0:00 If you're ever fighting Google or Pinterest to give you the exact design style you're looking for, you know how frustrating it is when it pops up something nowhere close to what you want. So, in this video, I want to give you 15 design styles along with some keywords, some key terms that you can use to find what you're looking for a lot faster. I'll also give you some defining core features for each of those styles, as well as some use cases that might make the most sense for each design style or trend. I did a previous video on 40 different design names, which you can also check out. I'm not going to repeat any of those in this video because my goal is to give you the ultimate library of design styles over time so that you can always come back. You can find exactly what you're looking
0:46 for. So, let's get started with a super fun one called Neorutiger Arrow. Very, very interesting key term. Neoriger Arrow appears to be a revival of the bubbly, techy, optimistic aesthetic from the early 2000s. So, think about those glossy buttons, gradients, clean sans sa fonts, and for whatever reason, a lot of sky and cloud imagery. It takes the clarity of Frutiger style type faces which by the way is named after Adrien Frutiger a Swiss type designer and it combines those fonts with a dreamy almost nostalgic digital feel. I think about it like retro futurism mixed with a hint of MySpace energy. Uh hey Frank coming out of my couch. Here are some core features of this
1:32 style you should keep in mind. light glossy gradients, blue skies mixed with water or chrome, airy soft lighting effects and transparency, sand serif typography, and floating elements like bubbles or clouds. Now, the use cases are always dependent on what kind of project you're making, obviously, but I would say that this style fits right at home with Y2K themed graphics, maybe startup branding that wants to be a little bit more edgy, posters or websites for internet or cultural projects, and also fashion lookbooks or album art. Okay, let's talk about a style I'm upset about. And I'm upset because I didn't know about it sooner. Shout out to Duda, our social media manager, for cluing me in on dark or
2:20 gothic academia. Yes, you can search either of those phrases in Pinterest. You're going to get exactly what you're looking for. Dark academia is moody. It's intellectual design, and it's a style inspired by that classic literature, European universities, vintage aesthetics. It fits with themes like mystery, melancholy, even romanticism, often featuring scenery like candle lit libraries, handwritten notes, illustrations, worn out leather, fabric textures calligraphy things like that. Think of it like a mix between old academic charm, and a bit of like brooding magical drama. You can also try searching dark magical academia to see what you come up with. Let's talk about the core features. We're going to
3:06 have muted warm colors like browns, dark greens, burgundy, serif fonts, or anything that suggests that classical typography. We're going to have vintage textures like parchment, tweed, leather, marble, ancient or magical symbolism is also used. So, think about the skulls, the books, candles, Greek statues. In design, this style works beautifully for book cover, stationery, journaling, any kind of stationary products like I just mentioned, lifestyle branding, maybe it leans more towards vintage or gothic aesthetics for your brand, even decor focused projects like posters or wall art, anything that you're looking to bring that oldworld charm. Whenever I have my speak easy that I've always dreamed of owning, I'm definitely going to put some designs like this up on the
3:51 wall. So, if you're hearing this and immediately you thought, "Oh, I wonder if there's like a light or a bright academia style," you would be correct. So, good for you. Give yourself two gold stars. Hey, we did it. Light academia is the brighter, more optimistic version of dark academia. It shares the love for knowledge, the arts, and the vintage style, but it replaces the gloom and doom with softer, lighter, brighter, pastel hues. And there is more of a sense of warmth and wonder. It's like studying poetry in a sunlit court full of beautiful flowers, which honestly sounds pretty awesome. Right now, similar to the features of dark academia, we are going to have light and airy color palettes. Think beige, cream,
4:38 soft yellows, we're going to have elegant serif fonts. Again, anything classical, anything in that cursive or calligraphic style, classical imagery. We're going to have flowers, books, handwritten notes, and more clean compositions with that soft, dreamy filter. It's perfect for anything educational or soft, romantic, maybe like journaling, maybe a lot of social assets, academic or reading related Instagram pages could use this. College group branding that wants to feel more dreamy, maybe printables for a book or a book club, anything maybe personal development as well. For you POD fanatics or Etsy sellers, this is probably a great style to try out. And if you're really into these two academic design styles, we have been working on design bundles in KD that compile the fonts assets colors imagery
5:24 everything else that you would need and it's in one project for you to start playing with. So if you want to use all that, everything I just said, you can check out those links down in the description. Let's talk about a style that is generally geared towards interior design, but it can influence your graphic design as well, and that is wabishabi. Also, just super fun to say, Wabishabi is a Japanese aesthetic that finds beauty in the imperfection and aging in nature. It's opposite of loud and flashy. This style is soft, earthy, very peaceful. Imagine cracked ceramic bowls, faded linen, cloth, quiet moments in a misty forest. Just that contemplative style. Wobbishabi is about creating a sense of slowing down, appreciating the handmade, appreciating the worn out, as well as symmetrical
