In 90’s, skeuomorphic trend was picking up steam reaching a climax in mid-2000’s. Web 2.0 design elements were springing up, taking advantage of css; while UI elements sought transparency and blur (Windows Vista). That trend passed and then we had the whole Material design boom in 2012-2015, the entire web was sabotaged by Bootstrap. Color themes and palettes were very popular. Cookie-cut banners, slideshows, carousels, headers, etc. Post bootstrap world saw some radical shift in small circles: monospaced fonts, brutalism, vintage homage and low-res shenanigans whilst the mainstream design kept on drinking the material koolaid up until 2016.
Boom comes in Stripe with sleek blue-purple gradients, smooth animations, Bumla-lizing the entire fucking internet. It is 2019 and every new Saas service looks like Stripe, following trends like a mindless herd. The rest unfortunate (or unskilled to match Stripe standards) are still catching up with single page scrolling websites with full-width banners, stupid jumbotrons and loud obnoxious typography.
Traditional graphic design has largely been “solved” by the 1960’s - aka, the International style or the Swiss style for majority of needs. Of course you’re not gonna have Univers on a grunge band poster. For the curious, google some posters by Josef Muller-Brockmann from the 50’s - they still appear to be designed in 2019. That’s timelessness (or cynically put, blandness). He exemplified great understanding of contrast, scale and hierarchy in design to convey information. I recently watched Dieter Rams’ documentary and he is just completely disappointed by majority of design in the world. I am not a designer but I feel the same way. Rams’ design will never be “outdated” because his principles of design weren’t based on trends.
Let’s go Dark Themes! Also, next year is the death of jumbotrons. Mark my words.