It’s true; trends are cyclical. We see this particularly in fashion styles. For example, the current trend in athletic wear is neon, neon and more neon, while everyday wear trends include baggy, over-sized sweaters and hiked-up waist lines. What’s next…Zubaz pants?
While I wasn’t alive in the 80’s to see Zubaz pants and mullets in their prime, some might say they are making a comeback. However, at this point, it seems this is only on the Pop Culture scene with bands like LMFAO sporting their obnoxious neon throwback wear while performing equaling obnoxious music (no offense to any fans). Recently, Justin Bieber performed with these rowdy clowns sporting a pair of neon yellow, tiger-striped Zubaz.
On a less provocative and socially compromising note, let’s shift focus to graphic design trends. As a designer (even a novice one), it’s impossible not to notice trends in graphic design – particularly in web design. The question is: Are these current trends going to be replaced by the next greatest thing since sliced-bread-webfont-kit-infinite-scrolling-parallaxing-design, or are they solid advancements that will revolutionize the field? I think it’s a bit of both.
The current web design trends of Minimalism and Flat UI are the “in” thing, but who knows how long they’ll be popular. In addition, one of the greatest and trendiest tools of the past few years for web-design has been the emergence of web fonts. Pandora’s box has been opened by Google Fonts, allowing you to implement custom fonts into your website styling, while sites like Font Squirrel allow you to convert desktop fonts into a web font.
Recent studies show traditional web-safe fonts being replaced by custom fonts. While this will probably balance out eventually, the use of custom fonts in web design is a trend that will definitely become standard practice. Who knows what trends we’ll see next or what will cycle back around…that’s part of the adventure of design. Let’s just hope that mullet’s never come back!