6:10 design. Here's some key features of this style. Earthy organic color palettes. Think clay, mossy green, natural textures, stone, linen, wood grain. There's going to be minimalist layout to this. Irregular shapes, irregular spacing, an overall sense of imperfection and softness is what makes this design stand out. This is a great fit for sustainable product branding, minimalist packaging, or any kind of home or lifestyle content that leans into peaceful living. You'll also most likely see this in wellness or mindfulness apps, as well as interior design mood boards. And perhaps the brother to Wabishabi would be Japandi, which we've talked about in a previous video. Did a tutorial all about how to make that, including Japanese fonts. We
6:57 get a lot of requests for fonts that have Japanese characters, which we have in KD with all of the elements that you want to use. You can create a set of posters or something like that. So, I just wanted to mention it because it is pretty similar. You can find all that in the description. All right, let's heat things up a little bit with southwestern style. Go ahead, think about your cowboys, your horses, outlaws, cactus, desert, because this style pulls right from the American Southwest. You know, the deserts, cacti, everything. It's warm, rustic. It's always feels like it belongs under a blazing sun. You'll recognize it from these core features. We're going to have warm tones like terracotta, burnt orange, sandy, beige, turquoise. We're going to have textured backgrounds like stucco, worn leather. There's going to be some geometric
7:43 tribal patterns to this and some desert imagery obviously like cacti, sunrises, and horses, things like that. Fonts with a vintage or western folk vibe are very important here. It works perfectly for artisan product packaging. Boho inspired wedding invites, western theme restaurant menus, and as of late, a lot of apparel, a lot of t-shirts and tote bags. We actually did a video making this style in KD. You can check that out up in the cards or down below. Let's hit the open seas with our next design style, which is nautical. Yes, there was a lot of things I could have said for that, but I went with that. They ask you how you are, you just have to say that you're fine when you're not really fine. This one's been around forever, and it's exactly what it sounds like. Designs
8:28 inspired by nautical sea, nature, sailing culture, coastal living. It's crisp, it's fresh, it's timeless, and a lot of rope. There's rope textures, rope letters, rope everything around illustration. It's rope and knots and boat cleat. Now, think about old school tattoos mixed with beach town branding for a second. You can actually search nautical or tattoo together and you'll get more traditional sailor style graphics that you might also be looking for as well. So, think about adding those two key terms to your library. Here are some features of the nautical graphic design. We're going to have classical color schemes of navy blue, white, maybe a pop of red or salmon. We're going to have stripes, anchors, ropes, ship wheels, navigational icons, things like that. We're going to have
9:13 clean serif or handwritten or hand painted fonts, subtle textures like weathered wood, vintage maps. We're going to use this style for a beachy apparel brand, maybe seafood restaurants, coastal vacation brands, and decor that needs a breezy nautical vibe. Time to get a little clever with the Reebus design style. Now, Reebus is a visual word puzzle. It's when you replace parts of a word or phrase with a picture or an icon to get the point across. But you don't have to do that. You don't have to replace the word with an actual image. You can just add the icon or image in the midst of your typographic layout and it becomes playful. It becomes surprising. It's a great way to catch attention. Some of the defining features here are a mixture of letters and icons that combine to
10:01 form words. We're going to have bold layouts that encourage people to decode the message or to just capture their attention. We may have visual puns, conceptual word play. We're usually going to have a pretty clean and legible layout to this. And it's an awesome choice for magazine and book covers, just like the living with objects book that Graham talked about in a recent video. We're going to use this for branding campaigns with a smart or witty vibe. Maybe social media graphics that get people commenting and obviously posters and things like that. It's also great for merch, too, especially if you're trying to be clever or use oneliners. Okay, time for something you probably haven't heard of yet, and that is literal object design. You didn't hear about it because it's too [Laughter]
10:48 literal. This style of design often mimics a real life object like a boarding pass, a receipt, a file, a label, and it places it on a different object. It plays on nostalgia, familiarity. People love it because it's it's actually very unexpected, but relatable. And it's also important to note here that the literal object that I'm saying is the overall category. So, you're going to need to get creative with what you start searching to bring up the design inspo. Just think of stuff that already exists like ticket design, freight containers that you see, receipts, barcodes, and more of stuff like that that you can mix into your creative project. There are some core traits to this which are layouts that replicate the realworld form of the thing like tickets or labels. Textures that make it feel printed. Paper
11:35 creases, preferated edges, tape, fonts that match the object. So, a lot of monospace fonts might be used especially on receipts. And there are little real life details like the barcodes. I said stickers. There are little warning icons around things. Use this when you want your designs to stand out and be more tactile, especially for posters or packaging, maybe album art. A lot of merch, a lot of web design, and a somewhat adjacent design styles called utilitarian, which we did a video on that a while back if you're interested to learn how to make it yourself. All right, here's to a more personable and timeless style, which is trinket design. Trinket design is like dumping out your childhood toy box complete with your pins, your charms, your plastic figurines, and your random shiny stuff.
