Transcripts
1. Intro: Are you ready to create artwork and designs that will become insanely popular and earn you passive income for months or years to come? That is completely possible, once you know how to key into trends. In this class you are going to learn my tried and true secrets for cashing in on what is soon to be popular using the powerful tool of trend forecasting. Once you know how to use this tool, you will unlock the power to create work that will rise to the cream of the crop. This class isn't just a lecture, it is hands on. You will receive actionable steps that you can start incorporating into your creative work ASAP in order to grow your audience, establish your brand as an authority, and make more money. My name is Cat COQUILLETTE and I am back for my 11th skill share class. Am an illustrator and designer and I use trend forecasting to create designs with mass appeal and high sales. In fact, my livelihood depends on it. I've been licensing my artwork since 2014 and I've sold over a million products with my designs on them. This is everything from arts Prince, and tapestries to apparel, home decor and, tech accessories. In fact, some of my individual bestsellers have earned me tens of thousands of dollars alone. Overall, my artwork earns me a six-figure income. So yeah, I am pretty dedicated to trend forecasting. This class is perfect for you if you are a visual creative, an artist, graphic designer, photographer, surface designer, illustrator, The Works. Trend forecasting is mostly associated with the fashion industry, but it trickles down to just about every sector of visual industries. You'll be focusing on identifying and predicting visual trends that you can use to grow your portfolio, stay relevance, and make money. In this class, you'll hone in on arts, design and, photography and explore methods to identifying trends related to all things visual. Color, substrates, typography, patterns, motifs, and more. You'll learn how to identify the next big thing. Throughout this class, you'll see many examples of trends that absolutely took off and spurred a massive retail spike. You're getting behind the scenes look at how I predict upcoming trends and how we incorporate them directly into my artwork and designs in order to increase my income. For me, staying relevant is crucial to my success as a creative business owner. I work with a huge variety of companies that rely on me to provide designs that will not only be relevant to their customers, but also have massive purchasing power. These are brands like Target, Urban Outfitters, HomeGoods, NORDSTROM, BED BATH & BEYOND and more. These companies count on me to give them On Trend Designs and I count on them to complete the purchase to their customers. Throughout this class, if you have any questions, you can post them in the discussion thread down below, and don't forget to follow me on skill share. Click the Follow button up top, and you'll be the first to know as soon as I launch a new course or have a big announcement to share with my students. You can also follow me on Instagram @catcoq to see my latest works in progress. Alright, it is time for you to learn how to become a trendsetter and predictor. After you sign up, I'll see you on the inside.
2. Why Trends Matter: Trends affect every industry. Arts, photography, web design, graphic design, product design, fashion, lifestyle, home decor. I'm just naming the visually creative ones. Having a solid understanding of consumer trends is absolutely vital in your brand's developments. It will be key to helping you succeed in business. If you want to strike commercial success with your artwork, designs, photography, or whatever, you'll want to consider what has mass appeal for a large audience. The best way to target this audience have an understanding of not just what your customers are into now, but what they're going to be demanding in the future, whether you realize it or not, we all make purchasing decisions based on trends. There's that scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep unleashes her epitaph on Anne Hathaway. It's when she's demonstrating that fashion isn't such a trivial thing. Anne is insinuating that fashion doesn't really affect her, and Meryl does something like pointing out that the blue sweater that Anne is wearing isn't just some offhand pick from her wardrobe that cerulean blue sweater actually started with an Oscar de la Renta collection of cerulean gowns, which sparked an onslaught of cerulean blue that infused itself into the fashion industry. Eventually that trends trickled down into some cheap wool sweater that Anne presumably fished out of the department store clearance bin. Anyway, Meryl Streep's point is that that blue