Exploring 2020's Trends

2020 Trend Exploration

Using the website ‘Creative Bloq’, it was possible to see 20 of the most likely style trends for the year of 2020. These are significant as working to specific trends in graphic design can improve the visibility and effectiveness of your work due to certain styles being popular at any one time.

The 3 styles I’ve chosen to explore in this document have the potential to play a key part in my final animation, to varying degrees. Working to specific style directions not only improve the appeal of your work, but can also help with idea generation as you can work to specific styles without having to start from square 1.

Trend 1 - Intensifying Minimalism

Minimalism in design is already a highly dominant style, with clear visual communication and the sleek aesthetic identifying well with audiences, even for a decade now. From simple motion graphic advertisements and billboards, even to products themselves (take the bright white simplicity of Apple products), minimalism evokes an air of professionalism, and user friendliness.

While the style has been mainly used in advertising, it’s also possible to use this style narratively and for aesthetic purposes, boiling down more complex stories and ideas to their core values, with more effort being concentrated on the raw storytelling, while the visuals are still appealing and easy to follow.

A great example of this is the ‘Intention’ animation from Apple. Not only is this animation minimalist in style, but is advertising and embracing the minimalist design of their products, and as previously mentioned, boiling things down until they’re the perfect blend of functional, yet simple. 

The advert consists of 3 things:

• Type, of one Serif font
• Shapes - Circles and lines
• Dark and Light grey colour palette

All of these things follow the brand identity of apple, while also contributing to the style of the animation in various ways. The font is very clear and simple to read, always in contrast with their surroundings colour wise (for visual clarity) with words often being all lower case. Words being lowercase help contribute to the calm, meditative tone of the advert, with the only capitalised words being ‘Designed by Apple in California’ at the very end, to lend to the significance and importance of the brand. There could also be a decent amount of thought given to the psychology of this, as people will subconsciously register this final statement as the most important, and the one they remember the most.

In a similar vein to the non-capitalised clear text, the only shapes in this animation that are used are circles, and lines. No polygons. This is to avoid there being any harsh edges in the animation which we would associate as something aggressive, everything is smooth and contributes to the tonality of the animation. It should also be mentioned that the soundtrack is a very soft piano piece, which further adds to this.

Finally, there’s the use of colour. There is no perfect white or black in this, only very bright and dark greys, as not only would these be a harsher contrast with each other, detracting from the smooth, elegance of the animation, but would also be harsher for people to read, with such bright colours possibly hurting viewers eyes. This colour palette keeps things soft and viewable.

Each word that is important for Apple to advocate about their brand is portrayed in a very minimalist, but understandable way. The word focus, moves in and out of focus until we can see it. ‘Surprise’ is accompanied by dozens of tiny circles and a soft, firework sound effect. Love is just two circles converging with one another, and ‘connection’ is a thin line between 2 circles. These convey quite complex emotional concepts very easily, and when combined with the use of negative space, soundtrack, and soft shapes, can elicit a very effective emotional response.

Each word that is important for Apple to advocate about their brand is portrayed in a very minimalist, but understandable way. The word focus, moves in and out of focus until we can see it. ‘Surprise’ is accompanied by dozens of tiny circles and a soft, firework sound effect. Love is just two circles converging with one another, and ‘connection’ is a thin line between 2 circles. These convey quite complex emotional concepts very easily, and when combined with the use of negative space, soundtrack, and soft shapes, can elicit a very effective emotional response.

If I were to implement Intensifying Minimalism into my project, it would be a matter of paying mind to the rules of shape and contrast within this advert, and knowing how I could effectively use them in my own. For example. I know that I’m planning for my animation to be very geometric and futuristic, while still having an organic look to it through nature and so on. I think the contrast of rounder, sleeker shapes with harsher edges in different scenes will help accentuate both!

For colour, the colour scheme in these adverts are built to be appealing and readable, whereas my animation will be slightly more chaotic and exotic with it’s colour palette. I can still use simple colour, but intentionally have harsher contrasts in my colour palette to evoke more of a feeling of pace and chaos.

