2013 Style Predictions

As we begin 2013, we will see continuation of several style & marketing trends from last year. A lot of aesthetic and design ideas will stick around or even grow, but several have already run their course.  Here are some of my predictions to things we may see in the next year.

1. Creative Page Scrolling on Web Sites.  This just makes sense. With the continued dependence on phones, tablets, and "phablets," as well as the design of the Windows 8 Aesthetic (which will probably be spreading more this spring) increased thought on page scrolling will be important.  This will include more single-page, long-scroll type sites.  Scrolling navigation obviously will not replace link navigation, but as it is very intuitive and user friendly on portable devices, scrolling interactions will become more common as well as more interesting.  Overall, I would consider this a win for the web, as scrolling rich media can provide a lot of user interface options not available in simple text-markup. 
2. Pinterest won't be cool anymore. The online pinboard site is certainly not going to disappear, in fact it will see continued growth in 2013, but its overall usefulness and excitement will decline. Marketers and producers will realize how difficult it is to bastardize a user-generated content site like Pinterest. The Pinterest trend was wild in 2012, but the "new-car smell" will  begin to wear off this site, and it will take a back seat to other social media sites.  Integration into other social media platforms will become more prominent—especially as a sharing tool—but the hours of just browsing Pinterest will probably decrease, as it now has more competition, and has become more commonplace and less remarkable since last spring. 
3. Bright Solid Colors. In 2013 we will see some intensely strong, but simple color palettes. This was a huge fashion trend in 2012 that will probably roll down into other artforms and styles. Bright hues are typical for summer, but this year they continued into fall and winter-wear.  This means there will probably be a slow shift in fashion away from this style, but now that the look has been established, it will hang around in other media forms for a little while. Color tones will be vivid and strong, but not necessarily the 80's neon colors we saw last summer—Jewel tones are probably a likely candidate for this trend. 
4. QR Codes. Unfortunately this marketing trend won't die entirely, but we will finally start to see a decline in the use of QR codes mid year as marketers and business professionals finally realize that the "cool factor" (sigh...) of QR codes does not equal effective communication. 
5. Web Typography.  Until the last few years, web designers have basically been limited to about 8 or 9 universal fonts. (I refuse to count Comic Sans) Web loading fonts have become more prominent recently with services like Google Web Fonts and Font Squirrel and the CSS3 @font-face rule. Designers will continue to use and explore this capability, expanding traditional print design styles into web and digital worlds.  This will allow for better typography and design as front-end designers (and traditional designers taking on more digital work) will not be as limited.

 If you have any other ideas that you feel may dominate the design world in 2013, or want to debate/discuss any of my predictions please comment below!

QR Codes — A Marketing Trend that Needs to Die.

QR Codes have been around for nearly twenty years. Until the last few years this technology has lived behind the scenes—in a functional world not designed to be consumer facing at all.

Universally, I think most good designers would agree that the QR trend has gone way too far.  Though the technology is very interesting, and admittedly has a lot of potential, these  digital patches rarely do more than get in the way when the primary audience is human eyes.  When "QR-Reader-Vision" becomes an accessory to laser  eye surgery, these scan codes will be a successful way to share information to humans. Until that day, I strongly recommend against using QR codes for marketing purposes when that is any other option.  Its really the same reason I would recommend against using a Spanish headline in Japan—any primary message that cannot be understood by the person viewing it is not only a waste of space, but utterly confuses the rest of your message.

From my experience, the use of these codes is usually pushed by the business/marketing side of an operation and not by art-directors or designers.  Whether a left-brained business pro or a right-brained creative genius, we can look at the numbers to show how many people are actually using these scan codes to access information.  Forbes published  an interesting article documenting this.

Are QR Codes Dead? —Forbes

Marketing trends come and go, but for some reason this one has hung around slightly longer than usual despite its ineffective prominence.  As designers, marketers, culture-makers, and business professionals lets try to start 2013 right and make this the year that QR codes die.

A New Year

Here's to another great year of fun inspiration, exciting projects, and creative concepts. 

Happy New Year, folks!