Design Trends for 2018 - Tutorials, Tips & Examples

2018 is looking to be a very pretty year for colour! Pantone has declared Ultra Violet as their colour of the year. General trends seem to be leaning towards pastels & neons with a bit of 80's nostalgia. Graphic Design, Media & Fashion are using these colours as well as some really great layout techniques to create some beautiful artwork.

2018 Trends!
+ Tutorials & Tips on how to create them for Graphic & Web Design

Colour - Ultra Violet | Pantone Tools for Designers
Colour - Pastels | Pastel Schemes for 2018
Colour - Neons & Brights | London Fashion Week Spring 2018 Palettes

Colour Channels | Photoshop

Typography - Letter Portrait | Photoshop

Illustrated Typography | Make your own fonts with Fontself 

Cropped Typography | Cutting Shapes in Illustrator

Liquid / Melted Typography

Dada Cutouts | Dada Documentary

Iconography

Letters as Images

Double Exposure | Photoshop

Double Light

Drop Shadows | HTML/CSS

Gradients | Flat 2.0 Designs  Flat vs. Depth

Duotones | Photoshop
Glitching | Photoshop - 5 different style Glitches

This list is a work in progress!

Examples

Here's some examples of these trends in contemporary media and fashion.

Colour Channels

The colour channels effect involves using multiple images (split into a CMYK or RGB colour). The images are either the same or similar.

Dreams - Silence (Music Video, 2018)

Colour - Ultra Violet

When I read about Ultra Violet being the choice for 2018 my mind went back to the hologram imagery from the film Blade Runner 2049.

Blade Runner 2049 (Film, 2017)

Double Light

Double light involves using two lightsources of different coloured lights. The most popular use of this at the moment is blue and pink neon.

Photo by Jodie Becker - unikorn.smugmug.com

Glitching

Glitching involves screen tearing, chromatic abberations, pixelation, scanlines, ISO noise and other effects you would usually see on photo/video media with a damaged signal or poor settings.

Gotta Glitch Hail Mary - livingdead.com.au

Moon Glitch Hail Mary - livingdead.com.au

Cropped Typography

Cropped typography creates a relation with images by cutting away parts to make it merge more organically.

Flourish - Poster by 83oranges

References
https://graphicmama.com/blog/graphic-design-trends-2018/
https://www.brontobytes.com/blog/100-best-free-fonts-for-2018/

Inktober 2017 drawings

I was trying to do Inktober last year but didn't quite make it to the finish line. However it was a good challenge to get drawing more regularly. I didn't really do ink drawings as they were all digital (Wacom tablet / Krita), but whatever close enough - art is what you want it to be. Although I would like to try traditional ink this year.

Todoroki Shouto from My Hero Academia

Merman Makoto from Free! Eternal Summer

D.va from Overwatch

Munechika from Touken Ranbu

Deku from My Hero Academia

Kaworu from Evangelion

Shinji from Evangelion

Sailor Moon from Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon

Alphinaud from Final Fantasy 14

Alisaie from Final Fantasy 14

Brera from Macross Frontier

Rei from Free! Eternal Summer

Lucio from Overwatch

Inkling Boy from Splatoon

Link from Legend of Zelda

Tetra from Zelda Wind Waker

Felix from Re:Zero

Zero from Code Geass

Ranma from Ranma 1/2

Sucy from Little Witch Academia

Mikumo from Macross Delta

Taako from The Adventure Zone

Nanachi from Made In Abyss

Kerochan - acrylic painting

I've been a bit distracted from making any art the last few months so it felt good to get out some paint!

Acrylic paint is harder to work with than the digital art I'm used to but it certainly is enjoyable. I wanted to go with something fairly simple and I've been watching Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc, so I chose Kerochan as the subject.