10 Years Of Graphics: How Has Graphic Design Changed from 2010 to 2020?

The graphic design that is learned today has always roughly the same basic principles as 10, 20 or 30 years ago. But everything else has changed profoundly. In fact, technology greatly influences graphic design. A technological change leads to an immediate change in how a graphic designer works and in what are the things he creates. And in recent years, well, technology has changed. And a lot.

In early 2010 computers were not nearly as powerful as they are now, especially laptops. The software did not allow you to do what you can now do in two clicks.

But, in particular, at the beginning of 2010, smartphones, the real ones, were still few but began to spread.
All these things obviously led to chain reactions. More powerful mobile phones have led to new apps (10 years ago there was no Instagram, to say) and to new ways of communicating and creating elaborate graphics.

So let’s see, in detail, what in my opinion have been the most important changes in graphic design in the past 10 years.

First big change: the web that influences the graphics

The first two changes are the result of the same cause: the web, and its UI (User Interface), now influence the evolution of graphic design and not vice versa.

In the 90s and 2000s, at the dawn of the web, the first sites simply reproduced what were the principles of printed graphics. Just see what the first news sites looked like!

Today, however, the opposite happens much more often.

Do you want the demonstration? Ok, here are two examples, which are the first two most important changes in graphic design in the past 10 years.

1. With smartphones, everything has become responsive (from websites, to photographs, to videos, to logos)

Smartphones are probably the most influential technological change of the last ten years, perhaps the most important of the last 30 (i.e. since there is the internet that in my opinion is the most important in the history of humanity).

What it entailed was a revolution in the way we consume information and content: on relatively small screens. The problem, however, is that the same contents must also be able to be reproduced on huge screens like my 4K. Or on a laptop, or on a tablet or, in any case, on smartphones of a thousand sizes and different sizes.

Thus, responsive design has arrived and that is sites, images and other graphic elements that scale and adapt to various devices. If you visit Grafigata.com from a computer you see it in one way, if you visit it from a mobile in another.

And this also influenced the graphics! For example, companies that make logos have developed flexible brand identities, which vary according to the space they can occupy.

A lot of these “responsive” logos are seen on this site.

2. We went from skeuomorphism, to flat design to semi flat and material design

In the 90s and 2000s, web graphics reproduced reality. Graphical interfaces were made to remember things that were already known. The first graphics of the first iPhones were just like that. The eBook app reproduced a physical library with shelves, all app icons referred to the physical objects from which they originated. The radio app was a radio and so on.

And it was the most influential trend until 2011/2012. It has influenced illustration, web graphics, UI and even logo design. It was full of shiny, metallic or 3D-tinged logos.

Then came Flat Design. Minimalism. And all the app icons have become flat, 2D, abstract. Because now the mobile world and the web had become reality and no longer mimicked it.

Flat Design and its wave of extreme minimalism, almost too long, however, did not last long because in a few years it has been improved and transformed into what is currently the main trend: material design or semi-flat design. That is, a slightly more realistic flat design.

3. UX has arrived

The profession of the graphic designer in these 10 years has changed a lot. And at the same time new branches of design were born, such as UX Design, or the design of user experiences.

Not that the UX was born out of nowhere in the last 10 years, it is clear, we talk about it first with the terms of Usability. But surely it is only in recent years that it has become a well-defined and complete work sector.
But the most interesting thing is in my opinion to note how the principles and ways of working in UX, such as the use of data and tests, are changing the graphics itself.

For example, more and more large companies find more suitable graphic solutions by doing A / B tests (which is something that is done in UX, as well as in marketing).

Second big change: social communication
10 years ago we only used Facebook and we only used it “millennials”, of the generation that was 13/18 years old at the time. There is no need for me to tell you how much the digital world has changed in the meantime.
More platforms, more people online, more voices fighting for attention. And, well, obviously all this has radically changed the way we communicate and, therefore, to do graphics.

4. The graphics used, to do social media marketing

Until not so long ago, graphics were primarily about printing. Today it is no longer so.

