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2023 visual design trends guide
The rise of motion design, parallax, immersion, contrasting UI styles, imitations and more
Hello everyone. Welcome to my newest UI Design Trends Guide — it’s fourth year I’m covering already, so it became kind of a personal tradition for me. As always the 2023 edition is prepared in a similar manner — with thoughtful consideration that took a few weeks of thorough observation and gathering the most noteworthy examples of the following trends.
Important note: 99% of the examples provided are real products 😊!
Some trends stayed or evolved and clarified into something more specific. Some trends are (hopefully) gone for good. You will also find some old trends that are making a huge comeback in the industry.
Let’s start and have a good time reading ❤.
Motion Design
Motion design has become HUGE and you can probably see it everywhere. From micro-interactions to complex animations, UI is no longer a static thing — users expect it to visually “live and breathe.”
Because of Tiktok, Instagram and constant motion that the users consume on a daily basis, people’s attention span drops lower and lower. Some speculate we’re at a level of a goldfish right now, or even lower than that.
To keep users involved and curious, we need to use motion and try to put some life in static screens and images so they’re more immersive.
If you use Duolingo, you can clearly see that their recent update includes more animated illustrations and screen transition effects. Most of the UI components are one way or another interacting with the user through various visual effects. Something is happening on the screen almost all the time the user takes action.
While talking about motion, it’s impossible not to mention parallax effect.
Parallax is basically a set of different…
