What evolved in the digital/graphic design scene last year and will in 2020

4 min readApr 6, 2020

Recapping in 2019

(See more in my previous post: Looking back and moving forward in design)

1. Serif fonts and mixed font styles

We saw the evolvement of lots of organic shapes in serif fonts that are commonly used with inorganic san-serif fonts. It’s modern, clean, and creatively composed. It’s not only about serif/sans serif; it is also a mixture of text styles such as Bold, Italic, Extended, outlined, vertical oriented, etc. It’s toward the fonts themselves as well. Some font’s shape is not consistent within a single font such as a super cool Nostra font.

2. Experimental typography

Along with the Trend-1, typographies are commonly used as impressive visual elements. We saw lots of distorted, transformative, materialistic, 3D oriented, and variable fonts. More distorted fonts are still appearing in 2020.

https://type.today/en/journal/tomorrow_xprmntl

3. Features from ‘80-’90

There was a trend of ‘80-’90 mood with a modern touch. This might be influenced by the ‘80s music scene trend which happened last year. There was 3D materialistic illustrations, a repetition of images, “error” looking screens, ticker tape effects and so on.

4. Psychedelic and harmonious colors in 2019

Pale, positive, and harmonious colors were seen a lot. The hippie vibe of the ‘70s multi-colors was revitalized in this style especially in the cannabis industry.

5. 3D and organic motion

Vector animations, fluid effects, and 3D animations emerged in the digital design scene. This will be accelerated with interactivity in 2020.

What’s coming in 2020?

These emerging factors will affect the digital design scene.

1. Emerging technical abilities

5G and faster connection — It will assist to download/upload heavy data. More interactive, video, 3D, immersive design, user reviews will appear.
Voice control — It will assist to use multiple devices that have no/small screen. Wearable/IoT devices will be integrated more with devices. The personalized design will appear more.

2. Emerging cultures including phylosophies, events, items.

Simultaneous multi-login services such as gaming, virtual public view, etc. — Like Spotify changed the design scene back then, once some industry impacts the society, people perceive that it’s the coming future and easily assimilate to it.
Environmental awareness — Through several natural disasters in 2019, people tried to enhance sustainability and have morals towards nature and animals. This would encourage a softer and looser mood.