A Guide to Creative Trends in 2018

WRITTEN BY: Jörgen Sundberg

Every year, Shutterstock analyze the data from billions of searches for images, videos, and music, and put together the trends that will likely be emerging in the coming year.

We speak with Robyn Lange, the Curator for Shutterstock, a technology company offering a creative platform for assets, tools, and service with over a 180 million images and 9 million videos from more than 300,000 contributors around the world.

We delve into their latest Creative Trends report to find out where design, audio, videography, photography and more is heading in 2018.

Have a listen to the interview below, keep reading for a summary and be sure to subscribe to the Employer Branding Podcast.

Listen on iTunesStitcher RadioGoogle Play or SoundCloud.

 

What’s the Creative Trends report all about?

This is our 7th Creative Trends Report, and the idea behind it is that it is driven by global customer download and search data Shutterstock. Our data and creative teams then examine this data and identify the trends that will impact creative direction and design aesthetics in 2018. Our customers include designers, art directors, marketers, film designers and more, so it’s really a wide spectrum of creative types.

What are the top 3 major trends from the report?

    1. Fantasy: For anyone following pop culture right now, you know Game of Thrones. It’s all about the mythical creatures, fantastical landscapes. In terms of the music, it’s epic orchestral music, and everybody is really excited about getting beyond the normal.
    2. New Minimalism: A lot of people will think about minimalism being a Scandinavian design concept with clean and crisp lines with lots of white. But now it’s still clean, but with more bold and vibrant colors with fluid styles.
    3. Space: With shows like Strangers Things, and movies like Star Wars and Star Trek, the idea about space is that the future is now. We’ve got robotics that is seemingly taking over our jobs and our careers, automated cars that can function without us and people are really starting explore this in their creative platforms.

How do the visual trends different around the world?

  • In Malaysia, there is a new minimalist trend loop of Infinity in bright neon colors.
  • In Brazil, ‘Dog’ is trending and we think that relates to the Chinese cultural event, the Year of the Dog.
  • In the USA, ‘Waxy Monkey Frog’ is trending and we can figure out why!
  • In Mexico, Jazz music is trending.
  • In Spain, Antiquity and style of design is trending heavily.

We don’t try to explain the trends, we just try to interpret the data and present it as best as we can.

What brand inspires you in terms of creativity?

Blue dot: They are a furniture company, and they have a really cool modernist style and stick this Bauhaus concept of bringing good design to the masses. I don’t think design should be exclusive, and their products are always very functional but they are also very fun, fresh and bring a new take on the modernist style!

Connect with Robyn on Linkedin.


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