In a little more than a month, we'll be saying goodbye to 2024 and welcoming the new year, so the time has come to take stock of everything that happened in the world in the last few months, analyze the current context and the paradigm shift, and start thinking about what is to come according to the trends identified globally. Depositphotos, a stock content library with 300+ million content files and a set AI-powered tools, is determined to anticipate the phenomena that we will be part of in the year that is about to begin and tell us about them before anyone else, and they have just presented their Creative Trends 2025 report.
Offering high-quality licensed files and helping professionals around the world realize their best projects, Depositphotos is a global authority in the analysis and prediction of trends in the field of design and creativity. We have previously featured on METAL the results of their very interesting reports, resulting from the analysis of data in collaboration with experts, studying where we came from, where we are, and where we are going in different areas of life, being a fundamental agent in trend analysis and forecast.
When we talked in this article about the creative trends for 2023 taken from their report, we highlighted the rise of anime and the Y2K nostalgia train, as well as an increased interest in hiking and camping aesthetics, among many others. Time proved them right, and we saw how these trends materialized in fashion campaigns, in the artwork of many visual artists, and in lots of music artists' lyrics. A few months later, we shared the conclusions drawn by this platform, which anticipated some of the trends that ended up defining 2024: a new wave of global interest in street aesthetics and the focus on workplaces that not only promote productivity but also make people feel happy.
2024 has been an important year in recent history. Loads of political, cultural, social, and economic events have happened all over the world, resulting in a changing era in which we've also noticed widespread polarization, the emergence of new ways of seeing the world and understanding reality, and deep questioning of society and the current context. But how have all these phenomena affected the creative industries? To answer this big question, Depositphotos, the world’s leading stock content platform, now releases its annual trends forecast, Creative Trends 2025: Elevated Perspectives.
Having been joined by many experts including Martin Zarian, Brand Builder & Co-founder at Factory 39 (Cyprus), Sam Wilkes, Creative Director at Vault49 (USA), Lucas Yu, Associate Creative Director at Superside (Portugal), Yoav Herstein, Vice President of Creative at Bria (Israel), Ez Blaine, Chief Creative Officer at Huge (USA), Tito Gouveia, Art Director at Leo Burnett (Portugal) and Macauley Johnson, Creative Director at Scholar (USA), Depositphotos examined key aesthetics, themes, and ideas for the next year, offering brands and content creators new insights to engage audiences and stand out more effectively. Their conclusions about the marketing and creativity landscape are not opinions coming from intuition but are the results of having analyzed search requests from over 41 million clients in a vast library of 300 million+ files.
The seven main trends for 2025 that the study reveals have been titled The New Contemporary, Cluttercore, Getting Sentimental, AI-fueled Art, Crafted Harmony, Embracing the Dark, and Look from Above. The report, which you can download here, shows that contemporary art, materialized through mixed media collage or surrealist painting, will increase its impact exponentially, becoming one of the star formats next year. Similarly, maximalism and eclecticism will continue to gain ground in 2025 through different artistic disciplines as a response to the current moment that the world is going through, catalyzing emotions, reflections, and concerns.
Trying to connect with emotion, going beyond rational decisions or consumer needs, feelings will take on greater prominence in the artistic and creative world in the coming months, and brands and campaigns will try to reach the unconscious by connecting in a closer and more intimate way with their audiences. As seen in recent times, interest in AI art will continue to increase, translating into the creation of unique images never seen before, experimenting with revolutionary tools, and shaping new universes full of identity and personality.
We should not ignore the Crafted Harmony trend included in the report, which refers to traditional arts and philosophies, such as Wabi-Sabi and Ikigai. These concepts and lifestyles induce calm and optimism in a turbulent time in the world, which inevitably causes despair, sadness, or worry in a large part of the population. And if we focus on the brands' communication, aesthetics such as gothic, dark baroque, punk, and post-apocalyptic will increase their presence.
The seventh trend identified in the Depositphotos report, Look from Above, perfectly condenses one of the most important attitudes that we will adopt worldwide in the coming year. “During times of rapid change in science, politics, technology, and other spheres, keeping an eye on the bigger picture helps provide better perspective and context,” the Depositphotos experts say. “Digging deeper, floating the audience above it all can be spiritual and freeing. It opens the door to surreal and hair-raising moments,” adds Macauley Johnson, Creative Director at Scholar.
If you want to learn more about all the trends identified by Depositphotos for 2025, you can download the Creative Trends 2025: Elevated Perspectives report here.