wasn't chosen by Anne it was specifically selected for her by the trend setters of the fashion industry and represents millions of dollars and countless jobs. Now that you've got the rundown of Devil Wears Prada, I'm going to move on. My point is that whether we realize it or not, trends have a massive reach, and if you know how to tap into that, you can hitch a ride on the coattails of fads. They will earn you heaps of money for years to come. Now you understand why getting in on a trend early matters. You have a much longer runway to be appealing to customers. The earlier you get in on a trends, the longer you can milk it, all trends have a finite shelf time, so if you are lucky enough or strategic enough to tap into something, you're on the gravy train for months or years to come. For example, I painted these alpacas after a trip down to Peru. I painted them because surprise, I'm in South America. There's alpacas everywhere and I wanted to memorialize them with watercolors. Think of it like a souvenir for my time down in Peru. At this point, I was at the very beginning stages of my career as a commercial artist. I didn't really realize what impacts the single painting would have, but it absolutely blew up. Turns out, alpacas were just beginning to hit the scene as an insanely popular motif. You were just starting to see them on home decor items, kitchenware, wall arts, the works. I was dumb lucky enough to accidentally paint one of the hottest emerging trends of 2015. The results, those alpacas earned me about 25 percent of my overall income for the next several years. They still earn me a great chunk of money and are in the top ten of my entire portfolio of thousands of pieces of individual artwork. I have been able to ride this wave for years. It's all because I got in at the exact right time. I started promoting and selling that our work before the big peak of the alpacas trends. By doing so, I beat out a lot of the competitors. By mid 2016, alpacas were everywhere. But because I was early to the game, mine were noticed early on and I get a head start before everyone else. This is what I mean about being an early adapter. You'll have the advantage of standing out and not getting your work lost in an overly saturated market. This can give you a pretty hefty competitive advantage. When you can correctly identify what's in and what's not, you will stay ahead of your competitors. Another selling point for being on top of trends, it will help you sell your ideas to clients. When I present boards to my clients, I like to back them up with cold, hard strategic points. For example, if I'm sending a bunch of holiday concepts to a potential licensor, and I want them to carry these designs in their stores. I'll not only you show them my artwork available for licensing. In some instances, I'll also include research on up and coming color palettes, motifs that are projected to become popular in the upcoming future, or art styles that may be making a resurgence. These things are actually pretty easy to include in presentations. For example, I grab color palettes directly from New York Fashion Week. It makes my pitch so much stronger when I'm not just presenting them with my ideas, but I can back them up with strategy. Not only am I recommending this direction, but so are the market researchers. Arts might be subjective, but commercial or licensing is anything but. When I show my clients that I know what I'm talking about, they trust my insights, respect my strategy, and are ultimately more likely to buy in. All right, so now that you understand the importance of trends. They are not so trivial, if you harness the power of popularity, you can cash in big time. All right, let's move on to some of the concrete stuff. How to actually track trends.
3. How to Track Trends: Simply put, what's the most effective strategy for trends tracking? Look for patterns. I like to stay as in the "know" as I can manage, but that doesn't mean it needs to feel like work. I follow my favorite brands and creatives on social media. I read design and fashion blogs. I'm a sucker for window shopping and appreciating storefronts displays. On a side note, Simon Doonan is a legend. He's the creative ambassador for Barneys, and is a creative genius when it comes to storefront displays. In fact, he's pretty much the OG of window dressing. Simon is also a frequent contributor to the Moth, a storytelling podcast, and I highly recommend you check him out. His stories are self-deprecating, enlightening, relatable to all creatives out there and absolutely hilarious. Tangent over back to trend tracking. The point I'm trying to make here is to be observant and absorb as much as possible. Then pinpoint the patterns. For example, I'm