Overall while I don’t think I would take my animation quite as far as this advert, I will still be applying lots of the principles of minimalism to create a strong, easily readable, composition.

Trend 2 - Multisensoral moving content

A trend that is a perfect fit for this current module, Multisensoral moving content defines content that uses motion graphics along with sound to create appeal and a stronger response from it’s audience.

To quote Davide Baratta, an interactive designer based in the UK, ‘’Motion design and moving images are becoming more popular than stills’’, and it’s easy to see why as advertising through mobile devices is increasingly done via GIF’s and 5 second ads before twitter and youtube videos.

Iain Acton, head of motion design at DixonBaxi, states that ‘’...A well thought out motion vocabulary lets you speak with a unique voice, helping you stand out in an ever noisier world’’. Communicating ideas or brands using a solid combination of motion graphics in sound is going to completely change the landscape of how brands are recognised, with specific motion designs and sounds being associated with that brand rather than simple logo’s and artworks.

Multisensoral content allows for stronger connections to be made with an audience, as the name suggests, by creating unique elements both in visual style, motion, and sound design, giving your work multiple new platforms to stand on its own two feet. Here are some examples of multisensoral animation:

T-Mobile has long had this recognisable logo, but one of their recent innovations has been the widespread use of a 2 second animation, transitioning from black to pink (changing the colour contrasts of the text), the longer-form brand logo appearing in a transition, while a very fast, simple jingle plays. It’s this use of multisensoral content that makes for a more recognisable and appealing brand, all the while adhering to a more minimalist approach.

Intel uses many of the same concepts, with a fast animation revealing the name of the brand, a bright flash on the ‘i’ to draw our attention to the start of the word and read it, a change in contrast by flipping the colours, followed by the slogan ‘Leap ahead’, all punctuated with a soundbite. Both the logo and the soundbite have become instantly noticeable, to the point where one can’t go without the other. For instance, if you were to hear an intel advert, you wouldn’t even need to see the visuals, you would just know the brand by a very brief soundbite.

Both of these adverts prove that a unique visual and soundscape can be incredibly effective, however it’s not just the world of advertising that can use multisensoral animation.

Watch Dogs 2 - Creative Use of Multisensoral Content

Watch Dogs 2 is a 2016 open world game created by Ubisoft. Players take the role of Marcus Holloway, a young yet experienced hacker who has the ability to control an interconnected future Chicago using only his phone. 

The game opens with a 2 minute animation which uses the principles of Multisensoral Content to immediately engage the player and deliver some terrifying home truths about the reality of technology and worth of data in modern society, with the key line being ‘You are now less valuable than the data you produce’. This whole animation plays on the very real fear of devices and technology recording our every move, and influencing our society down to a microscopic level. 

As such, the tone of this animation is one of fear and paranoia, and when compared to the Apple advert, or branding, it becomes extra clear how techniques within motion graphics can elicit fear as well as safe, dopamine releasing advertising.

The whole animation uses a theme of harsh blacks and whites, in contrast to the softer ones of the apple advert. Immediately, you can see the effect, as, combined with some abrasion to the text, creates a far harsher image that conveys an entirely different tone. Hints of dark orange also serve to increase the contrast of the animation while keeping within the tone, with these colours being used as if they were targets. Whenever the main ‘villain’, CTOS is being discussed, this black and white theme is constant, with all of the fear eliciting statistics also caked in this colour scheme. This will be important later.

Simple lines such as ‘...a digital profile of YOU, able to be bought, sold, or stoel in an instant’, are paced with impactful sound effects and glitched transitions, giving the piece a distinct ‘beat’. 

Recognisable yet minimalist motion graphics accompanied with radio chatter sound effects under the narration increase the effectiveness of a simple line like ‘But who else is listening?’.

