Creative
Trends
2023
Annual project by Depositphotos
Ready to Escape?
Today's consumers crave new experiences. They look forward to engaging with brands that provide an alternative look at routine and inspire others to get going. Using creative approaches, XR technology, and more complex production techniques in 2023, content creators will have the opportunity to win over various audiences and invite them to escape.
Whether on a journey to discover new locations, explore oneself during an immersive wellness experience, or dive into old-school anime aesthetics—this year will be completely different, but no less exciting.
To share a wider perspective on where creative communication is heading, we teamed up with industry experts and the Depositphotos creative community.
Every trend includes
All trends
Anime thrill
Back to the wild
A wonderful age
Ethereal world
Eye on sustainability
Wellness upgrade
A blast of joy
Anime thrill
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The Y2K nostalgia trend and rapid streaming service growth have re-sparked universal excitement towards anime, which many enjoyed watching on DVDs in their youth. Interesting characters with superpowers, enthralling plots, and colorful visual effects have made Japanese animation a great getaway from today’s reality. To be on the same wavelength with their audiences, world-known brands such as Adidas, Acura, and others started integrating anime aesthetics into their marketing campaigns.
In addition to design inspiration, anime can help content creators grow their creative skills in 2023. You can learn to invent hyperbolic characters, think through symbolic elements to include in storylines, run anime photoshoots, or experiment with costumes, whether drawn or stylized. With all the possibilities the anime aesthetic offers, this year is expected to be full of dynamic, artistic, and attention-grabbing projects.
What fascinates us about anime is the message of positivity that exists in most of them. Believe in yourself, trust your friends, and chase your dreams. A relationship with fantasy does us good and inspires us to find different ways of solving our problems, whether in life or design.
Along with this, there is the phenomenon of people being less and less ashamed to explore their tastes and use them as references for their work. The more people that show they like anime, the more people become open to giving this type of art a chance.
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Back to the wild
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How many of you have been consumed by wanderlust in the last couple of years? With restrictions finally lifted across most countries, travel is making an impressive comeback. Audiences are all warmed up to discover, engage with, and test new products or services. However, to win over their attention, brands need to consider that the global outlook is shifting. This has been distinctly reflected through gorpcore colors, the general enthusiasm for the outdoors, and Yvon Chouinard’s decision to give away Patagonia to fight climate crisis.
In 2023, travel will focus more on responsible and conscious experiences, as opposed to well-planned and comfort-first trips. We’ll see more eco-friendly and rewilding initiatives, a broader usage of visual techniques that feature nature-inspired colors, as well as hiking and camping aesthetics; all of this reinforced by messages that incite us to take action today.
Each visual requires an individual approach. But the main things are good lighting and clearly envisioning a shot you'd like to take before you press the shutter button. Once, I had to sit for eight hours to capture a train crossing a bridge in Switzerland. I was waiting for it to arrive and coincide with the sun in the composition I had in mind. It was also important to predict the drone's battery charge, so that it could fly back. That is why knowledge, endurance, and a little luck are the keys to success.
In the first six months after russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I was completely devastated. I devoted almost all of my free time to volunteering. I hardly held a camera in my hands and took the fewest images I've ever taken in the last 17 years. However, there’s always light after darkness, and I believe in the victory of Ukraine. It will give me a very powerful start, as well as the inspiration to delight people with new photos and incredible landscapes of our planet.
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A wonderful age
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With the pandemic highlighting weak areas globally, the next decade is set to change how we think, approach, and act. A priority topic will be population aging, given that 1 in 6 people in the world will be 60 years or over by 2030. To address it, businesses are already expanding their target audiences. At the same time, social media trends are revolving around older celebrities, opinion leaders, and content creators more often, outperforming younger generations.
One way companies can act is by adding age-friendly images and videos to their communications. However, visuals should go beyond stocky concepts of cheerful seniors smiling for the camera or playing with grandchildren. Authentic imagery will showcase various activities in which boomers or early Gen Xers throw parties, go out with friends, enjoy themselves, experiment with their appearances, and start new careers. This way, brands and content creators can also become more relatable and loyal to older generations.
Older people deserve the same high-quality and highly-customized services we typically address for others. Perhaps we should try to overcome this permanent celebration of “design-everything” and realize that it is true innovation – societal and cultural – that we need well before design. Finally, there is always a good old rule that we tend to forget when working with older people. Ask them. Or better, co-involve them in developing what should matter to them. We take it for granted that we know their needs, perhaps because we have observed our parents or grandparents. This evolving demographic is different, unique, and heterogeneous. Why should we not give it the same attention as we do to understanding Gen Z?
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Ethereal world
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The year 2022 has been oversaturated with significant world events, encouraging many to look at things from different perspectives. Some put all of their efforts into understanding and coping with reality, while others became extremely hopeful about what the near future might hold for us. This spectrum of experiences and a yet foggy vision of tomorrow are now reflected in photography, cinematography, and other branches of visual art.
Drawing inspiration from 20th-century magical realism, content creators will turn to hazy and blurry effects, deep shadows, and compelling compositions in their works. Experimental or creative editing and post-processing will be present in photography and videos more often; all in order to help viewers get lost in the dream-like aesthetic and question, "Is what I see real?"
