The year 2021 has been a good one for design, specifically for graphic design. And with most consumers turning to online platforms for products and services because of the pandemic, good design has become an essential factor in business success.
Let’s look back at the best 2021 graphic design events that made a mark on the creative industry.
January
- Burger King’s Logo. Burger King changed its logo from a shiny blue-accented round to a more classic burger shape. Ironically enough, the fast-food giant switched to a more old-school look to appear more modern. And as for the colors, Burger King took out blue because, as they said, “there’s no blue food.”
- IDA Winner. The design industry welcomed the year with the 2020 International Design Awards (IDA) results. That said, one of the big winners is Ergo Characters by Logitech Europe S.A., which bagged the Graphic Design of the Year Award.
February
- Powerful campaign. To promote McDonald’s new home delivery services in the UK, they turned to Leo Burnett London to build them a graphic design campaign in 2021 that got the message across. As you can see on the image, the visuals were so powerful that it didn’t even have to mention the brand name. Talk about visual simplicity!
March
- Insights from a design icon. Austrian-born graphic designer and typographer extraordinaire Stefan Sagmeister sat down for an interview with reSITE’s Design and the City podcast. During the show, he talked about beauty in design and functional spaces. It was, indeed, an awesome episode for any creative.
April
- Inclusivity in animation. Soul, a computer-animated film written and directed by Pete Docter, won best Best Animated Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards. Aside from the Oscar nod, the film is also Pixar's first movie to feature an African-American hero.
- Piktochart’s new product. Piktochart, known for its all-in-one visual storytelling product for ventures, announced a new service. Alongside their web-based graphic design tool, the platform announced the launch of its new video editing feature.
May
- A’ Design Winners. The A’ Design Award & Competition announced the results of its 2020-2021 competition. And the winners included a lot of show-stopping graphic designs, including the Chinese Mooncake Packaging by Litete Brand Design. As seen on the image, the boxes offer the perfect mix of traditional and modern design. At the same time, it also displayed 2021 color trends.
- Crello’s new content library. Crello launched its very own royalty-free content library called Unlimited. As a result, their users could access more than a million photos, videos, and vector graphics without much effort.
June
- Adobe’s updates. Adobe announced its updates on its Creative Cloud apps – from Lightroom to Photoshop and Premiere Pro. The updates aimed to advance the firm’s move to bring more AI smarts, thus influencing 2021 graphic design and beyond.
- Apple Design Awards. Apple announced the winners of its 2021 Apple Design Awards. Some Visuals and Graphics winners include Loóna by Loóna Inc. of Belarus and Genshin Impact by miHoYo Limited of China.
July
- Update on a classic. Another 2021 graphic design milestone is that Campbell’s Soup Cans got a fresh redesign in fifty years. Though the new look doesn’t veer too far from the old one, it features a more modern logo font. It indeed looks newer compared to the design on Andy Warhol’s artwork!
August
- ABC’s flat logo. Joining the logo design trends of 2021 is ABC. Like most logo revamps, the commercial broadcast TV network did away with its previous 3D logo and, instead, settled for a flat look.
September
- Canva’s $40-billion valuation. Here’s one of the biggest 2021 graphic design news in startup circles. Australian design-collab platform Canva raised $200 million led by T. Rowe Price. As a result, the funding increased the startup’s valuation to $40 billion. In addition to that, the funding made Canva the world’s fifth most valuable startup.
- Squid Game Craze. The Korean survival drama became the most streamed series on Netflix, with 1.65 billion hours viewed in its first 28 days. As a result, elements of the elaborately-designed production made their way to 2021 design trends – from social media assets to business cards.
October
- Designbold folded. The Vietnamese startup once hoped to be the country’s next Flappy Bird, announced its closure. In a statement, the startup admitted that it faced a lot of problems in tech, tools, and the market.
- iF Design Award winners. iF Design Award announced its 2021 Packaging Design category winners. One of the iF Gold Awardees is the Dragon Rouge Coca-Cola Signature Mixers Creation, which reimagines Coke’s first glass bottle in 1899.
November
- Play announced $9.1 million. Play, a new startup that allows users to use mobile phones as a primary input device, raised $9.1 million, thus, allowing them to scale their team and develop new products, such as Play for iPad. The funding can affect the graphic design field and give creatives a way to experience the designs as they make them.
December
- Picsart to acquire DeepCraft. The graphic design unicorn announced its deal to purchase the research and dev firm, DeepCraft. The cash and stock deal can allow Picsart to improve not only the team’s skillset but also its tech. As a result, the added tech and skills can help the startup achieve its goal to focus more on videos in 2022.
- Pantone Color of the Year. Pantone announced the 2022 color of the year – the uplifting PANTONE 17-3938 or Very Peri. In fact, Panton says the bluish hue with a red undertone displays a “carefree confidence and a daring curiosity that animates our creative spirit.” That said, we can only expect the same description to apply to the graphic design trends of 2022.
