I’m sure all of you have noticed that illustrations and designs get even better and better each year. That’s because we start to focus more on the visuals of our content, just as much as we work on our articles! After all, our brains collect information from visuals much quicker compared to reading words.
But of course, we don’t put just ANY designs to our sites, may it be free illustrations or random colors. We have to follow the trends and see what the general readers want and need to see. So with 2020 coming in just a few days, I want to share with you the top nine illustration trends you should get into before competition does!
Top 9 Illustration Trends This 2023
Illustrations and graphic designs are reaching a milestone, with a whole new decade coming up. To keep up with your readers and competitors, take note of any of these trends to try out for your website:
1. Flat Colors with Limited Palettes
With illustration, you earn that less is more. Some artists even say that when you work with a certain set of restrictions, whether yours or clients, it can help you focus on the main idea.
That’s why flat colors and limited palettes on illustrations seems to be next year’s big trend. When you reduce the color palette to only the essentials, it adds more sophistication. Just add a bit of light and shadows and you’ve got a classy look!
2. Atmospheric Gradients
Gradients were also a huge trend since 2010 began, but it became even more sophisticated throughout the years. Since it came in, gradients have become even bigger and more seductive on illustrations.
With the right colors and hands, you can do gradient techniques that can create specific atmospheres for people to feel something, whether it’s euphoria or sadness. Try to maintain tight colors over your palettes and go for colors that emphasize a certain feeling you’d like to convey.
3. Blur the Lines From Animation to Illustration
Social media represents a crucial new market for illustrators, and the competition only went up for there! Now that illustrators and graphic design artists are on-demand, big brands and companies want interactive output, especially with more advanced technology coming in the next decade.
Plus, with shorter attention spans, illustrators will need to add more interactivity to their work to maintain good attention. That’s where combining animation with illustration comes along, from GIFS to other creative technologies.
4. 3D Surrealism
We’ve had a ton of wonderful 3D work the past few years, which will surely continue in the next new decade. As advanced 3D software becomes more accessible, it can help illustrators become even more creative, producing mind-bending imagery and illustrations made for social media and today’s generation.
If you have the resources, jump into 3D art and VR, which provides illustrators a lot of opportunities to create something everyone will love. But remember to stick with some traditional illustration techniques to communicate your ideas properly!
5. Printmaking
Digital illustrations may look a bit impersonal, but there are ways on how to touch people’s hearts! You can use both physical and traditional illustration techniques to make things look more real and more relatable to your viewers.
Having a balance between traditional and futuristic art will be higher in demand, especially when you illustrate through manual means. After all, nothing beats authentic and handmade work, with people still loving any small mistakes and “messiness” to illustrations.
6. More Body Positivity
There has been a lot of body shaming before the 2010s, only for it to grow more into body positivity and awareness. We now celebrate our appearances and weight no matter what we look like, and we can see illustrators incorporating this into their work in the next years. Illustrators express how we see bodies in amazing and weird ways, from imperfect strokes and lines down to different ratios.
7. Illustrative Lettering
As mentioned, people want to see more authenticity and body positivity, may it be from imperfections to manual illustration techniques. The same goes for typography and lettering, whether it’s custom, illustrative, or hand-lettering, whatever one calls it!
People want to see more personal typeface, blending particular illustrations with matching letters and imagery. Pairing both imagery and lettering can really make a difference to how your site page looks, attracting people to see what you have to offer.
8. More Detail and Geometric Patterns
Minimalism has dominated and stays trending throughout the years, especially in illustrations. However, we can see more detail and realism coming back to the world of illustrations. Since technology has improved the speed and performance of devices, there’s no need to keep illustrations as simple as possible to load quickly.
Today, high-definition screens offer more visibility to illustrations, showing more detail and richness to interest their viewers. Besides this, we also see more geometric patterns coming up in the next few years. You can see such patterns everywhere right now actually, from soft forms down to patterns and shapes. Illustrators aren’t confined to a certain shape but want to show more to decorate their work.
9. Illustration and Photography For the Big Brands
This is of the biggest trends coming into play in the next few years, with bigger brands wanting to stay relevant with their customers. It’s time to combine photography with amazing illustrative work, which can create a good visual identity to keep their customers interested and coming back.
Wrapping It Up
We might not have the flying cars we thought we’d be driving, but illustrations are taking a whole new level of futuristic colors and designs next year! With all these beautiful and eye-catching trends, you can definitely entice your viewers to stay on your site and see what you have to offer.
Hopefully, these illustration trends for next year gave you an idea on how to improve your website. So start implementing any of these trends to your overall design and content, enticing your viewers NOW!
Do you have any questions or would like to share any of your tips and insights on illustration trends? Do share your comments below, would love to hear your thoughts.