Growing your brand through digital graphic design.

Bring your brand back to life through digital graphic design.

10.08.2021 - by Jason Anderson
The digital space is incredibly exciting. With web design, social media and the devices we utilise them through developing and opening up endless possibility, the graphic design potential is increasing too.
From the possibility of animation and 3D applications, to exciting optical illusions and vibrant visual displays, graphic design for the digital space is an area for any avid designer to let their creativity and technical proficiency come into full display.
Here are some of the exciting trends and developments to watch out for.


Optical Illusions

Optical illusions are an exciting territory. From creating visual distinction to the potential for animation and visual distortion they are a chance to intrigue, engage and even confuse. They’re also a great chance to enhance a visual experience or make it multi sensory. From the representation of sound elements or ‘noise’ they create movement and the feeling of motion, able to disorient and jar the viewer.


3D Design

3D design is another exciting space. Gone are the days of two dimensional images and viewing mediums. With the digital space and the devices we use presenting endless opportunity, we’ve seen three-dimensional graphic design come to life in website design, gaming and even Augmented Reality applications like Pokemon Go and now Google.

This adds another ‘dimension’ to yoru designs and the way you think about them and is an exciting territory for brands looking to adhere to and lead the progression into more engaging, involving and immersive styles of design.


Emoji Design

Graphic design has also changed how we communicate. Gifs and emojis are integral to how we interact with one another in the digital spaces, able to convey emotion, humour and quickly supplant bodies of text with commonly interpreted imagery. With a large scale animated film of these characters created, it’s safe to say emoji’s are a significant part of our cultural landscape and integral to how we communicate in the modern world.

As a designer, this is exciting territory. From the types of emotions and feelings communicated to emoji-like variations or avatars, increasingly being used in the digital communication space, there is endless potential in our ability to shape these communicative graphics online.

The digital messaging space, AI and virtual reality will also contribute to this, with video messaging or virtual ‘rooms’ requiring avatar-like characters to interact on our behalf. It’s expected that this space will continue to grow, particularly as the social space continues to fragment, Facebook and Instagram lose their duopoly on our social networking and challenger brands adopt innovative ways of connecting us, a big part of which will be through emoji and avatar-led graphic design.


Nature Inspired Design

Our cultural trend towards natural products, and the preservation of the world around us through conservation efforts has led to a boom in the appreciation of nature-inspired design. From health brands, to the ‘softening’ of the digital world through natural elements, it presents opportunities for creating cohesive and immersive brand experiences that mimic the feeling of being immersed in nature.


Whether it’s through natural realism and the use of nature inspired typography and graphic design elements with photography, or the creation of natural worlds and landscapes through animation and design, incorporating nature into your digital graphic design can add a touch of idealism to your next project.

Animation

Animation is where digital graphic design can really come to life. This is an opportunity for any avid designer to really showcase their expertise and design immersive digital experiences that communicate brand personality, guide users through a journey, or simply engage and hold attention.

This incredible website by the family-owners of Nintendo Corporation is an example of digital graphic design and animation in action. 

Users are taken through a 3-D journey of characters, from skateboarders to fire-breathing dinosaurs and clouds, as they scroll through and read about the company and their values. This flies in the face of ‘conventional’ design trends, particularly minimalism, where ‘less is more’ and clutter is a designer’s and website viewers worst enemy.

This website above has received both praise for it’s incredible animation and criticism for the messaging being lost behind the sea of colour and visual movement. But is that really a bad thing?

Go back to the brief.

Here, this website is simply a holding page for the family company office. As the founding family of Nintendo, this is not the official Nintendo website. It’s not a place to sell products or communicate vital information to consumers.

It’s a branding exercise.

For over two-decades, Nintendo has been inspiring child-like wonder, digital immersion and engaging the curiosity of a generation of gamers. They’ve pushed boundaries in the digital realm and through graphic design applied in the gaming space, have created some of the most nostalgic characters and digital experiences of all time.

This website showcases the personality that has inspired all of this. A willingness to go against the grain and inject fun into the digital space at every turn.

While the fonts may not be easy to read, this message is received loud and clear.

Case in point is that brand will trump everything. Your express goal should not be to simply adhere to trends, but to express your key messages, brand personality and engage your intended viewer with an experience designed to meet them. Digital graphic design is one of the best tools in your design arsenal to do so and the innovations above are just some of the outlets through which you can bring your digital graphic design to life.

How will you shape your brand?

At Brave, graphic design is something we love. There are infinite possibilities when it comes to representing your brand graphically, influenced by your audience, your brand personality, products or services.

If you’re interested in exploring the potential in your brand, get in touch. At our UI UX design agency Auckland, we offer contemporary digital design and web design. From our Graphic Design Auckland agency and have helped clients throughout New Zealand bring their brands to life through design.

From digital marketing to mobile apps, web development, website design, brand campaigns and digital platforms, as well as user interface design and service design, our team based in Auckland are passionate about using these tools to create brands and help clients grow their businesses.

If you’re looking for Auckland agency design work to help you stand out, get in touch here to chat about how we can help.

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