I feel like in “the age of Flickr”, fine art photography, post-processing with more dream-like aesthetics, and portraiture were stronger. Then, when Instagram showed up, we began to see a lot of film photography and a cinematic style. Now, thanks to NFTs, digital photo manipulation is gaining value again.
Hazing images out, using soft lighting and colors like blue and violet are great steps to create a dreamy atmosphere, whether in Lightroom or on your mobile. Also, if you are a photographer, real fog can greatly help during a shooting. But in the end, you have to find things that make you feel more comfortable to work with, which sometimes can be done only by experimentation. So, don't be discouraged if you don't see the results you want from the first try.
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Eye on sustainability
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Although sustainable design has become a household term for many, climate change remains the biggest challenge we face today. To make a difference, brands and content creators introduce green and zero-impact ideas to every process. They often draw inspiration from nature and collaborate with engineers or scientists to come up with more effective and appealing solutions.
This year, sustainable design aesthetics will play a greater role than ever before. Deep monochrome colors, classic or condensed fonts, and minimalist textures will help you create inclusive designs, but also optimize resources, improve return on investments, and secure your brand’s and the world’s future.
You must be careful when making sustainable designs based on collective imagination: using Kraft paper, green ink, or drawing leaves. Although many think of these things as eco-friendly, most Kraft papers are not even recycled, green ink is not the least polluting (in fact, it is quite polluting, and the planet is full of other colors beyond green, isn’t it?). There are many different ways to create sustainable graphic design. It depends on what you have to convey in your project.
For instance, you can design with standard paper formats; minimize paper weight; use recycled paper; reuse or recycle the waste you generate; print double-sided; reuse stock paper; combine different print runs or pieces on the same printing plate; reuse surplus paper for new products; use rags (it helps with giving paper a second life); minimize ink overlay; use dithering or even CMYK inks. Or, you can use water-based or vegetable oil inks; reduce the ink surface or get rid of patterns; choose thin fonts; or minimize the number of plates. We have to rethink how we consume because less is more.
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Wellness upgrade
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The wellness sphere has faced an incredible transformation lately, with hundreds of brands introducing digital self-care and calmtainment projects. The swift growth of the metaverse in 2022 influenced the direction in which well-being projects are heading. Mindful and health-centered practices are now migrating from homes to various environments, including museums, resorts, and the streets.
To better connect with audiences in 2023, brands will include AR- and VR-powered wellness experiences in their marketing activities. The use of dynamic, abstract, and 3D motion graphics with thematic sound effects and scents will facilitate the separation from the physical world, as well as help accelerate positive results for both consumers and brands.
Being in an immersive environment makes people experience an art piece in 360 degrees. This puts the person directly inside the wellness experience and helps them feel more relaxed, calm, and rejuvenated. Calming stimuli can be reflected upon in a multisensory way. As the immersive experience at its best can use visual, audio, taste, touch, and smell stimuli. The environment can create an atmosphere that is peaceful and mindful.
But the real importance of immersive experiences is that they also try to jolt specific memories and mind states, and can create a break from everyday perception in other ways. Very soon, biosensors and AI technologies will help track human body activities and create customized experiences for people, addressing multi senses. This will be part of our daily lives, and to be frank, this excites us. Of course, the AI part is important in this, recognizing both our biological and psychological structure and forming the experience around that.
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A blast of joy
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The last few years have taught us that good sleep, regular food intake, and sports are the ultimate feel-good activities. But as soon as they became more present in daily routines, people started wondering, what else can spark dopamine? Thus, the ‘Romanticize your life’ and ‘Dopamine dressing’ movements appeared, paving the way for a new trend that will take off in the next few months.
Maximalist, eclectic, and sometimes too flashy aesthetics will go toe-to-toe with minimalist and clean imagery. Content creators will generously and colorfully stylize their photoshoots, with settings and model looks becoming even more deliberate and energetic—all in order to bring joy and fascinate with detail.
Maximalism is the abandonment of dressing how society expects you to dress. It is dressing in a way that is the truest version of yourself and showing how multifaceted, eclectic, and fun we are. It is bold and brings joy to the wearer, and on occasion it brings joy to those around you. In the post-pandemic world, it is a form of artistic expression that enables the wearer to experience joy and get dopamine, especially when there is so much stress in the world.
My advice for brands that would like to integrate maximalism into their communication is to bring more color and people who are authentic. Move away from the overtly pristine sets and models, and show something that is more appealing because it feels real and relatable. And most importantly, be honest about what your business is going through or the milestones it has hit.
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Afterword
- Alina Volchek (Marketing Director)
- Tati Timoshenko (Creative Director)
- Maria Sibirtseva (Content Team Leader)
- Anastasiia Fed-Titova (Head of PR&Communications)
- Yuliia Smal (Art Director, UI/UX Designer)
- Oleh Dankevych, Svitlana Veresotska (SEO Team)
- Dima Hubenko (Video Editor)
- Iurii Cherkashyn (Designer)
- Nastia Karate (Content Curator)
- Sveta Protsun (Design Specialist)
- Serhii Tkachenko, Oleh Yakymchuk, Anna Molodchenko, Alina Shulha (Development team)
- Anna Timarevska (Copywriter and Translator in Ukrainian)
- Andrii Korostil (Editor)