A large slice of the graphics produced today (perhaps even 90%), is created to communicate online, on social networks.

Even crafts and agencies dedicated exclusively to that were born, such as the social media manager or in any case the designers who work exclusively on social networks.

This has mainly changed the way we conceive graphics: no longer in purely printable formats such as A4 but perhaps in formats suitable for social networks. Like the square (1: 1) or “portrait” (4: 5) format of Instagram.
The same designers communicate online and almost always work on digital, often losing or not acquiring skills related to printing.

5. The designers have social portfolios (Behance, Instagram, and Dribble)

If the paper portfolio is now almost completely outdated and used only in some long specific cases and almost more as a design habit, well, even the classic online portfolio on a website seems to be increasingly ignored.
In recent years, platforms such as Behance in particular have made the possibility of creating your own online portfolio much more accessible.

Together with Behance, other project sharing platforms (but not detailed case studies) were also born, such as Dribble. And, moreover, social networks such as Instagram are increasingly used as a portfolio of their works and as the cornerstone of their online communication.

All this has greatly changed the way we do graphics. There is much more sharing and much more interaction and collaboration between designers. And this in my opinion is good.

The downsides of this thing, however, are that designers tend to create projects that work for social media, for their audience, to take likes rather than projects that satisfy their customers.

6. More and more videos, more and more graphics in the videos

Videos, in recent years, have become increasingly popular thanks to the improvement of global internet connections and the solidity of platforms such as YouTube.

The consequence of this is that much more graphics are made for video and are therefore animated graphics.
In my opinion, in the next few years, we will see this even more, we are only at the beginning of it.

Third big change: more accessible resources
Designers today have the opportunity to access a quantity of resources, tools and information that would make a designer paler than I don’t say 30 or 40 years ago but just 10 years ago.

Let’s see some of the things that in my opinion have changed the accessibility to resources in recent years.

7. Adobe Creative Cloud becomes a subscription in 2011

The Adobe software are, by far, now as in 2010, plans to make graphics more widespread and used.
Before 2011, if you wanted to use them, you had to buy the single software license (or all the programs together) for several hundred euros. In one hit.

In 2011, Adobe changed everything by introducing the Creative Cloud subscription: a monthly payment to access all programs, constantly updated and improved year by year.

And this has changed the level of accessibility enormously. Because, now, even the most penniless student can afford them by spreading the spending month by month.

It is no coincidence, in fact, that from December 2009 to December 2019 the Adobe stock price has increased by about 799%. It was a phenomenal solution that changed the graphics.

8. Google Fonts launched in 2010

Often this event is underestimated but the fact that today anyone can use about 800 fonts for free, both online and offline, is not so obvious!

In 2010, in fact, Google launched the Google Fonts collection, which allowed one of the first 19 fonts made available to be used for free on its own site. And since those fonts were hosted on a Google library, the user who visited that site could see that font without having to have it installed on their computer. Then, in a few years, the number of fonts shot up to 800 today.

It was an epochal change in the history of typography which is often underestimated but which I consider very important.

9. Whole, huge, websites covered with files to download that you can easily use

Today we take it almost for granted: do you need a mockup, a font or a texture? Search on Google, download it for free and buy it and go.

But before it was not like that at all.
Over the past decade, sites have proliferated that gather hundreds of thousands of resources for designers. Whether they are graphic elements (mockups, fonts, patterns, brushes, etc.), plugins, tutorials or information guides.
Everything is within reach of a Google search. And it was perhaps the most tangible change for those who work with graphics every day.

Fourth big change: a global job market

The last big change that has happened in recent years is that the job market, not only in the design and graphics sector, has become global.

This has brought both positive and negative aspects. As always happens for any change.

Much has changed but the basic principles of Graphic Design are always the same?

In this article I talked to you about how much the graphics have changed in the last 10 years and it may seem to you that there is too much frenzy that it is impossible to keep up with all the news, trends and things that change.
In reality it is not true. Because the tools change, the ways in which you work or the technological supports that you use change but the basic principles of graphics always remain those.