searching through new editions on Anthropologie, and here's what I'm noticing. As I'm scrolling through the Anthropologie new arrivals for bedding, pillows and throws, I'm noticing a few similarities. One is this ocher yellow and teal palette seems to be popping up a lot in the fabrics. I'm also seeing a lot of plaid, especially in throw pillows and some of these throw blankets as well. Another pattern I'm catching is, there seems to be a lot of neutrals with one big pop of color as that power hue that holds it all together. There's been a few instances of animal prints and little animal motifs as well, especially with big jungle cats like leopards. Lastly, I'm noticing a lot of really delicate and refined florals, especially when they're printed very small and on bed sheets or pillows. By catching these patterns, it's really keying me into the indicators for what's on trend right now and what Anthropologie has really been highlighting in their collection. Top brands aren't just going to give away their valuable trend projections, but they will show you what they're thinking through other means. Take a look at Target Style's Instagram accounts. Sure, they're showcasing products that are sold at Target. But out of hundreds of thousands of products sold in Target stores, these are the select products they're making a decision to highlight. When you start to take it all in, you'll begin to notice some patterns. Trends may be constructs of our society, but they do have life-cycles. First, they're born, aka introduced by innovators and influencers. At this first level, they're purchased in small quantities at really high price points. This makes sense because a good chunk of trends will initially be introduced on the runway by the fashion powerhouses; Dior, Prada, Versace, Gucci, Chanel, Fendi, you get the jest. Price points are high at this level because the trendsetters are producing premium products. I want to throw an example out here. Let's take a look at leopard prints. Christian Dior is the first designer that's credited with introducing leopard prints to the masses. This was way back in 1947. Since then, the popularity of animal prints has risen and fallen countless times in the past 70 years. Season after season, fashion gurus predict the return of the leopard. Naturally, other brands will begin to adapt to this trend in order to remain relevant and appeal to the customer demands. This is when the trends life-cycle reaches its second stage. It begins to be mass produced on items with a more moderate selling points, which means it's more accessible to the everyday consumer. This is followed shortly by the plateau of the trends. It's no longer innovative or refreshing. Rather, it's starting to feel mundane and a little bit over saturated. This is when the decline begins. There's a boredom with the trend and the popularity has begun to wane; enter, crash and burn territory. If the trend is lucky, it will become a "classic" or an icon. Icons are great because they generally face a resurgence in the years to come, so you can always leverage it later. Anyway, rinse and repeat across nearly every high visibility fad out there. Beanie Babies, auto tuning songs, crocs, energy drinks, grills, Live Strong wristbands, low-rise jeans, Razor scooters, trucker hats, and I am just naming some of the top fads of the early 2000s. Reeling this back into trends tracking, let's talk micro-trends versus macro-trends. Macro-trends define and disrupt an industry. They tend to trickle down, last longer and inform what's coming in the next 2-5 years. Some examples of notable macro-trends are Cloud computing, social media, and urbanization. These are all examples of movements that aren't going away anytime soon. On the other hand, we have micro-trends. Micro-trends are more inclined to bubble up. Think avocado toast and matcha lattes, because they usually start from a really specific cultural context. They explode and then tend to disappear shortly thereafter. Think fidget spinners, they're specific and generally short-term, and they generally don't outlast macro-trends. You can capitalize on both, and I definitely do, but it's important to understand the differences between the two. Micro-trends have a short shelf life and a very noisy landscape. Macro-trends are altering the trajectory of our future. To wrap this lesson up, the single biggest factor that will help you predict upcoming trends, be observant and take note of patterns. If you're suddenly noticing a lot of camo prints across a variety of industries, it's safe to say that camo will absolutely be relevant in the months or years to come. Now, let's dive into some specifics. Starting with something basic, yet insanely impactful, color.
