Every trend is a timestamp. Put them where you want the date to show.
Short answer: Use trends in the parts of your brand that are meant to change, and keep them out of the parts that are meant to last. Campaigns, social content and seasonal packaging can borrow from the moment. Your name, mark, core typefaces and palette should not. Every trend is a timestamp. Put it where you are happy for the date to show.
What counts as a design trend?
A design trend is a visual choice that spreads because it is popular, not because it fits a particular brand. You can spot one by its timing. It shows up everywhere at once, across unrelated categories, and then becomes hard to unsee.
The examples are familiar. Soft pastel palettes. Rounded sans serif wordmarks that make very different companies look related. Gradients on everything. Oversized type filling the screen. None of these are bad choices. They are borrowed ones.
Why do trends date a brand?
A trend carries the year it peaked. When it fades, every brand built on it looks like it was made that year, whatever its real age. That is the opposite of what most brands want. People trust a business that looks like it has been around and will be around. A trend says when you started. It says nothing about why you are still here.
There is a sameness cost too. When a whole category reaches for the same look, the look stops belonging to anyone. Customers remember the trend, not the brand that wore it.
Where trends help
Trends are a tool, and they work well in the parts of a brand that should feel current:
- Campaigns. Built to run for a season, then make way for the next.
- Social content. Read in a feed full of the present moment, and gone by next week.
- Limited editions and seasonal packaging. A chance to play inside the frame of the core range.
- Launch and event materials. Short life, high energy.
In these places a trend signals that you are paying attention. Nobody holds it against you two years later, because it was never meant to last two years.
Where trends hurt
The core of a brand should be chosen for the long run:
- The name.
- The primary mark.
- The core typefaces.
- The main palette.
- The tone of voice.
These are the elements people learn you by. Build them on a trend and you will be forced to change them on the trend's schedule, not yours. Every change resets some of what customers had learned.
How do you tell a trend from a lasting choice?
Ask why. A lasting choice has a reason tied to your business: the place you come from, the product you make, the people you serve, the way your packaging is actually printed. A trend has a reason tied to everyone else. It is what good brands seem to look like right now.
Then check the reference. A choice inspired by your category's history, your materials or your story tends to age with you. A choice inspired by a mood board of other industries' brands from this year tends to age with them.
A simple example
Take a hypothetical Lower Mainland skincare brand launching this year. The founder loves the soft pastels and rounded type that fill the category. Built into the core identity, they will make the brand look like this year for as long as it keeps them.
Now give the same brand a core palette drawn from the coastal botanicals it actually uses, and a serif chosen to hold up on small labels. The pastels move into the launch campaign and the first season of social posts. The brand looks current on launch day and still looks like itself when the pastels have moved on.
What if your brand is already built on a trend?
You rarely need to start again. Separate the trend elements from the rest, keep whatever customers recognize and replace the remainder with choices that have a reason. That is usually a refresh, not a rebrand. Established brands face the same question from the other side, which our piece on heritage brand modernization covers. If you are launching, start with how to make a new brand look established.
A seven question trend test
- Can we explain this choice without mentioning other brands?
- Is the reason tied to our place, product, people or process?
- Have we seen this in three unrelated categories this year?
- Would we be comfortable seeing it on our sign in ten years?
- Is this a core element or a campaign element?
- If it is core, would replacing it later cost us recognition?
- If the trend faded tomorrow, would this still look like us?
If the first answer is no, move the choice out of the core.
The principle
A brand earns its past by making choices that will still make sense later. Let the moment into the work that is meant to change. Keep it out of the work that is meant to last.
Serif + Gold builds brands with a core that holds and room to play around it. If your brand is starting to look like a particular year, start a conversation at serifandgold.com.