At the beginning of a new year we always tend to predict new trends expected. This year we will cover in this respect four different segments: Digital design, Promotional business, Online marketing, general E-commerce trends.

Currently we are seeing a couple of broader themes rising in several markets where the focus is on transparency, authenticity, sustainability and focus on niche markets.

Take as an example the food-market, here you can clearly see those trends rising for quite some time now and grow rapidly in 2017.

Over the past year(s) we saw rapid changes within the food industry. Millennials are obsessed with this market and are willing to pay for it. The Avocado toast is the daily lunch for them nowadays and on top of this trend a lot of brands are being build.
Could we have imagined the diversity in beer brands 15 years back? I guess not. Nowadays its not cool anymore to drink Heineken. You drink niche brand X or Y.

What those niche brands are doing extremely well, is story telling. A story which is transparent, and authentic. They really connect with their users via Social Media, Podcasts and Youtube channels etc. They start with just one product and make sure you know what’s inside, what it’s made of.
So, they don’t pay huge budgets for TV-Comercials, but interest Instagram infuleuncers to connect with a new costumer group.

Some early takeaway trends for 2018:

1. Focus on niche markets together with great story telling
2. Personalized online shopping experience & which also is fully automated
3. Big growth (again) via mobile commerce
4. Big growth in social / voice commerce
Design trends in 2018

It’s really important to stand out with a great design in a competitive market. Branding plays a big role in Marketing, something that sounds more then familiar to you we believe.

We are seeing some big changes in this area in 2018, where online design will be radically simple. We call this new trend Brutalism.

Brutalism
How to stand out? Having a brand that is authentic, clear and honest. Study shows that brands that have the ‘craftsmanship’ feeling have great impact on there customers. The likability is high. They want to be associated with the brand and the mouth to mouth growth will most likely be high.
It’s very important to improve every aspect of your brand: the website, webshop and offline material, social accounts etc.. Those who don’t innovate, will loose.

Fonts
With clean interfaces, we will see big and bold fonts. This is will help communicating your message even better. Digital interfaces will have a lot of white space with big titles to stand out.

Colours
Bright colours will make the clean interfaces more joyable.
Use colours to your advantage, to create attention and giving your costumers the right feeling while they interact with your brand.

Illustrations
Illustrations is something that will evolve in 2018, we already saw this trend growing in 2017. The biggest problem here, most illustrations where the same. It’s important to find your own unique style.

Adding playful, friendly elements to a shop helps you communicate the message even better. In the promo market this isn’t happening yet, so big opportunities here to make your brand stand out and connect with new younger audiences.

Animation
Nowadays animated objects are literally everywhere. In logos, icons at sites and applications, transitions between objects and states in the material design (Google).

Animations can help users better understand the work flow of your application. They can help you communicate the right message at the right time (i.e: Feedback)

Besides that, subtle animations are just cool. That counts.

Video
If you think this is already mainstream, let me aks you this; how many videos are you posting on your shop or elsewhere. Exactly, way to less. People consume more and more video every single week.

Our advice: start with a video which explains to your costumers who you are, make it personal, make fast and use all of the above trends.

We will launch our first video next week!

Why now?
Why these trends taking off now? Technology is ready for it. With the high resolution screens, those techniques are easier observed, and consumers want something different, more modern and unique.

Consider to use this month to figure out how this will help your business and that of your customers.

If you don’t start focussing on this trend right now, you might be to late.