2024 Typography Trends: unveiling the Top ten trends for Brand Design with Monotype’s 2024 Type Trends Report
Monotype, the renowned pioneer in typography and technology, has just unveiled its eagerly awaited Type Trends Report for 2024, marking its fourth consecutive year. This comprehensive analysis, meticulously put together by Monotype’s own Jordan Bell, Creative Type Designer, and Damien Collot, Creative Type Director, pinpoints ten groundbreaking trends within type and brand design. These trends are set to significantly influence the broader cultural landscape of 2024, featuring elements like AI-driven surrealism, a revival of ’90s and early 2000s rave and grunge aesthetics, alongside a resurgence of the timeless classic serif fonts. The report goes further to highlight the continuous inspiration drawn from music subculture nostalgia by type and brand designers, an element that consistently threads through this year’s identified trends and is vividly brought to life through the report’s imaginative art direction.
Jordan Bell of Monotype shares insights on the shift in typographic trends, noting a departure from the comforting, approachable fonts that gained popularity post-pandemic. In a time reminiscent of the digital simplicity before the rise of smartphones and AI, designers are gravitating back towards the heritage and familiarity of serif fonts, while also exploring creative avenues inspired by the music scenes of the ’90s and early 2000s, such as grunge, jungle, and early rave cultures.
The ten identified trends are artistically represented as vintage vinyl LP covers, linking each typographic trend with a corresponding music genre—ranging from jazz and reggae to ’90s hip hop, punk, and UK rave scenes. These imaginative vinyl cover artworks were crafted using Midjourney AI, embodying the juxtaposition between the nostalgia for the analogue era and the embrace of a new, AI-enhanced digital age.
Ibrahim Gharib, a Designer at Monotype who spearheaded the report’s art direction, remarked on the goal of illuminating the profound impact of music on typography. The aim was also to reflect how designers and brands are leveraging AI to discover innovative ways of being creative. The outcome is a visually engaging, nostalgic journey that ties modern design trends to cultural experiences of the past while navigating the present and future creative landscapes of 2024.
Monotype’s report delves into ten emerging trends, showcasing a fascinating blend of new technologies, like generative AI, which inspires surrealistic fonts, and designs that challenge conventional norms around legibility. It also highlights a counter-movement towards serif fonts, which evoke feelings of comfort, nostalgia, and heritage in an era of rapid transformation.
Included in this year’s trends are “Everythingallofthetime,” a maximalist and surrealistic approach inspired by the varied, chaotic potential of AI-generated art, and “Whatever,” which taps into ’90s nostalgia through styles ranging from grunge to pixelated graphics. “De-form” signifies a move away from uniformity and simplicity, embracing distorted, tightly packed typefaces that challenge conventional legibility. “Quirk” represents a trend where type surprises with unique details, balancing distinctiveness with familiarity. Lastly, “Return of the Serif” signifies a shift back to traditional, legacy-evoking serif fonts amid an increasingly complex and fast-paced world.
Damien Collot of Monotype reflects on the role of type in mirroring and influencing cultural dialogues, noting the 2024 Type Trends report’s exploration of how typography communicates cultural and global narratives in an era characterized by rapid innovation and societal shifts. This year’s trends suggest a creative epoch marked by the fusion of futuristic possibilities and nostalgic elements, potentially ushering in a new paradigm of creative expression.
Read the full 2024 Type Trends Report
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