To stay up-to-date with the latest trends for the coming year, our in-house team of designers at VistaPrint, and 99designs by Vista’s global community of freelance graphic designers, have collated the most important trends for startups to look out for in 2025. So buckle up, you’re about to feel inspired.

Storytelling logos

After labouring over your company name, your logo can feel as if of secondary importance. But that couldn’t be further from the truth – a logo can tell customers just as much about your brand as the name does. One of the top logo trends for 2025 leans into adding subtle characters to logos, using bubbly fonts, bright colours and illustrative elements that nod to mascot design. Inspiration can be taken from brands like Pip & Nut, whose logo is made whimsical by the ‘P’ forming a squirrel tail. This gives the nut butter brand a characterful, memorable personality that customers can spot from afar on supermarket shelves.

Childlike etchings and hand-crafted textures

In response to the rise of AI, creatives and brands have identified that human, hand-crafted aesthetics will become more popular in graphic design this year. This is a reaction to the emergence of the synthetic feel of generative AI designs, where imperfect, hand-scrawled motifs will push back against flawless finishes, reminding us of the power of human creativity and artistry. This style can help create more personal connections between consumers and brands by leveraging hand-crafted designs that remind us of the humans behind the business.

Ella’s Kitchen, whose strawberry logo and name both appear to be scribbled by hand, is a brand that channels this trend for childlike wonder particularly well, giving customers a sense that the products continue to come directly from Ella herself. Continuing on the theme of playful and hand-crafted design, the company’s website design also embodies its open, child-centric brand philosophy through this trend. Floating images of fruit and vegetables make the page feel less static and more interactive, recalling the appearance of stickers on a notebook or scrapbook (or your walls). Meanwhile, the inclusion of sporadic doodles in the background make it feel as though Ella’s children have direct influence over the company and its branding, forging personal and emotional connection in a really successful way.

Handwriting and human hand-crafted elements don’t always have to be childish though, as seen in White Stuff’s logo, which uses hand drawn lettering to communicate an accessible, creative vibe but remains easily legible. Similarly, this logo design for production company Stern Bird combines playful, hand-drawn textures with a personality-infused design that targets a very different audience.  

Dynamism through colourful ‘scrollytelling’

Storytelling to communicate brand personality will continue to be key when it comes to graphic design in 2025, and is crucial for startups and disruptor brands looking to make their mark.

Digital bank Up has already been using some of 2025’s web design trends, namely that of ‘scrollytelling’ – a technique which stops visitors from scrolling past important information on a website and keeps them engaged. Newspapers and publications such as ProPublica and The New York Times have been successfully utilising this technique to increase the length of time readers spend on an article; the movement of both text and other visual elements is a highly effective way of keeping people’s attention on a page. It is an effective design approach for capturing and holding focus, especially as our fragmented concentration and the demands of the attention economy make it even harder for brands to engage their audiences.

Up also leverages a key colour trend for 2025, using a ‘hyperpop’ palette – unapologetically loud colours, including electric shades, pastels and metallic hues – throughout its website. The company’s canary yellow logo doubles as its mascot, making it easy to spot - it’s an added bonus that Dulux’s colour of the year for 2025 is canary yellow. The bright yellow is contrasted with pinks, blues and oranges, in varying shades and intensities. This contrast of bright neon with soft pastel colours is characteristic of a hyperpop palette, which relies on contrasts to draw and engage a customer’s eye. Much like other trends for 2025, it requires a brand being comfortable with a somewhat playful approach, as the saturated colours are undeniably youthful in tone.

2025 will be the year of the fun-loving brand: many of the trends our VistaPrint team has identified are ones that appeal to younger demographics and will lend themselves well to brands that are willing to lean into nostalgic, childlike joy. For companies interested in exploring these trends, you could start by incorporating one element at a time – even in your social content to start with. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing approach, so why not start playing around – whether with a la mode canary yellow, scrolling websites, or fonts straight out of the doodle pad – because 2025 is all about head-turning design.

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