Top Branding & Design Trends For 2025

Keeping up with trends can feel overwhelming, so we’ve made it easier for you.

We’ve reviewed top marketing and design reports from sources like Deloitte, Trend Hunter, Lippincott, Adobe, and Canva to highlight the key branding and design trends for 2025.

In this summary, we’ll cover the most important trends shaping branding, visual design, and packaging. You’ll see how brands are using technology, building stronger communities, and focusing on authenticity to better connect with their audiences.

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Strategic Branding Trends

1. Generative AI & Personalization

Generative AI has been making waves for months, becoming a major force in shaping culture and driving economic trends. Deloitte highlights it as a game-changer for businesses, giving early adopters a strong competitive edge.

At the same time, personalization remains a powerful tool for brands. Companies that create personalized experiences see higher customer engagement and loyalty rates. IAccording to Deloitte, 75% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands that provide personalized content. AI is playing a key role in making this possible.

2. Community Building Takes Center Stage

Big social media platforms are becoming less personal, focusing more on ads and algorithms than real connections. In response, new platforms are shifting their focus to building stronger and more meaningful communities. Some, like Kindr, Letterboxd, and Ravelry, bring together people with shared interests—whether it’s kindness, movies, or knitting. Others, such as Bluesky, offer decentralized alternatives that give users more privacy, freedom, and control.

For brands, this means thinking about ways to create real communities that people want to join. It also means adapting to decentralized platforms to connect with today’s users. By doing so, brands can build loyal, engaged communities that share their vision and values.

3. A Return to What’s Human and Real

As Generative AI becomes more popular, many people are also looking for real-life, human experiences. With so much time spent online, there’s a growing interest in balancing it with offline activities and spending time outdoors. Real-world, screen-free experiences will be welcomed, alongside traditional marketing.

People also want brands to feel more relatable and emotional. Research from Adobe and Canva shows that humor will be used more in 2025 to make messages feel light and friendly, and simple, natural imagery will become more popular too.

4. Social & Environmental Responsability

Sustainability remains a top concern for consumers, who now expect brands to take real steps to reduce their environmental impact. At the same time, social media gives people the power to call out greenwashing and demand transparency, making it essential for brands to show genuine eco-commitment with concrete actions or risk losing trust and relevance in the market.

5. Immersive and Sensory Experiences

People are spending more on travel and experiences as they look for ways to escape their routines. To keep up, brands are going beyond visuals and adding things like sound, touch, and even smell to create richer, multi-sensory experiences.

Sonic branding is also expected to grow in 2025, as it helps brands stand out and build emotional connections with audiences. Since 84% of people buy from brands they feel connected to, and 63% want more multi-sensory experiences, using sound is a powerful way to engage customers.

6. Embracing Brand Heritage

Brands are moving away from plain, trendy designs and starting to focus on their history and uniqueness. Lippincott says many brands will stop following fads by 2025 and focus on being more authentic and true to their heritage. Pentagram sees more brands bringing back old design elements, like Agnesi’s classic ship logo and Pepsi’s updated look inspired by its past. Using your brand’s history helps differentiate your brand authentically, and connect better with customers by using nostalgia.

7. Brand Searches Are Changing

People aren’t just using Google for searches anymore. With Generative AI and social media apps like TikTok becoming popular for searching for information, consumer habits are shifting.

Shoppers now can discover brands through AI chats, social media searches, or video and audio ads before they even think of Googling them. This is a wake-up call for brands that rely only on Google SEO. To stay competitive, they need to focus on being visible across AI platforms, social media searches, and other important channels.

8. Empowering Everyday Brand Advocacy

Many people are becoming less trusting of traditional influencer marketing, according to TrendHunter. By letting regular customers earn commissions for honest recommendations through affiliate programs, brands can build closer connections with their communities and stronger loyalty. This makes it easier for more people to support and promote the brand, leading to greater engagement.

Visual Design Trends

1. Motion Design to Give Storytelling a Boost

Motion graphics are becoming a vital tool for increasing the brand’s audiences’ engagement. Canva‘s design predictions highlight how dynamic visuals will elevate storytelling across platforms like social media, creating more engaging content that resonates with viewers.

2. AI-Assistance for Design

AI tools are streamlining the design process by automating repetitive tasks and enabling rapid prototyping. In 2025 it is expected that designers will increasingly use AI to enhance their design or create more accurate mockups, leading to more time for creativity.

3. Psychedelia and Fantasy Elements

Both Pentagram and Adobe predict a resurgence of psychedelic and fantastical aesthetics in design. These dreamy and colorful visuals offer an escape from the mundane, helping brands stand out in crowded digital spaces.

4. Geometric Shapes

Geometric shapes paired with the use of bright colors or photography are emerging across several product categories. They will be used widely, both in graphic design and packaging design.

5. Analog and Retro Elements Meet Futuristic Designs

Both Canva and Adobe predict a mix of retro and futuristic design styles. Adobe observes a rise in combining classical and iconic images with futuristic environments, creating designs that feel both familiar and new. This trend might include collages or analog-style imagery merged with AI-generated futuristic elements.

6. Elegance and Quiet Luxury

This trend is about quiet luxury. It keeps the overall design simple and clean but adds small, detailed touches to make it feel elegant – such as elegant fonts and imagery. The use of empty space helps everything look balanced and not too crowded.

Packaging Design Trends

1. Practical Use

In 2025, brands will be creating packaging that is not just for looks but also has a practical use, like being reusable or interactive. This makes the packaging as useful and exciting as the product itself, appealing to people who enjoy unique and hands-on experiences.

2. Circular & Waste-Free

The need for simple, eco-friendly packaging will stay important in 2025. Brands that create waste-free packaging that “leaves no trace” will stand out in their respective markets. Ideas like refillable, edible, or biodegradable packaging offer many ways to innovate.

3. Visual Trends in Packaging

Many of the trends that were mentioned within the previous sections will apply to packaging design as well. This includes retro-inspired designs (using the brand’s heritage and legacy), art deco revival, and geometric shapes paired with bright colors. Additionally, Pentagram highlights a cinematic style trend to increase storytelling via stunning visuals.

In 2025, remember to create a unique path for your brand

We hope you enjoyed this selection and summary of the key trends predicted to shape the year. But remember: while you can take inspiration from this list, it’s also key to focus on carving your brand’s unique path.

The strongest brands often lead the way by being visionary and staying true to what makes them unique, rather than simply following what others are doing. Trends are here to help you understand and adapt to current changes, but ultimately, building a brand is a long-term process that extends beyond 2025.