What to expect in 2018

Dec 24, 2017 | Blog, Branding, Design

As the end of 2017 comes near, it’s time to start preparing for the year ahead. Although we don’t believe the future works to the calendar year, we still would like to take this opportunity to share four key trends of which we believe will have its influence as of now. The year of the […]

As the end of 2017 comes near, it’s time to start preparing for the year ahead. Although we don’t believe the future works to the calendar year, we still would like to take this opportunity to share four key trends of which we believe will have its influence as of now.

  • The year of the real human touch

    Thanks to growing transparency, the need for a real human touch keeps growing. We keep longing for real stories, stories we can verify and stories we love to believe. Besides that the development of ‘everything technological’ keeps stirring up a fuss; will Artificial Intelligence (AI) become smarter than humanity? Will robots take over my job? It’s because of these developments we start to redefine what makes us people special; what distinguishes us from the machines and how we can take back control. This provides opportunities for branding and design. Adding serendipity, flawsome stories and human elements to graphic design such as hand-painting and sketching.

  • The year of Radical Creativity or the slash-slash designer

    Maybe we can stretch this to every profession, but especially in our field of expertise interesting developments have been happening for quite a while already. Today’s designer is way more than ‘just a designer’. It has been coined as the ‘slash/slash’-designer before: people combining different professions to be able to really make a change. We’ve seen the rise of the ‘geeky’ engineer-designer that, with the help of scientifical insights, is capable of impactful innovation. We are happy to get inspired by people like Daan Roosegaarde, who we believe really is an innovator in that sense.
    By now the need for multidisciplinarity and combining professions to unleash limitless creativity really becomes inevitable. Call it Radical Creativity or becoming Expert-Generalists, like Elon Musk. We, with our multidisciplinary team strive toward these boundary-less approach as well.

  • The year of the Middle Eastern Youthquake

    ‘Youthquake’ being the word of the year in the UK is a sign of the change happening in Europe. People are now discussing the real impact of youngsters on change, and we also see this movement happening here in the Middle East. Local social media influencers have gained quite some podium and followers by now. The local government gives space to the creativity and optimism of youth by opening Youth Hubs and hiring young ministers in the government.

  • The year of fairy tales

    Some real life fairy tales are set to happen in 2018. Let’s start with royal weddings like the one between Harry and Meghan or more close to home the royal wedding between Sheikha Maryam Bint Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Sheikh Suhail Bin Ahmad Bin Juma Al Maktoum. Events like these always fire up the need for more heart-warming and wishful-thinking stories. A need every brand and brand story can tap into.

With expectations like these it goes without saying we are looking forward to 2018 and all changes the year will bring!

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