In a week, the Lightboard team delivers as much design as most marketing teams deliver in a year. In 2018, we worked on thousands of projects for hundreds of customers–and we've seen a lot of trends come and go.
Design is always about what’s next and, to start the year off with a bang, we put our heads together and predicted a few marketing design trends we know we’ll see in 2019.
Here we go!
Capturing attention is every marketer’s challenge, and the key for standing out online in 2019’s crowded world will be animation.
Motion graphics grab your audience’s attention and tell a story in the way a static website can’t. They give you all the power of Hollywood to showcase your product in a memorable way, help you knock those value props out of the park, and drive home brand identity.
And while a polished animation is time intensive to develop, you get a lot of bang for your buck. You can use it across platforms (social media, mobile, desktop), and pull out pieces for use on print and email. A well-designed animation can be the cornerstone of your marketing assets.
This example from Slack beautifully walks the audience through the buyer’s journey. It showcases the hassles of workplace communication, and shows the audience how their life could be improved.
New year, new presentations. People are getting just plain bored of the typical presentation deck.
Will 2019 be the year that slide decks completely kicked the bucket? Probably not. Will it be a year where we start to see new ways of presenting information? Absolutely.
If you want to take baby steps… make a shift from blah decks to visually engaging presentations. This means fewer words, and more photos and illustrations to tell a story. This means no default settings, and more custom fonts and colors.
If that sounds like a lot more work, it is. 47% of speakers said is takes 8+ hours to create a quality presentation. Make it your New Year’s resolution to put time into your slides this year, and trust us, you’ll notice a difference.
If you want to take the big plunge… kiss presentations goodbye altogether. Think videos, motion graphics, landing pages, content hubs, infographics - the possibilities are endless!
We’ve come a long way from the days of smoke signals and telegrams. Technology is making it easier for brands to connect with their customers with greater speed and volume, and on a more conversational level than ever before.
We’re seeing a rise in the use of conversational marketing tools, which means a rise in the language people like to converse in: emojis. Emojis are the fastest growing language of all time, and if brands want to interact like their audience, they need to talk like their audience. 👏👏👏
Not only should you be using emojis as you chat with customers, but also in your email campaigns, social media presence, and website. If you’re ready to kick things up a notch, create some branded emojis. Major players like Cola-Cola, Disney, and Unilever have designed branded emojis to strengthen their connection with their audience.
Don’t be the last one to the party, it’s emoji time y’all 🥳.
Each year, brands need to work harder and harder to stand out from all the clutter.
At the end of 2018, trendsetting brands like Apple unveiled some color-packed designs–a wildly different direction from the minimalistic designs they sported in years previous. We’re definitely going to see this trend trickle down through the new year as brands try to stick out in a crowded landscape.
In 2019, we’ll also see more of these colors because the technology to bring them to life is becoming more accessible. In both the print and digital worlds, new technology allows the true vibrance of these colors to shine through high def monitors, and increasingly affordable spot printing techniques.
But which bold colors, you ask? Shutterstock predicts a year full of hues that give off an “excited energy” and pack a “digital punch,” like UFO Green and Proton Purple. Bright colors will sneak their way into everything from stock photos, ad sets, and websites this year.
2019 is the year to cool it with the awkward team high five stock photos.
When your audience sees the same photo on your site that they’ve seen on a dozen others, you’re not going to stand out. Here's what you need to do:
Audiences are calling for more authenticity from their brands, and if you deliver in 2019, people will take note. This year, make a huge push towards real content, and watch your engagement soar.
Here are a few ways to say farewell to those boring ol’ overused stock photos:
You know how nowadays everyone now has some sort of super duper retina 4k extra high-res widescreen quality monitor™? The ubiquity of high quality displays has turned the web into a blank canvas for combinations of rich, vibrant colors to really shine.
Spotify stole the show last year with striking duotone color schemes that effortlessly cut through the noise (or the music - hehe) and caught their audience’s attention.
As more color packed designs pop up on our feeds, flat-color designs are falling, well, flat. This year, add another dimension with a duotone or gradient color scheme and breathe some new life into an otherwise flat design.
2018 was the year of video.
We saw a huge uptick of brands using it in their marketing strategies, with game-changing results like boosting open rates by 19% and increasing landing page conversion rate by up to 80%. 🤯 I know, woah.
Now that videos have become a must in the SEO landscape, what’s next? 2019 will be the year of pushing videos even farther. New programs like Vidyard and Wistia are giving brands access to a suite of metrics that allows them to unlock the full potential of their marketing strategy.
Even cooler, we’re starting to see an emergence of customized videos, where certain video elements can be personalized to the individual viewing it.
Had you received an email in this video from Insights, you wouldn't see the word "friend," you'd see your own name! Pretty cool, huh?
So as you can see, there’s a lot in store for 2019!
We had a blast doing what we love in 2018, and can’t wait to see what unfolds this year. Cheers to a beautifully designed 2019! 🍾🥳
