Trends are a tool often misused
Chasing trends is a quick way to make your work feel outdated and like you designed for designers. Remember a couple weeks ago?
Trends come and go. It's easy to get caught up in the pursuit of the latest and greatest. Chasing trends is a quick way to make your work feel outdated and like you designed for designers. Remember a couple weeks ago?
Trends, by their very nature, are temporary and fleeting. Today's hot new design style is tomorrow's passé fad. If your work is solely based on chasing these trends, you'll find yourself in an endless loop of updating and revamping, never truly achieving timelessness or establishing a solid brand identity.
Instead, strive to create something that transcends the whims of the design world, something that remains relevant even as trends shift and evolve.
How do you do that?
Focus on what the thing you are designing needs to be first and foremost. Form should generally follow function. Focus on what your customers need and want. When you truly understand their pain points, you can create a product that not only looks good but also delivers real value. And in the end, that's what will make your product stand out.
That said... trends are a tool
By staying informed on emerging trends, you can gain insights into the evolving preferences and expectations of your target audience. If your product looks too off trend then you're battling against user expectations.
Designing something that's very trendy can also gain you some instant clout. If it feels right to your user, you've lowered a barrier to entry.
Trends also obviously serve as a source of inspiration, offering fresh perspectives and ideas that can be adapted or reinterpreted to create innovative solutions. Some things are trendy because they actually solve real problems. Learn from those solutions.
Where to get inspiration beyond trends
Art and design history are a well of inspiration. Not only will you find the ideas that influence how world class designers to this day think and work, but you will inevitably walk away with your own unique perspectives. Perspectives you love and hate. This allows you to better understand the context behind certain styles and aesthetics.
Why are Apple products the way they are? Dieter Rams.
Why was Dieter Rams's work the way it was? Bauhaus.
By learning from the past, you can identify patterns and draw inspiration from historical movements, which in turn can help you circumvent trends all together, making timeless work.
Alright, go design some rad stuff.