September 12, 2025
Explore 2025’s top design trends—from AI tools to digital scrapbooking, bold fonts, cartoons & maximalism—to inspire modern, creative brand visuals.
Written by
India Thakar
Senior Designer
As the saying goes, “Art is a Reflection of the Times,” and design is no different.
With changes in society and pop culture, and developments in technology and innovation, design practices and styles evolve to reflect life around us.
From website design revamps and UX, to company branding and streetwear graphics, designers create work to emulate the appreciation of consumers in their time.
As a designer and a consumer myself, I’ve compiled a list of the top 5 design trends of 2025. This list includes styles and techniques I’ve seen last steady through the first 9 months of the year, and those which I predict will continue to grow in popularity through the following three years.
While designers and creatives certainly take their own stance when it comes to AI-generated art or design-work, that doesn’t mean that they themselves are not leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance their design process.
Several AI-powered design tools have been recognized as popular among freelance designers and industry professionals alike. Venngage describes that AI tools have become far less of a creative competitor, and rather more like a “designer’s ultimate wingwoman” or “creative co-pilot.”
According to the 2025 State of Creativity Report from Adobe, “62% of designers now use AI in at least three parts of their workflow, from ideation to execution.”
Some of the most popular AI-powered design tools include:
Noticed the 3-dimensional, nostalgic, and message-centric design floating around the internet the past few months? It looks like your elementary-school scrapbook style found its way onto your screen!
Digital scrapbooking has been a lasting digital design trend in 2025, and it looks like it isn’t going anywhere!
This style utilizes the elements of “cut-out” photographs, layered textures and patterns, caption-style text, asymmetry, and nostalgic fonts to mimic the look of a real-life scrapbook.
This trend has most likely stemmed from the popularity of Y2k and 90s aesthetics, a time in which digital scrapbooks and physical scrapbooks were both extremely popular.
See skincare brand, Kiehl’s, for reference. Their recent rebranding initiative transformers their traditional, mint green and black branding to incorporate cut-out images, tape-like iconography, textures, bold colors, and more. This has made their branding far more memorable, and has allowed them to connect with the younger, gen-z audience.
Brands, artists, and designers who choose to incorporate this trend will bring their customers a feeling of nostalgia, personalization, and memorability. Just as scrapbooks ignite a feeling of “made with love,” users will perceive a deeper connection with the brand.
Picture this – it’s a Saturday morning from your childhood. You pour yourself a bowl of your favorite cereal, sit down on the floor in-front of your TV, and turn on your favorite morning cartoon.
Recently, cartoons have been all the rage in website and graphic design, and this feeling is exactly what designers are trying to emulate.
Cartoons not only bring a feeling of nostalgia, animations bring about a sense of entertainment, fun, and style into every campaign and website.
From edgy animation style websites like Species in Pieces, created to highlight wildlife species under risk of extinction, to bold, tropical designs like the vegan yogurt brand, Laava website designers can use animation and illustration to evoke emotion in their users.
Brands like Ralph Lauren and Coca-Cola have used their cute mascots of the Ralph Lauren bear and Coca-Cola polar bear as tried-and-trued methods of capturing brand loyalty and love.
Out are the minimalist fonts used throughout the 2010s, and in are bold, stylistic fonts that bring a vibe, and a message.
The once overused sans-serif fonts (which skyrocketed in popularity due to tech giants like Apple and Microsoft) have immensely decreased in popularity over the past few years. In 2025, designers have taken cues from the past, international influences, and pop-culture to integrate more stylistic fonts into company branding and websites.
From organizations like The Coffee Miners utilizing the sweet, cursive Lobster Two font across their site, to the bold Omsom, a spice and sauce company highlighting Asian flavor, using a geometric custom font.
Utilizing a unique font helps a brand to stand out from the crowd, resonate as a more personable brand, and allow the brand to connect with its target audience!
In-sync with the update from Arial fonts to more stylistic, elegant and retro type, other elements have developed in branding, too.
From bold color palettes using multiple vibrant shades rather than a singular highlight, to iconic patterns and graphics, today’s brands are going all-out in maximal style.
Post 2010 minimalism, brands held onto the simplistic, “modern” style for many years. Not only were sans-serif fonts popular, but color palettes were limited to neutrals, buttons used simple, round corners, borders did not come into play, etc.
Today, we see many designers and brands playing with a variety of elements to create a unique look, incorporating vibrant colors, unique typography, animation, user-oriented play, illustration, and more.
Whether in web design, apps, or graphics, designers are going all-out to create a visual experience that keeps users coming back.
Take a website like design agency’s Locomotive, for example. The site makes the user feel like they are playing a video game, even incorporating elements like avatars, interactive design, and pixellation.
Popular soda brand taking the world by storm, poppi, made a bold entrance to the market with its tropical color palette, retro design, and blocky font. What better way to stand out on the grocery shelves than through bright colors and bold illustration? Their website design is no different, featuring that same vibrant color palette alongside sun-stroked imagery, animation, and retro iconography.
The lesson? When designing in the year of 2025, don’t hold back!
Take the core value and message of a brand and make it visual. Use fonts that stand out, digital scrapbook style for personality, vibrant colors that attract its core audience, animation, and more. Expedite your design process or make it more concise through the use of AI-powered assistants, and tie it all together with some retro-influences that speak soul.
From AI-enhanced workflows to scrapbook-inspired textures, cartoon animations, statement fonts, and the return of maximalism—today’s design world is anything but quiet.
These trends not only reflect where we've been culturally, but also where we’re going creatively.
As designers, staying attuned to these shifts allows us to craft work that resonates more deeply with audiences and stands out in an ever-evolving digital landscape. Whether you’re rebranding, launching a website, or refreshing your aesthetic, 2025 is the year to embrace experimentation and design with perspective.
https://venngage.com/blog/graphic-design-trends/
https://alphaefficiency.com/scrapbook-style-web-design
922 N. 3rd St., 1st Floor
Harrisburg, PA 17102
Copyright 2020 - 2025
.png)
