HAPPY COLORS
We saw a trend for using lots of different colors together last year, and it’s still happening. Those colors are strong—either bright and brilliant, or primary. Pink is still in. Orange is pretty much out, and brown has mysteriously disappeared. The real surprise is the number of entries in red, white and blue, and not for patriotic subjects, either. [10]

Meanwhile, yellow is sneaking IN. It’s showing up in small doses here and there, and I bet it’s going to grow. [11]

HIPPY PICTURES
The imagery displayed in art school catalogs last year suggested that we’d see a return to psychedelic art. And lo! Here it is—streamlined and updated, but definitely trippy stuff. Look at the swirling florals, the romantic, semi- Art-Nouveau ornament and the surreal juxtapositions. Kind of takes one back. We’d better check the art school catalogs again to see what to expect next year (only two are in this collection, so it’s hard to say). [12]

STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY
By contrast, photography is almost entirely straightforward. The awkward snapshot and rough journalistic styles are gone. Now the colors are natural, the focus is clear and with one notable exception (Lemon magazine) the shots are not staged. Last year, a lot of photography was staged, so this may be a reaction. [13]

VISUAL NARRATIVES
Knowing how popular anime and picture-based magazines are with the young ones, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more all-pictures/no-words narratives percolating up. In this year’s Design 100 there are only two such items, but you might want to take note of this trend if you’re working on youth projects. [14]

POSTERS! REAL LIVE POSTERS!
Posters are hard to pull off, and one doesn’t see a lot of really great ones. This year there were 23 winning entries—an unusually large number—with a core of pieces that follow the classic rules of poster design: They have clear concepts, bold shapes, powerful palettes, arresting imagery and they’re BIG. What’s interesting is the quality of two poster series for indie rock bands. Both are screen printed on heavy stock in perfect registration—clearly designed to be collected. Both use the kind of challenging imagery one expects in this genre, but without snickering crudely or sacrificing beauty. [15]

NOVELTY BOOKBINDING
Paper companies are giving us some very novel stocks, and designers are dipping into them. diseño: méxico uses a thick, rubbery cover. Teague’s 80th Anniversary book uses a plasticky, ribbed cover. There are lots of other fun book packaging tropes here, such not using a cover, leaving the stitching exposed and slipping the pages into a plastic sleeve; or not binding the book at all, folding oversized paper into a kind of signature for each section, and housing the works in a cardboard sleeve. As new materials are developed, more people will find ways of using them to confound expectations. [16]

STYLING
Almost all of the style vectors we’ve been watching since the ’90s—retro, industrial, trompe l’oeil (simulations of real objects) and ultra-minimalism— have died out. They’re like mere wisps of mist hanging about the perimeter of the field, rising and dispersing in the morning sun. That’s good, because the novelty of style-mining has long faded ... except, of course, when style mining is done for pure fun. [17]

CONCEPTS
There are concepts all over the place this year, and not just visual ones, either. We like this. We also like it that the concepts are not heavy handed or over the top, but sensible. A concept might be “use stories to bring a sense of history to Oriental carpets, and don’t forget to include something from Scheherazade.” It might be “when you’re dealing with food, you’re dealing with emotion.” It might be “collections are really collective knowledge.” It might also be just carrying through a theme, such as “espionage” … although that one is a bit over the top, who can resist it? [18]

SO WHAT DOES THIS TELL US ABOUT OURSELVES?
There seem to be two strands emerging in this year’s Design 100. One, based on horizontal emphasis, disciplined typography, black becoming black again, straight photography, unexaggerated concepts and the rejection of style mining suggests that we want to be firmly rooted in reality. The other, based on variations on themes, happy colors, hippy pictures, shimmering surfaces and novelty materials, suggests we’d rather get lost in fantasy.

We probably feel both of those things at the same time. The economy is steadily better, but the budget deficit is steadily worse. International politics are more contentious, but the international economy is pulling people and nations together. There have been a lot of scandals, but the evildoers are being brought to justice and a values backlash is gaining ground. Global warming is here, but green values are driving markets so strongly that green technology is attracting lots of venture capital. We have both profound worries and profound hopes.

As designers, you can choose which strand you want to encourage—but your clients will probably want you to go with hope. If you want to look at it philosophically, consider this: People who despair seldom go out and fix things. So I say, give them hope.