The graphic trends you’ll want to bookmark for 2026

There’s a reason why old iPod Shuffle prices have been hiking up on eBay over the last year: they are what seems to be a very distant symbol of simplicity now. Whether part of the natural cycle of Gen Z becoming nostalgic for the cultural touchstones of their youth, or a sign that we are all digitally drained and looking for something altogether different to consume, the same spirit behind the resurgence of early-2000s tech showed up quite tangibly in our design work in 2025.

Approaches that counteract an increasing fatigue from current hyper-digital design processes continued to shape a layered, imperfect and naively analogue approach to work last year: a symptom of the many ways we might be pushing back against fast-moving tech. It’s as if we’re realising design work can’t be separated from the hands that make it – that’s why people are turning back to scanning, scrapbooking, collecting and collaging to make things feel mismatched where polish is otherwise making the work feel flat.

At the start of 2025 we reflected on the idea of the anti-trend, and this new stock-take for 2026 looks at five visual waves that still seem to be swelling in a similar space. But we’ve zoomed in on the formal details a bit more this year. Taking a closer look at five key areas that show up in many practices in graphic design today: typography, logo design, print, editorial design and image production, we’ve seen techniques that underline this emerging taste for a more mixed-media approach.

The reality is that our findings were quite widespread this time; work that’s passed through our platforms and our Instagram saved folders was diverse in concept, subject, purpose, and style. In pinning down our very own collection of trends you might want to bookmark for the year ahead, we’re also highlighting an overarching concept or process that’s welcomed a number of interesting approaches. This is not a strict forecast of what’s to come, instead, this breakdown of our year-long trend research at Insights for Forward Thinking is a reflection of how creatives are responding visually to our current times, and a few of the most exciting approaches that got caught in our net.

In Print: Make me a copy

Errors – like a soft layer of low-resolution grain or the surprise appearance of debris stuck to the platen glass – are unique embellishments that come as a free addition to your images when using a Xerox printer. These are quirks that made quite the design feature at the tail end of 2025.

With ties to punk, grunge and independent publishing, the humble home or office printer has seemingly been forgotten as techniques like Risograph have taken over the print scene in the last decade, giving us something raw and deliberately lo-fi in full colour. But we’ve seen a slow and deliberate return to pared down greyscale pages, adopting some of the more unpolished qualities of this everyday print technique as a statement of style: a raw gritty look that’s come back around again.

What we’re calling the *warning low ink* look was a defining feature of type designer Charlotte Rohde’s launch of Oficía Mono last year, showcased in an office-photocopier-style campaign for the typeface. It’s also shaped a number of brand identities – Louis Garella’s logo for electronic music duo Sonata Electronica, being one of them. Low ink coverage made the designer’s new brand mark appear as if it were shifting, dissolving (or dancing) as colour runs out.

The scrappy visible imperfections of the scanning bed were also adopted for How&How’s branding for Big Cartel, with a scrunched A4 printout that nods to the platform’s independent, DIY roots. This soft, flattened effect is even seeing photographers scanning their prints back in, for the nostalgic 1980s magazine feel that seemingly everyone is aiming for at present. Think of this trend as the print equivalent of the return to Y2K digi cams for photography.

As current AI image generators still struggle with authentically replicating the nuances of a layered, mixed-media style, we think that an overworked, scanned or heavily textured approach to image-making will only grow in 2026. The collage work of artists like Alice Isaac and Andrzej G’s is a perfect example of this kind of dense visual stacking, where compositions start with scans and cut-outs but they emerge into something much more dynamic digitally. Animation work like Tala Schlossberg’s makes the designers’ generic texture pack look dead, and scanning itself is becoming more experimental – designers, like Jacob Hutch, are taking things outside with this handheld number to capture things a sterile office photocopier could only dream of seeing.

In layout: Micrographics

The markings that sit on labels or the microscopic copy found on food packaging has always been a bit of a background texture – one that’s easy to ignore. Objectively, these designs don’t look very stylish; they are pure function over form, and “were never meant to look good”, according to content creator Brandon Wang. But we’ve seen what Brandon terms as “the aesthetics of technical information” cropping up a lot across the graphic design scene of late. More commonly referred to as micrographics, this utilitarian visual language is becoming somewhat of a centre piece in the designer’s page furniture.

Chemistry diagrams have popped up in billboard campaigns by Uncommon, packaging is being stamped with minimal metrics and some of the biggest sportswear brands are treating technical information like texture. Akin to industrial diagrams, data or blueprints, these miniature layouts are packed with symbols and typography that might be found imprinted on the underside of our tech items. But unlike the stamps that are hidden in the fabric of the everyday, designers are bringing these smaller textures and details to the fore.

Astrae Studio is big on the grids and symbols that make up this kind of page furniture. It’s an approach that has shaped campaigns for the likes of Nike but also its own identity for Astrae Sports, the studio’s new sportswear brand. An attention to everyday micro graphics that we might miss is something that also comes to the fore in Zak Jensen’s work – the art director zooms in on tiny details, like the typography printed on your bread-bag clip, and makes it the main event.

We think this hidden language of hyper functionality might just be at the start of something in 2026, not only as a visual element but an overarching vibe in graphic design. Work grounded in expertise is on the rise, and our corresponding visual systems are becoming suitably complex. Even branding projects are now including contract layouts as evidence of identity work.

Designers are adopting these tight typographic overlays, grids and timestamps as visual devices that imply technical depth and a more specialised knowledge in projects – that’s why we’ve seen this trend crop up in sports so much. There is sometimes more of a simple, practical advantage of working with more technical material in our compositions though. We’ve all been guilty of adding an extra line of type to a poster to balance out a layout, but, like anything, if extra details are being put in for the sake of it, they aren’t really operating at their best. These easter eggs can make us feel like the more we look the more we find, just like the surprise of tiny doodles that were once etched into circuit boards.