MASSACHUSETTS, USA — The Monotype Studio today released its annual Type Trends report, a comprehensive guide to how modern typography is helping to shape both culture and commerce. The 10 featured trends underscore how the intersection of an increasingly digital world and a period of prolonged “crappiness” and stress have influenced the ways in which typography is both designed and applied to brand experiences. Additionally, the report demonstrates how designers are quickly adopting bleeding-edge font technology to build beautiful text in emerging virtual environments.
“This is not our work, but it’s great work,” said Monotype Creative Type Director Charles Nix. “This year, we explicitly sought to connect these trends to the times in which we are living. That is, the environment, the pandemic, the warpage of time, the rapid adoption of digital everything, social media as a vehicle for social change, nostalgia, questioning truth, diversity, and unity, and of course, care for the self. The result is a celebration of the type industry as a whole, the art and the science that both reflects and contributes to driving our culture.”
Modern typography connects audiences with visual brand expression
Monotype’s type trends align with broader paradigm shifts that have appeared over the past 12 months, led by a changing relationship between brands and consumer audiences. Some of the themes include:
- Neue Nouveau is a trend with varying degrees of excess. On one end, there is type with organic lines and dramatic curves that speak to nature and biodiversity; at the other end, you’ll find legibility-challenging, psychedelic, flowy forms speaking to the push-pull of pandemic time. LBDO by Universal Favourite and Visionair by Studio Airport are among those featured for delivering a malleable voice through type.
- Thin, light serifs are in – again. Svelte Serifs are a slimmed down, sophisticated update on the bold, round, old-style serifs that were included under “soft-serve” in last year’s report. Collins’ work with Swiss type foundry Dinamo Typefaces for the San Francisco Symphony is a beautiful example of this trend come to life.
- Individuals, groups, and the culture at large are embracing inclusion in all its diverse, fluid, ambiguous glory. Mix-Up is typographic diversity, pairing multiple typeface styles in one identity to turn diversity into unity. Fast Company: Innovation by Design from Triboro, and Henkel by Interbrand are just two identities that prove our differences are what define us.
- While you were sleeping, everything came to life. Books started talking. Pictures in frames began moving and changing. Posters became animated 2-D surfaces. With Flux, type is hyper-kinetic, sometimes animated, sometimes variable, always moving. Studio Dumbar, MIDI by Pentagram, and Andrei Robu Studio help mark this 7-part trend.
- NFTs and now NF-Type, are a thing. NFTs are creating a murmur, a mumble, a warble about opportunity and how we might innovate the way fonts are licensed and distributed in a decentralized marketplace. Weird Whales by Obiwanbenobi via OpenSea, Brikfont by Craig Ward, and the Font DOT Community demonstrate how varied this category is and is becoming.
“The 2022 Type Trends Report represents our favorite work from the past 12-ish months,” added Monotype Creative Type Director, Phil Garnham. “We are most proud of this report not for what it will say about Monotype, but for what it says about the type industry: That it is exploding with talent from all reaches of the global economy, that it is evolving with the pace required of a modern world, and that brand expression is rightfully taking center stage in 2022 and beyond.”
For more information or to view the full 2022 Type Trends report, visit: https://www.monotype.com/type-trends.
Don’t miss out on our Type Trends 2022 webinar today (!) presented live by our Creative Type Directors, @chasnix and @PhilGarnham, Tuesday, March 1.
Click here to sign up to the webinar and download the full report: https://t.co/fjZxDVPSh4 pic.twitter.com/QLrgnFeFQ1
— Monotype. (@Monotype) March 1, 2022
