Lifelike, interactive graphics
Marked Communications | 26-05-2025
Honestly, we didn’t think 2025 was going to hit us this hard with design trends. Last year was kind of predictable, but now? Everything is moving quickly and some of these trends are totally redefining how we work on projects. Here are some of the top graphic design trends of 2025 till now.
Everyone was a doubter when it comes to AI design tools until roughly six months ago. But ChatGPT for brainstorming ideas, Midjourney for mood boards, and Adobe’s Firefly for rapid asset creation are actually becoming a regular part of workflows.
The secret is understanding what AI excels at and what it sucks at. It’s amazing at creating variations and rough concepts. You can give a brief and get 20 different ways in five minutes. But it does a horrible job at typography, spacing, and anything involving real design judgment.
Best workflow discovered: utilize AI for ideation and asset generation, then perform all the actual designing yourself. It’s like having a very speedy intern who doesn’t know about kerning but has boundless energy for making textures and background details.
Big brands are now doing it, and yet it seems to work. We can notice insurance companies with intentionally broken grids and high-end brands using pixel fonts.
The catch is that it’s not really chaotic – it only appears that way. The greatest brutalist layouts still obey information hierarchy and usability guidelines, they just execute them in aesthetically aggressive manners. It’s controlled anarchy that takes a heck of a lot more planning than the standard layouts.
Customers are surprisingly receptive to this method because it gets them noticed right off the bat. Amidst a sea of cloned Squarespace websites, a site that appears to have been done by a frustrated teenager really breaks through.
Consider it—”What is content marketing?” shows someone just discovering it. But “What’s the average ROI on content marketing for SaaS companies?” indicates they’re considering whether or not to invest in it. Bingo! That’s a hot lead if I’ve ever seen one.
Conductor research indicates that search queries based on questions have 78% greater conversion rates than searches based on keywords. Why? Because you’re reaching out to individuals at the precise moment they require particular information to progress in their decision-making process.
This makes no sense in writing, but functions beautifully in reality. It’s minimalism taken to an extreme, where it becomes bold and noticeable. Think of single words as whole web pages, or business cards with only a phone number.
You can crease a brand identity with literally the name in one font, in one size, always centered. That is all. No logo mark, no color scheme variations, no second fonts. The restraint will make the Graphic design feel really luxurious and confident.
The psychology is amazing – when everyone else is competing for attention, someone that is refusing to try actually gets noticed more. It’s graphic design that has faith that the audience will see and enjoy subtlety.
The early 2000s beckoned and we’re finally responding. Metallic text, chrome gradients, and mirror-like surfaces abound, but done with modern subtlety. Not the tacky beveled effects of yore – this is metallics with real depth and realism.
The technical implementation has become amazing. You can achieve chrome effects that truly resemble shiny metal, with realistic reflections and lighting. It especially suits luxury brands and technology companies that need to project premium quality.
You can experiment using subtle metallic accents as supporting elements – such as making only the period at the end of a headline chrome, or adding a metallic underline to navigation items. Minor touches that provide richness without drowning the design.
Gradients have returned, but they’re not the rainbow messes of 2010. We’re referring to these soft color transitions that create depth and atmosphere. The evolution of gradients on Instagram essentially educated everyone on how to do this correctly.
The most effective gradients are almost imperceptible – they just make solid colors feel more vibrant and three-dimensional. I’m doing lots of monochromatic gradients from one blue to a slightly warmer blue, or from color to transparent for overlay styles.
Multi-stop gradients are becoming really advanced, too. Rather than straightforward A-to-B transitions, designers are producing intricate color travels with five or six stops that produce truly lovely atmospheric effects.
Following years of ideal vector graphic design, hand-drawn elements are introducing warmth back to digital design. Not referring to comic sans energy here – advanced illustration work that brings character without coming across as amateur.
The ideal applications make sparing use of hand-drawn things, such as custom icons or accent images. Hand-drawn component just makes the entire thing feel human and human-friendly.
Digital drawing tools have improved enough that you can make pseudo-hand-drawn looks that are convincing without even having to draw. But the things that were actually drawn by hand always look better. There’s just something to real imperfection that can’t be convincingly replicated.
Not all of the trends are appropriate for every project, and some of them are much more difficult to implement well than they appear. Bold minimalism takes phenomenal discipline and client faith. AI tools are helpful for graphic design, but won’t eliminate good design judgment. Brutalist design is wonderful for brands that need to stand out, but awful for anything that needs calm professionalism.
The trends that endure are those fixing actual problems, not appearing different. Bold minimalism succeeds because attention is shorter. Hand-drawn elements succeed because people yearn for authenticity. AI tools succeed because they actually shave time off on repetitive tasks.
Our tip? Take two trends that truly get you going and study them to the best of your ability. Don’t attempt to keep up with all of them – clients can spot whether you’re merely riding the trends or truly getting it.
The best work being produced by designers at the moment is not merely replicating what they see. They are understanding the psychology behind these trends and translating them into solving a particular problem for a particular client. That has always separated great designers from good ones.
