5 Content Design Trends for 2023

If you are reading or listening to this a disclaimer: You do you. Feel free to ignore any of these observations. Whatever makes you more creative, excellent. I'm sort of sick of all the articles and lists on "Ways to do things better." So why make this? Because it's interesting to observe the world around us. That doesn't mean we have to accept it or suffer from FOMO. Remember, there really isn't anything "on trend" anymore for a variety of reasons:

1. There is no monoculture of what is popular by definition

2. There will always be something people find interesting.

3. Fashion has been disrupted (which disrupts design) because we don't know what to wear anymore.

In any case, here are 5 trends for #contentdesign I've spotted and why they are being utilized more of this year and into next year...

1. Maximalism. Yes, minimal design is a given and will never really go out of style. Especially flat design on a mobile site. But people right now don't mind a little bit of maximal design because after two years of a Pandemic we want to feel emotions. Be wowed a little bit. It's okay to feel things no matter what you are seeking whether that is a pair of sneakers or a software solution. Oh, and don't make things too clean. That isn't real. We don't mind realizing, "Wow, that person has a messy desk" as long as it isn't staged.

2. Collaborations. It always takes a fiscal downturn to get people to work with others. But the more content we see with partners, the more reach it receives. And in mashup culture, which has been around forever now, it's not weird. Only people who don't understand brands or brand dictators dislike collabs. Go find another job.

3. Retro throwback design. Something that looks like you made it on retro technology. This is probably the last year for this but typefaces and fonts from the late 1990s, natural photo shoots with vintage looks are probably in but another big one I told someone to do recently was to use a disposable camera for their photo shoot and include the mistakes. Don't know if they'll do it but if not, feel free to steal the idea. We work so hard to Photoshop stuff to make it look like there are mistakes in it. Just use technology that provides that outcome for you instead. Like I want to hear a tape where the hissing sound doesn't have to be manufactured with some audio filter.

4. Inclusive design. This isn't going away and that is good. Good design is?good storytelling, but the story you’re telling isn’t just the one to sell things. Every piece of content you create reflects your brand story—who you are, what you do, and what you care about. The way you design your content can say just as much about your brand as the content itself. Ultimately, despite your intentions, it’s how your content is perceived that matters most.??

Designing for inclusivity not only opens up our products and services to more people, it also reflects how people really are. All humans grow and adapt to the world around them and design should reflect?that.

There are many factors that may affect how someone is included or excluded by content design, such as ability, language, culture, gender, age, etc. The goal of inclusive design is to create content that a wider diversity of people can relate to.

And we need to remember that not all elements of design—color, type, imagery, animation, etc., are interpreted by people the same way. What might inclusive design look like in practice??

• Designing websites for low or limited bandwidth, as many people don’t have equal access to Internet.?
• Using tools like?Adobe’s color blind safe palettes .?
• Adding captions and alt text to online content.??
• Breaking up large blocks of text to improve comprehension for people with learning disabilities.??

These are content design must haves that can drastically improve someone’s experience and make them feel included so they can learn more about what you have to offer.

5. Content Labs. The biggest issue in the world (well, there's lots of big issues, I mean in terms of content), is that we assume digital would be the starting and the ending point for everything. So we assembled big teams that mimic traditional forms of media prior to the Internet and have meetings for 18 months before making decisions based on data (be real, it's your boss telling you to go with what his gut told him). But that's a terrible way to look at the world because people choose what they want in what is basically a buffet-styled marketplace where we graze, sample and then maybe consume things in large quantities before we realize we have gotten ill from eating too much and move on to our next conquest. Digital was supposed to make things interesting and open up the world to more experimentation. Instead, it is mired in the same slow movement we see in traditional media planning and marketing. And the content itself? A lot of the terrible stuff takes like 20 months to produce. Five months to make a meme. 12 months to make a TikTok. 18 months to make a YouTube video. It's silly that everything should take 100 meetings and 100 months to make. That said, some stuff should take time. But it's time for digital content designers to open the world again with the content lab concept. What does this look like? We might see more of in 2023 is teams just experimenting more. "Hey I made this." "Cool, let's test it." "Yo, it's become the ad campaign now! Let's buy more media." Digital used to be filled with a bunch of bandits and pirate radio personalities way back when but it's been filled with too many risk-averse types that treat a banner ad like they are solving world hunger.

Experimenting increases as a result of shrunk budgets. Nothing like scaling an experiment that didn't require 20 rounds of feedback.