Graphic design is an essential business tool that supports and maximises every marketing funnel stage. For example, a social media ad with eye-catching visuals can inform a prospective customer about your product or service. Likewise, a well-designed landing page can persuade website visitors to subscribe to your email newsletter or register for your webinar. In addition, an engaging email newsletter can upsell complementary products to existing clients. Finally, a creative sales page can effectively announce product releases and encourage people to ‘add to cart.’
It is a graphic designer’s job to create a layout of visual designs and communications materials for every stage of the marketing funnel. First, graphic designers work with management or marketing personnel and copywriters to develop cohesive materials that express their brand’s identity in images and words. They then produce these visual concepts either by hand or with specialised graphic design software. Last but not least, they do a quality check and see if their designs accurately reflect the desired message and the idea and purpose behind the information on the layout. Current graphic design trends often inspire many graphic designers, who can look forward to these design trends in 2022.
1. Dynamic graphic design with elements in constant motion.
When brands are in ‘motion,’ they have a higher chance of capturing people’s attention. Today’s innovative digital platforms make it easier for brands and businesses to tell their ‘stories’ in engaging ways. These ‘storytelling’ approaches usually come in the forms of stop-motion animation, computer-generated animation, visual infographics with GIFs, videos with filters, and the like.
2. Visuals that highlight diversity and inclusion.
Diverse and inclusive visuals reflect a brand’s effort to respect and value different ethnic backgrounds, cultures, and traditions. For example, Slack’s landing pages have diverse faces greeting website users and visitors. More often than not, customers like it when companies align with their values and beliefs. They support organisations that recognise and acknowledge these values and beliefs on their brand visuals.
3. Fun, engaging data visualisations.
Infographics with charts, graphs, and pie-charts will continue to be popular in 2022. However, they’ll most likely become more colourful and engaging, similar to Twitter’s marketing approach. On top of this, data visualisations will use a lighter tone and cover fun topics like gaming, TikTok trends, and lighthearted post-pandemic social activities to do.
4. Bright, bold backgrounds.
2022 graphic designs trends won’t shy away from bright, bold colours. These backgrounds will help other visuals on the layout stand out more and catch a prospect’s eye. When contrasted with a light-coloured text, bold backgrounds make brand images pop out more on anyone’s social feed.
5. Colourful icons and illustrations.
Besides backgrounds, icons play a big role in any graphic design. For 2022, the brighter the icons are, the better. SproutSocial uses colourful icons and illustrations very well as powerful visual tools.
6. Branded memes.
Memes, “a humorous image, video, or piece of text that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by internet users,” will continue to dominate the online world. Brands and businesses can tap into this popularity with branded memes. They can repurpose a popular meme and talk about a product feature in a fun, lighthearted manner. Customers who find memes amusing will most likely re-post a branded meme, giving it a chance to go viral.
7. Impactful quotes and sayings.
Quotes, feedback, and testimonials provide brands with social proof. They’re impactful, too, because they educate other customers about a product or service in an authentic way. Teamwork is known to add customer quotes on its social media collaterals.
8. Serif fonts that communicate trust.
Serif fonts made a comeback this year. The forecast states that they’re here to stay next year. Many well-known professional visual and graphic designers rely on serif fonts to convey a vital brand quality such as trustworthiness. In short, the right font can make your audience trust your brand more.
9. Social media screenshots for authenticity and credibility.
Similar to quotes, screenshots of social media posts provide social proof for brands and businesses. A social media screenshot, especially from a celebrity or influencer, added to a graphic design layout communicates brand authenticity and credibility.
The themes of these design trends in 2022 are easy to conceptualise and execute. As long as you have a talented graphic designer in your team, your brand has a great chance of winning new fans and retaining loyal followers with the right visuals. A skilled graphic designer, either in-house or outsourced, also knows that collaboration is critical. With it, brand visuals and everything in between will always work to your brand’s advantage.
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