12:21 It's playful and very cluttered, but in a cute way, and it always feels like a sticker sheet that's been brought to life. Duda, our social media manager, actually did a deep dive on trinkets on her personal YouTube channel, and I would really encourage you to go check that out because it's all about why we need and love trinkets. So, that's down in the description for you as well. Now, here are some features that make this design style pop. Bright candy colored pallets, often on a white or plain background, chunky outlines, and simplified shapes around cutout objects. We're going to have lots of tiny floating objects and characters, and a playful collective vibe. So, you're going to want to think about pins, patches, gumball machine toys. It works perfectly for sticker packs, digital
13:06 merch, youth branding, fun product packaging, or even social media content that you want to post in order to evoke a nostalgic feel. Up next, we have a sleek and shiny style called glassmorphism. Glass morphism is a modern digital first style that makes your layout look like it's made of frosted or sometimes cut glass. You're going to see it a lot on apps and websites where things are blurry and glowy, which can feel super high tech. Some core features of this design style are blurry semi-transparent layers, soft drop shadows and glowing edges, bright gradients that peak through the glass, and clean minimal sands serif typography. This is your go-to style for
13:53 conference branding, UI designs, app dashboards, product landing pages, or ad campaigns that need to feel futuristic and clean. It's all about creating depth and layering without clutter. All right, time for some fancy letters with modular typography. Modular typography is when you construct letters from a set of repeating shapes like circles, squares, dots, lines, maybe other forms of organic shapes that repeat, and it feels like building blocks or building a puzzle. It's a great style when you want your type to look super custom and geometric. Here are some features that define this style. The letters will be made from a basic repeatable pattern. There may be a rigid or consistent grid
14:38 holding everything together. will often have abstract or futuristic looking layouts and a minimal color scheme with maximum structure. You're going to use it when you're designing a custom logo, website graphics, social media content, building a bold editorial headline, maybe crafting an album cover that feels a little bit more experimental, or when you're working on a tech or art brand that you want to look like it came from the future. And this is really, really cool. In KD, we actually have a ton of fonts like this. In our font panel, you can just search the word modular and all of the fonts in that style are going to pop up and show for you, ready to use. I've already made a project actually with some of my favorites in a project. So, you just going to bring me a birthday gift on my birthday? You can check that out in the description. Open it right up to those fonts for you to
15:24 use. Okay, let's go full internet core for a second with Receify. This style literally looks like a receipt and I honestly think it's brilliant. It's super clever. There's kind of two different forms that I've seen. One is the thin wispy pastel paper monospaced fonts mixed with the handwritten marker or scripts, dotted lines, barcode numbers. It gives it the more nostalgic diner looking feel. Maybe you've been looking for that. Now, the second one is an actual just white paper receipt you get when you check out at a grocery store or any other shop. Now, this became pretty popular when Spotify playlists turned into a receipt because Receify is actually a service provider. you can you can attach to your Spotify account. But now it's become more of a design language in its own right. So
16:10 here's what you can look for in the Receitify style. Monospaced fonts like a courier, black text on a white or off-white background, or the vintage ticket order paper with handwritten fonts or marker drawing. You're going to have visuals like barcodes, check boxes, timestamps, long narrow vertical layouts just like a real receipt would have. And I think this style is perfect for a lot of things, but a few things that come to my mind are playlist graphics, quirky t-shirt designs, sticker packs, coffee branding, restaurant branding might be nice, social media story posts for sure, and ironic branding projects that you want to have more of a niche or nostalgic feel. And if you're looking more specifically for that vintage
