Design Trends 2006: Typography, Style Genres, Materials, Composition, and Attitude
More from Nancy Bernard...
TYPOGRAPHY- Last year, we saw a lot of modernist fonts in page-wide settings, often with big, top margins. This year smart, highly legible mixed setting dominate. They're not like the mixed settings of the past, with single sentences set in multiple sizes and fonts. They're mixed in two new ways: First, there isn't a clear division between modernist typography and what I call Classic Book typography (oldstyle fonts set justified, centered, single column). Instead, the font might be Modern and the setting classic, or vice versa. The settings are dictated by content with an eye on expression and readablity. Grids are way more flexible. Baselines bounce, margins shifts, justified is mixed with ragged-right, and flush left is mixed with centered settings.
This flexibilty means that legibility is king. We see very few extreme setting, such as overspaced or underspaced type. Most copy is set in comfortable, oldstyle fonts. If body copy is set in Helvetica, it gets bigger so it's easy to read. One hint for the future: On art school catalog uses '70s-style extra-bold fonts in hyper-tight, Herb-Lubalinesque settings.
STYLE GENRES- Speaking of Modernist vs Classic Book, the same sort of thing is happening with style in general. Although Modernist dominates, the trend is to mix tropes from various genres for conceptual effect. With this new approach to style, most of the genres we saw over the last decade have faded out. Retro-look work is way down. The "real object" and trompt 'loeil thing--where annual reports look like medical records, for example--is basically gone. Ultra-minimalism is out.
One style that is surviving nicely--second only to Modernism, and not by much--is the Industrial look. Industrial materials, metals, type set in little boxes to mimic the labes on blueprints, condensed sans serifs, and undesigned typography still turns us on.
MATERIALS- In the same vein, the trend for authentic materials is very strong. Steel, uncolored (i.e. white) plastic, real tip-ins, little book mark ribbons are everywhere.
COMPOSITION- There are quite a few trends here, so I'll just give you the data: Borders on pages and photos either black or white- 10% of all entries; wide top or bottom margins -10%; black backgrounds (which have been out since the '80s)-5%; solid color pages-15%; foldover pages, either to stiffen covers or as foldouts-10%; tiny books-15%.
ATTITUDE- For a long time, if the attitude wasn't composed or professional, it was agrresive and in your face. No more. Now it it isn't composed and professional it's smartly witty--or lush, lush, lush. Witty ranks at 10% Lush wins at about 20%. Extravagent color, rich imagery, lavish use of paper and ink, are back with a vengence after years of eco-budget based restraint. The ultra-minimalism backlash that snapped us out of the excesses of the '90s have been backlashed itself.
to be continued...
TYPOGRAPHY- Last year, we saw a lot of modernist fonts in page-wide settings, often with big, top margins. This year smart, highly legible mixed setting dominate. They're not like the mixed settings of the past, with single sentences set in multiple sizes and fonts. They're mixed in two new ways: First, there isn't a clear division between modernist typography and what I call Classic Book typography (oldstyle fonts set justified, centered, single column). Instead, the font might be Modern and the setting classic, or vice versa. The settings are dictated by content with an eye on expression and readablity. Grids are way more flexible. Baselines bounce, margins shifts, justified is mixed with ragged-right, and flush left is mixed with centered settings.
This flexibilty means that legibility is king. We see very few extreme setting, such as overspaced or underspaced type. Most copy is set in comfortable, oldstyle fonts. If body copy is set in Helvetica, it gets bigger so it's easy to read. One hint for the future: On art school catalog uses '70s-style extra-bold fonts in hyper-tight, Herb-Lubalinesque settings.
STYLE GENRES- Speaking of Modernist vs Classic Book, the same sort of thing is happening with style in general. Although Modernist dominates, the trend is to mix tropes from various genres for conceptual effect. With this new approach to style, most of the genres we saw over the last decade have faded out. Retro-look work is way down. The "real object" and trompt 'loeil thing--where annual reports look like medical records, for example--is basically gone. Ultra-minimalism is out.
One style that is surviving nicely--second only to Modernism, and not by much--is the Industrial look. Industrial materials, metals, type set in little boxes to mimic the labes on blueprints, condensed sans serifs, and undesigned typography still turns us on.
MATERIALS- In the same vein, the trend for authentic materials is very strong. Steel, uncolored (i.e. white) plastic, real tip-ins, little book mark ribbons are everywhere.
COMPOSITION- There are quite a few trends here, so I'll just give you the data: Borders on pages and photos either black or white- 10% of all entries; wide top or bottom margins -10%; black backgrounds (which have been out since the '80s)-5%; solid color pages-15%; foldover pages, either to stiffen covers or as foldouts-10%; tiny books-15%.
ATTITUDE- For a long time, if the attitude wasn't composed or professional, it was agrresive and in your face. No more. Now it it isn't composed and professional it's smartly witty--or lush, lush, lush. Witty ranks at 10% Lush wins at about 20%. Extravagent color, rich imagery, lavish use of paper and ink, are back with a vengence after years of eco-budget based restraint. The ultra-minimalism backlash that snapped us out of the excesses of the '90s have been backlashed itself.
to be continued...
posted by Toby Sturgill at
7:39 AM
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