At the end of the animation we are introduced to the concept of ‘Whistleblowers, activists and hackers’, and at the same time, we are introduced to a total change in style. Bright colours, punk imagery, skulls and reapers slice through the scene in a revolution. This isn’t just a colour and style contrast, but a contrast to show us who the good guys are in this narrative. Through the simple use of colour, we get storytelling through motion graphics, all accompanied by sound, music, and narration. 

I think this opening is one of the best examples of how motion graphics can be used for narrative purposes, especially to elicit emotions from audiences. ‘You are now less valuable than the data you produce’ has stayed in my head since this game’s release 4 years ago, and it may well be down to the use of animation, sound, and narration that this opening perfectly demonstrates.

I will pay special attention to the pacing, ‘beats’, and transition work used in this animation to inform by final piece, as I would love to communicate information and narrative using similar visual devices.

Trend 3 - Organic Look and Feel

The cultural sway between technological, modern, sleek styles and organic, naturalistic ones has been raging in the world of design and art for years. Times of scienfitic golden ages give rise to more progressive, what-if artwork and branding as seen in 1950’s/60’s advertising and fiction, whereas works created around the time industrial revolution focused more on the beauty of nature and the countryside due to the dark, smog ridden cities that the artists fled from.

In our current age, we’re living in a climate change crisis, with the impact of technology and corporations being felt across the world and having a visible impact on the nature around us. As such, media, advertisement, and philosophy have begun to reflect this in recent years, throughout the 2010’s, and is only getting stronger as the battle with climate change continues.

As such, the modern rise of organic themes across media and advertising, as well as the products themselves, is increasing faster than ever. There is a massive public demand for natural, moral, and honest production across all sectors, and even the biggest brands are answering the call.

I can only talk from my own personal preferences, but in recent years I have come to feel a deep connection with this exact sort of media and mandate from companies, as not only do I feel a strong attachment to it stylistically, but it also feels good to buy into products that are either directly reducing, or spreading the message about reducing the human impact on our planet and embracing more natural ways of living.

To achieve this effect, colour palettes, textures, shapes, designs, and semiotics are all redesigned to have more naturalistic themes. Here are a few branding examples:

Use of plant and animal symbology, combined with ‘Good Things’ to evoke feels of nature and morality in their production. The soft curves and muted colour palette make the brand feel softer and more innocent.

Speaking of innocence, innocent smoothies were one of the earliest adopters to organic branding, reaching their niche demographic and then expanding outwards by using childlike illustrations of fruit with halo’s, and in this case, shown to be amongst nature and real fruit.

Similarly to the Good Things Brewing Co. , Higher Living tea uses minimalist designs, but goes a step further in incorporating a woodland or countryside colour palette, using various greens, browns, and highlights of yellow.

With a greater focus on texture here, Nakd bars are gluten, wheat and dairy free, advocating a ‘free from’ lifestyle. The design of the bar makes me think of tree bark, and the rough abrasion to the lettering combined with the lowercase lettering of the brand give that sense of innocence and childishness.

Organic Themes In Media:

Horizon: Zero Dawn

Horizon: Zero Dawn is a game based in a post-apocalyptic earth, where nature has completely re-taken the planet and humanity has been reduced back to their humble tribes, while technological beasts still stalk the landscape. Horizon clearly has a lot to say on the relationship between man and machine, and the soft, awe-inspiring graphical focus on the landscapes and environments combined with the harsh, contrasting glow of the tech-threats is an intentional and effective one.

Howl’s Moving Castle

Another piece that explores the relationship between man and machine, but in a different stylistic way. From this screenshot alone we can tell the difference between the natural landscape, and the engineered behemoth that walks across it spewing black smoke. It’s automatically assumed to be a villainous entity in the scene, probing us to root for the side of nature and good.

Both of these examples are extremely important to my development as I want my world of Xanadu to also be a good mix of natural and technological themes, only less negatively portrayed. I would like Xanadu to be the opposite of the world that Howl’s Moving Castle and Horizon look to portray, one where the relationship between technology and nature has been a harmonious one, both enhancing and enriching one another and creating a utopia…

At least on the surface.