Moving into the early stages of 2017, it’s clear that the scope and possibilities for creative web development and marketing have expanded dramatically. In this blog post, our team has outlined what we believe are the most significant opportunities in the coming year – from colour trends, graphic design and branding to social media.
Bear in mind that few trends may be familiar, this is why trends do not just sprout from one day to another.
COLOUR
Colour choice for a brand/website is incredibly important. It can influence people’s emotions and thoughts regarding website conversion rates. So, what are going to be the colour trends for 2017?
The director of the Pantone Color Institute said,” Reminiscent of the hues that surround us in nature, our Spring 2017 Colour Report evokes a spectrum of emotion and feeling. From the warmth of sunny days with PANTONE 13-0755 Primrose Yellow to the invigorating feeling of breathing fresh mountain air with PANTONE 18-0107 Kale and the desire to escape to pristine waters with PANTONE 14-4620 Island Paradise.” 2017 is then the year of colours inspired by nature and the environment.
Among all these colours, Pantone has crowned their 2017 colour of the year – Greenery. It’s been chosen to symbolise new beginnings, freshness and environmentalism. We don’t expect to create every website in 2017 with this green shade, but we are sure there will be several web designs inspired by this.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Whilst many of 2016’s graphic design trends are still as popular as ever, there are a few new ones making their way into the forefront of designers’ minds.
• Geometric collages, here at INMEDIA Design, we have noticed this trend winging its way over from the LA design scene, in examples of blockbuster movie posters – right to our little cosmopolitan Island of Ibiza towards the end of last year – with a few of the big nights in Ibiza using the same style visuals to promote their parties. It’s a technique that’s popular – not only because it’s visually impactful – but also because it allows the imagery to say a lot. i.e. include a lot of different imagery or elements from the story while still maintaining elegance and not over-crowding.
•90’s photography, as all the children born in the late ’80s and early ’90s are growing up – joining the creative workforce and feeling nostalgic – we see a step away from over-produced – ‘perfect photography’ and a nod back towards the 90’s polaroid. Something cruder, less produced, more real. As usual, graphic design and visual communication stand hand-in-hand with its best friends, fashion and social media, and fashion brands on the island are reflecting this trend in their promotions.
copyright HIGHRISE
WEB DESIGN
In 2016, flat design became a standard, and responsive design became mandatory! Now let’s have a look at what 2017 has in store for us.
Duotone coloured photos
The bold use of bright, vibrant images has been an interesting new design trend and is sure to continue into 2017. Many big companies have really embodied this trend, such as Spotify which has incorporated it in their new brand identity, using this cool duotone colour effect on their website and on artwork within their apps. In INMEDIA, our developers have created a developer tool which allows us to generate duotone images like this from within our websites automatically, and we currently have some interesting new projects in development which use this effect. Look out for these in the coming weeks!
Animated Gifs
With animated gifs really taking off on social networks like Facebook & Twitter in 2016, we’re seeing this trend move into websites and logo creation more and more. Although animated gifs can often appear annoying and repetitive, there are plenty of uses for more subtle, interesting effects. It’s something that we will definitely consider in the development of future projects.
BRANDING
Branding will focus more on what the product looks like itself rather than the packaging that conceals it. There’s a demand for the truth to be on display. This couldn’t be more evident within food packaging. Transparent bottles and easily readable ingredients emerge as we become more concerned with where our food or product has come from and the process involved in production and manufacturing.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media is one of the fastest-changing industries out there, and looking toward 2017, social media trends will continue to evolve and surprise us! While it’s impossible to predict HOW the social media marketing landscape will change over the course of the year, we can provide some trends that definitely are becoming pretty popular. You should keep an eye on them:
• Better video content…and more of it. Yes, content is still king, but the kind of content that rules the web is changing. Social content, reviews, and blogs, are all still crucial aspects of marketing, but the video will be the rage moving forward. In the specific of video, social media users are beginning to demand more in-the-moment content, live video has become something of a trend on its own.
• Paid content continues to reign. Undoubtedly, social media algorithms make it harder for businesses to promote organic content. The majority of these algorithms have one simple purpose – to make their users happy with the content they see in their feeds. But this makes it difficult for brands to see if they strictly publish organic social content. 2017 it’s the time to cut through the clutter by using ads on social media. These ads are actually a smart investment – they can be highly targeted, are shareable, and it’s easy to track the return on your purchase in terms of views and clicks. If you want to know more, read our previous post about “5 reasons to use social marketing”.
