Graphic Design Styles Your Go-To Overview

Use this overview of different graphic design styles to make sure what you use for your business is actually ‘on-brand’ for messaging.

Photo by OVAN: Pexels

 

Graphic design is one of the most creative industries and a vital component of every business. That being said, we’ve all seen businesses totally mess up their communication in design. Graphic design is all about finding solutions to communication. This post will provide an overview of different graphic design styles for you to reference. The hope is you will be able to identify what may or may NOT work with your business.

 

I was speaking with the creative director at a website design company, the other day and they said something that really stuck in my memory,

“your objective should be to achieve a balance between aesthetics and user experience.”

 

There is a common misperception that graphic design is solely aesthetic. It’s easy to look at graphic design as simply visual elements, but honestly it is the foundation of marketing as a communicative business department. After all, the focus of marketers is to communicate with customers in order to facilitate the sales process.

 

As a graphic designer it’s your job to employ visual hierarchy, page layouts, colors, pictures, and typography to guide and motivate an audience. This takes research, understanding and planning to implement.

 

Graphic design is a talent that can be learned by self-study, and you do not need to have graduated from a Design School to understand how it works when applied to business.

While a trustworthy creative agency is essential when addressing the various forms of graphic design styles and how they can be used to make a connection between your brand and your customer, being able to identify what works and what doesn’t will come in handy. 

Being an entrepreneur is more than just coming up with a great idea. It’s more than simply putting that idea to practice, too. As an entrepreneur, you more than likely are going to spend 99% of your time working with others to bring your ideas to life. If you can’t communicate your thoughts and ideas to anyone else, well, unless your business plan calls for a one-person show, you’re out of luck.

 

So, to help entrepreneurs like yourself obtain a better understanding of the topic, we’ve written a complete overview on graphic design styles. Choosing the correct graphic design style will bring significant value to your company’s branding.

 

1. Playful 

 

This type of graphic design style is incredibly beneficial for targeting people, particularly youngsters and teenagers. To accomplish any project successfully, it is critical for both the designer of the branding company and the customer to understand who your audience is. The playful design composition is available in a variety of methods, including realistic, semi-realistic, creative, and animated. It typically incorporates fantasy themes throughout the design, from brilliant colors to dynamic components and things.

 

The playful approach, in particular, is designed to inspire a sense of informality and delight in the audience. It also blends outstandingly with an organic style, so each piece makes effective use of brilliant colors to keep the audience’s attention. Among the various graphic design styles available to clients, a fun style is effective in capturing the interest of both children and adults.

2. Contemporary 

 

It adheres to the most recent trends, which is a highly popular style, and it changes on a regular basis to meet the public’s ever-increasing demands. Textures, styles, and shapes abound in contemporary design, which is both current and futuristic. This design style is about existing in the present and adapting to change with the times. Curved lines and bright colors are used to emphasize the current style nowadays. Contemporary styles cover all of your bases, from varied shapes to more bright imagery and angles.

 

3. Scandinavian 

 

It’s noted for its stripped-down quality, which is another minimalist-inspired style that emphasizes each piece. Scandinavian design is an important aspect of the populist design movement, which advocates natural charms over a costly appearance. The Nordic countries of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Iceland used it to illustrate their traditions. It also contains a curving font with a serif in vision, simple designs, and tiny color palettes, which are diametrically opposed to the flamboyant. You can anticipate seeing plenty of white spaces (graphical or functional) in its style to call attention to the most important parts of graphic design.

 

4. Corporate 

 

Despite being a rather uncommon style, corporate graphic design is an effective and important style at the moment. This style is widely employed in professional works and is capable of outlining a very straightforward and formal appearance. Corporate design makes extensive use of simplified data to sketch everything in a professional or formal tone. Corporate graphic design style will encompass everything from traditional layouts with page number placement to plain color palettes and conservative shapes to fit the established professional standard. Corporate style foundations are ideal when mixed with minimalistic style, which is usually utilized to convey simplicity as well as openness.

 

5. Retro 

 

It refers to a broad spectrum of graphic design styles popular from the 1950s through the 1970s, including Art Deco, Psychedelic, Gothic, Art Nouveau, New York, and Baroque themes. The vintage design offers the ideal attributes to evoke nostalgia, as well as a powerful meaning and sense of belonging. This design aids in branding and commercial ads by eliciting a positive response. Retro design is also a subset of minimalist styles that is rather difficult to grasp and employs only two colors throughout its work.

 

6. Minimalist 

 

It is minimal. it uses a modest number of colors, elements, and a single texture style. Minimalist design is a relatively new style in which no extraneous components or elements are used throughout the design. This design style has appeared in numerous graphic design projects and corporate campaigns. Minimalist design is incredibly popular among web designers, from having the foundations to user interaction and simple color selection. It’s useful for your official website’s homepage designs, which will always be a popular graphic design trend.

 

Among the various graphic design styles, minimalist design incorporates a clean and simple feature to make it suitable for today’s organizations. It also contains a mix of corporate, elegant, and womanist approaches to flat designs for branding.

 

7. Victorian

 

Victorian design is extravagant, which is a popular style because it features unique shapes, content, characters, and artistic borders. This style symbolizes the royalty and exclusivity that may be found in royal palaces today. This design is also symmetrical and works nicely with swirling and letters that fill the full image. Colors aren’t connected with the style because of the lack of brilliantly colored ink, and it only appeals to the audience who values refined designs. If you want to add exclusivity to your style, Victorian design is an excellent choice.

 

8. Illustration 

 

This design uses graphics to convey a concept or message, and it is an amazing combination of organic style and whimsical design. Although this graphic design style differs slightly from the playful style in that it is totally rendered in hand-drawn looks. Illustrated design differs from designer to designer due to their unique drawing techniques. From spectacular characters to natural components and emotional imagery, illustrated style is a remarkably diverse artistic method for visualizing and giving expression to your thoughts.

 

9. Art deco

 

Art Deco design features brilliant colors, powerful geometric designs, and plenty of symmetry, and it is heavily influenced by Cubism and Futurism. This type of graphic design style may halt you in your tracks, which is uncommon and the work of a genius. It takes a lot of force to obtain your vision, which is a terrific way to get your website or commercial noticed. These graphic design styles contain extremely contrasted color schemes, vivid forms, and bold typography, making them one of the most recognized among others.

 

10. Organic 

 

With such a notable health and fitness movement in the previous decade, organic design has made its natural way into the field of graphic design. This design is nature-inspired and rounded, with fewer human components and more natural aspects. Organic style encompasses everything if implemented effectively, from holistic design to lightweight structures, simple forms, and asymmetrical patterns. A softer color palette, paired with rustic textures and drawings, is extremely frequent in organic or natural design. You may also observe elegant or soft color palettes, dynamic components, and rounded layouts in this sort of design.

 

Final Words 

The blog post explains many of the different sorts of graphic design styles to provide readers with a thorough grasp of the subject.

 

Design is a potent tool for creating strong emotions in the audience. As a result, it is critical to thoroughly understand your audience and choose an appropriate style to gain their business. If your organization values simplicity, a minimalist design is an excellent choice for branding. However, if you want to transport your consumers back to the 1960s and remind them of the golden age, retro design is the way to go. Graphic design may serve to express value, therefore when you use it for branding, you can expect to attract your target consumers. You’ll also have a distinctive and consistent brand image that the public easily recognized.