The new year arrives like a harsh bathroom mirror: unforgiving, fluorescent, and deeply honest. Design, once again, is looking a little overfed. Bloated with concepts, puffed up with language, hungover on its own importance. January is not for reinvention; it’s for disposal. This is the moment to take a black bin bag to the studio and ask what, exactly, has been earning its keep. Spoiler: most of it hasn’t.
First into the bag is performative complexity. The sort that uses long words and unnecessarily elaborate systems to disguise the absence of a clear idea. Design that explains itself at length is usually apologising. If it needs a manifesto, a deck, and a fireside chat to make sense, it’s not sophisticated; it’s insecure. True confidence is concise. Anything else is just white noise.
Next up: trend-chasing disguised as insight. Every year comes with its approved look, language, and moral positioning. Designers rush to adopt it, brands follow, and suddenly everything feels the same while claiming to be different. Trends aren’t the enemy, but unexamined adoption is. If a trend doesn’t serve the core of what’s being communicated, it’s just decoration. Decoration ages quickly. Meaning lasts longer.
Then there’s trend compliance, that eager, slightly sweaty rush to look current. Approved colours, borrowed politics, fashionable restraint. All terribly correct, and utterly forgettable. Trends are useful in the way weather is useful – you acknowledge them, dress accordingly, and get on with your day. Building your work around them is how you end up with brands that feel dated before the ink is dry.
What’s worth keeping is surprisingly little: clear thinking, strong fundamentals, and the confidence to do less. Good typography still matters. Good hierarchy still matters. A point of view still matters. Things that worked before LinkedIn opinions and will work long after. Decluttering design isn’t about austerity or virtue; it’s about taste. And taste, inconveniently, can’t be downloaded. Throw the rest in the bin and start the year lighter, sharper, and marginally less full of it.
