All images courtesy of Bentzion Goldman, Mother Design
Senior designer at Mother Design Bentzion Goldman looks back on his 2024 predictions and takes an educated guess at what might happen in the world of brand design this year.
At the start of last year, I predicted that brands would take varied approaches on how to stand out in culture in response to an election year and global uncertainty. So here we are with 20/20 hindsight, and it’s time to see how we did. And, more importantly, what’s next?
In response to doom and gloom, I posited that brands would let out a nervous laugh in the form of silly, saturated branding. 2024 saw the peak of ‘dopamine design,’ defined by bubbly typography, bright colours, and cuddly mascots. This is exemplified best by Graza, designed by Gander, a brand that came out in 2023 but has risen tremendously in popularity.
And things definitely got silly. Mother Design decided that for Netflix’s Netflix Is A Joke comedy festival, being silly was a desperately needed relief. (Disclosure: I work at Mother Design). Nothing says “laugh away the pain” like a giant billboard on Sunset Boulevard that says, “If we don’t laugh, we die”.
Another prediction was that while some brands would be blissfully ignorant, others would double down on the issues they cared about. To name one example, 2024 saw the breastfeeding wars of Times Square with Molly Baz as its hero when Clear Channel removed a billboard of Baz, depicted in her underwear and pregnant belly with ‘lactation cookies’ over her breasts, for breastfeeding brand Swehl.
The media company cited violations of “guidelines on acceptable content”. However, infant formula brand Bobbie saw an opportunity and swooped in to create a new campaign, putting up a new billboard of Baz in the same location. Your move, Clear Channel.
I also proposed that, in response to overwhelming election noise, brands would either try to yell louder or attempt to whisper to lower the volume. In the year of our lord Brat Summer 2024 (how have we gone this long without mentioning ‘brat’?), top-volume electricity was inescapable. The undeniable colour of 2024 was neon-vomit-green everywhere you looked, and any other take was off-colour.
On the other hand, some brands have acknowledged that we’ve reached peak saturation and looked to take a quieter, more considered tone. Robinhood re-re-branded this year, led by Porto Rocha, and took a decidedly mature and considered tone in direct opposition to the bright colours and flashy effects that have come to define the financial space (a trend that Robinhood itself helped to create). Composed of warm neutral tones, a calm and sturdy serif, and beautifully focused still-life photography, the brand carves its own territory and provides a calm oasis against the rest of the category.
So here we are -at the start of 2025, with perhaps even more uncertainty – and we must ask ourselves once again: what does the year ahead hold for branding? Armed with the lessons of brat summer, mocha mousse, and (don’t say it) Jaguar, how can brands stand out in today’s landscape?
The New Stone Age
I think we will see a large response to tech fatigue this coming year since nothing dominated 2024 more than AI. It feels as if every day, a new company powered by AI, of course, adds to the digital clutter of our everyday lives. This means more targeted ads promising to solve your life with a new subscription.
This software fatigue will lead to a larger response away from the impending technological future and toward the past – but not the past of the 1980s or ’90s, but rather all the way back to the Stone Age. Koto’s rebrand for Faculty exemplifies this look backwards with a typeface inspired by stone carvings, chiselled iconography, and language like ‘old meets new’. Some Days just revealed branding for the studio Future Being with a wordmark carved from stone and a fossil logo, too.
Even type foundries have taken a break from releasing Helvetica after Helvetica in favour of more serif faces inspired by stone carving and inscriptions. See: RL Wit by Radek Łukasiewicz, Rosalie by Sharp Type, and Leopardo by 205TF. This response is part of a larger digital detox trend towards the tangible and the tactile. For brands, it means letting go of the idea that a brand must be slick and buttoned-up, allowing more room for texture and visible human intervention.
Brands Beyond Branding
Brands must understand that, in 2025, they need to be more than simply a logo and a colour palette. As tools for branding basics have become more widespread and understood, brands must create entire worlds to communicate who they are to consumers.
To speak once more of ‘brat’, the album was not simply a colour and a pixelated font but an entire vibe that meant wearing sunglasses indoors holding a rave at Storm King, and working out conflict over the song. This vibe translated to numerous design touchpoints, but what drew people in was the feeling the music and visuals evoked.
Those in charge of defining brands in 2025 must cut to the core to determine what the central approach of their brand will be and use that knowledge to engage in world-building. This can take form in any brand regardless of size, such as Little Troop’s brand world for artist Nik Bentel. The focus is less on the preciousness of each individual design element and more on the sprawling, rotating, puffy, joyous vibe that these elements collectively bring. Yes, of course, each element is expertly crafted, but those elements are then used inventively with a central focus on the overall feeling of immersiveness that the brand aims to create.
Consumers resonate with that kind of ambition and are drawn to immerse themselves in it. Moreover, consumers understand that a brand can change its fonts and colours overnight, so finding a central reason to believe in the brand must be stronger than any individual element.
Fun Is the New Silly
If you thought the uncertainty of 2024 would give way to a more defined 2025, you are sadly mistaken. Amidst more uncertainty, an antidote to this anxiety is in even higher demand. The silliness of 2024 will give way to a more meaningful method of release: play. While silliness can be a tool for distraction, play can be a meaningful antidote to fear. So, in 2025, the mandate for brands is to have more … fun!
Brands like Happy Medium encourage this type of play both in what it offers (real physical art) and in its visual identity. Messiness, optimism, and enjoyment are powerful tools brands can use to drive real connections with consumers, and this play can be tactile or digital. Encouraging a sense of play digitally can bring a similar hit of joy, such as in the drawing tool used on Talia Cotton’s website for Almost Studio or the mini-game of snake found at the bottom of Mother Goods’ website, designed by Alright Studio.
In a world where algorithms feed us tailor-made content, giving us more and more of the same, play can offer the much-needed element of discovery, unexpectedness, and delight. As they say, don’t threaten me with a good time.
So, what does this all mean for brands in 2025? Consumers are hungry for brands that represent the tactile, offer immersive worlds, and aren’t afraid to get messy and have fun. It all points to one macro theme: real brands for the real world.
For too long, brands have talked down to consumers and waved flashy colours in their faces without meeting them where they are. No longer can brands sustain interest with empty promises and good-enough design. This is the year for brands to decide who they are, build a world around their core beliefs (a real world, mind you, not in the metaverse), and experiment within the four walls of that environment.
If world-building sounds ambitious, that’s because it is. But brands that engage in this task will reap the rewards of hyper-engaged consumers and a clear vision of what they stand for. This practice can make a difference for brands in the year ahead—some might say a world of difference.
