthetic. Craft, unique and handmade products are back on point and so are handwritten an bold fonts. This kind of typographies will help your brand stand out from all the ones that still believe in the simple and overused fonts.

Real illustration

Custom icons and illustrations are the thing. This trend started to take form in 2017 with the growing popularity of hand-drawn illustrations and it will be consolidated this year thanks to the constant search for uniqueness. What could be more unique than a custom design or illustration? No one will be able to replicate you, especially if they are using stock images.

Summing up, be bold, dare to shine, forget the life’s shortcut named copy/paste and remember that craft is the new black.