16:56 receipt style, you can actually try keywords like checklist graphics or affirmation design because those niche topics utilize this style quite a bit. Let's move to something a bit more vibrant with narrative neo brutalism design. Now, if you just search narrative design, you're probably not going to get anything that you're looking for. So, I've tacked on neo brutalism to it, which is a louder, raw, and textheavy design style that isn't trying to be pretty. It's trying to tell you something often in the case of story in terms of narrative, which is the topical design style. It mixes the hard-edged utilitarian vibes of brutalist design with storytelling energy that makes use in a lot of indie magazines or artistic book covers. Now,
17:43 we've seen the layouts be adapted to both website portfolio style and also literal package design, and it's a brilliant style to use because of the innate grid system. Most of the time, you're filling in boxes to create the overall composition, which is just like an even bigger box. Here are some visual markers for this. bold pastel colors, heavy use of sand serif type, grid lines, borders, and sharp boxy elements, and a focus on text and message instead of images or illustrations. You can use this style for your event posters, edgy editorial designs, your personal portfolios, or a louder branding project where the honesty, the impact of what you're saying is more important than designing something that's super flashy.
18:29 So, if you want to get really intense about your message, this might be the move for you. Let's soften things up now with modern nostalgia. This style blends retro design cues from the 70s and 80s packaging with '90s ads, vintage cassette tapes, polaroids, everything like that in a modern layout with digital polish on top. It's memorable, a little bit sentimental, and pretty much trending all of the time right now. Here are some key features. You're going to have retro inpired fonts mixed with modern sans serif fonts, color palettes that are borrowed from vintage print media. So, think about those muted colors. You're going to have subtle effects like halftones, really soft shadows, a lot of grain. Layouts will nod to the old style, but still feel
19:15 fresh and clean. And you're going to use probably vintage mock-ups like cassettes VHS CDs Polaroids anything like that. It's a perfect fit for lifestyle branding, throwback apparel, banners, cover art, podcast art, social media ads. I mean, the list goes on and on. Pinterest will actually reward you a lot by giving you quality images once you start clicking on something, scrolling, clicking. So, be cautious because before you know it, two hours are going to pass you by. All right, last but not least, let's talk about Swiss punk typography. This is what happens when clean, orderly, heavily gritted Swiss style goes rogue. Go stupid. You still have your sans serap fonts. You still have your grids.
20:01 You still have your cleanliness, but it's not as spaced out anymore. They've been rotated. They've been layered. They've been duplicated. And it is noisy on purpose. It's a bit of graphic design rebellion mixed with a special design touch. Here are some core traits. sans sa fonts that clash in terms of size and weight. You're going to have sharp contrast, a lot of black and white, occasionally a bold pop of color like red, blue, or green. You're going to have misaligned layouts on purpose, seemingly broken grids, and overlapping elements. It's going to have this cut and paste collage energy, almost like the DIY scrapbooking of cutout typography. This design is a favorite amongst poster designers. Experimental fashion lookbooks and magazines. bold
20:47 website branding or just when you want to make something that dares you to look twice. It's really messy, but in the best possible way. Okay, there's 15 more design styles for you to go investigate. But we've definitely got more. If there was a particular style you know about, you want me to talk about, drop a comment down below so I can add it to the list. Or maybe you could describe what you're looking for and I can help you out with the keywords or search terms you need to go use on Pinterest or Cosmos or another reference site. And if you haven't given KD a try yet, you can get started with a lot of the templates, a lot of fonts, a lot of assets based on the design styles I've mentioned in this video. You can always search for a style in our search bar. or you can look through our design bundles to find the
21:34 type, find the assets, find the style that you're looking for. These will save you so much time hunting because we've already got everything in one place for you to start your creative projects. And if you're keen on subscribing to KD, I've got a 25% discount code just for you down in the description. So, you can use that when you feel like you're ready. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel here so you don't miss as soon as I put out another design styles video just like this. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next one. [Music]