4. Color Trends: Color is one of those things that everyone has an opinion about and it's not such a trivial thing. Color shapes everything from our mood to the products we decide to purchase. For example, red commands attention and it creates a really powerful sense of urgency, which is why red is so commonly used on emergency exit signage and stop signs. On the other hand, green is a really relaxing color and is synonymous with health, which is why it's so commonly used on organic food packaging and health products. Every year, Pantone announces its self-proclaimed color of the year. Their selection process is anything bots objectives. The Pantone color team combs the globe, looking for all color influences. They dive into pop culture, film, design, fashion, popular travel destinations, socio-economic conditions, and much more. Ultimately, the color of the year the Pantone decides upon will have a massive impact on products and purchasing decisions made by consumers. This involves just about every industry, fashion, graphic design, home decor, products, industrial design, and more. Each year, Pantone's color of the year inspires hundreds of thousands of designs across the globe. Whether it's 2020s classic blue, 2014s radiant orchid, 2009s mimosa or 2016 when Pantone shook it up and introduced two colors of the year, rose quartz and serenity. That one really shook up the design community let me tell you, and Pantone isn't the only company that has say over color projections. New York Fashion Week publishes trend reports that guide you through the seasons most important color trends. These are the colors that we can expect to see on the New York runway as fashion designers introduce their new spring and summer collections. Again, when I put together a presentation for a client, I'll usually include the Pantone color of the year, as well as the New York Fashion Week color projections, especially when they're accompanying tones that are related to the work that I'm presenting. Other institutions also have a voice over color projections. Shutterstock uses search data to see what views their users are downloading most frequently. By compiling the pixel data and hex code they've discovered the colors that their customers can't get enough of and they catalog these colors into color trends every year. Colors absolutely have the power to convey a specific period of time, mood, or messaging. Take a look at millennial pink, which is arguably one of the most iconic colors of our decade. Pantone brought this color into the spotlight back in 2016 when it was co-named color of the year alongside serenity. Back then it was called Rose quartz and after that it started appearing everywhere. You saw it in Wes Anderson movies, Apple featured it on an iPhone color for the first time in 2015, millennial pink is on restaurant walls, home decor items, fashion products, plus all over Instagram and Tumbler. Some people call it Instagram pink. Just like millennial pink is evocative of the 2010s, other color palettes can provide a throwback to specific periods of time as well. When you see this color palette, you'll immediately associate it with the '60s. All those rich desert hues were everywhere, mid-century Helms, so just to emphasize, color forecasting is a vital part of the trend forecasting industry. It contributes to the massive market of product design and influences fashion, textile and accessory developments and more. Paint companies like Sherman Williams, Bear and PPG all throw their hats in the ring and make proclamations of what the upcoming years most popular hues will be. Even London-based trend forecasting service, WGSN reveals their annual color of the year and designs a full concept statement around it. Another great resource for color inspiration is Pinterest. I follow a lot of boards pertaining to art, design, color palettes, typography, branding, style the works. Every time I go to my main feed, I'm immersed in a lot of creativity all in one place. Pinterest is a wonderful resource for creative inspiration in general, but it's one of my absolute go to when it comes to finding color stories that I'm looking to incorporate into my new artwork. Here's an example of how I do this. I'll find a color palette that's resonating really well with my design. Pull it over into Photoshop and match the color palette of my new illustration with the one I found online. Now that you've got a handle on color trends and some of the sources from which they originate, you can look for opportunities to incorporate them into your creative work. Here's a good trick, if Pantone announces a color that you've already been incorporating into your artwork, leverage it. When Pantone heralded marsala as the color of the year back in 2015, I went through all of my existing uploads for Society 6 and added marsala as a keyword tag to my artwork that incorporated this hue. That way when the Society 6 curatorial team or anyone else searched this term, my work would be represented very well within the search results. I didn't have to create a bunch of new artwork just to fit the new color of the year. I used the artwork I already had, no point in reinventing the wheel. Work smarter, not harder. Here's your mini exercise for this lesson. I showed you how I use Pinterest to get color palette inspiration. Now I encourage you guys to try it out yourself. Choose an image or a group of images to inspire a color palettes. Here's a couple examples of mine. For the first, I chose a photo of a Moroccan courtyard wall to create this Mediterranean palettes. For the seconds, I found an image of a minimalist Scandinavian home decor interior and I used it to inspire this calm, neutral palettes. For another, I found this really cool art directed photo and I'm loving the pallets. Red and green are complimentary colors so seeing these pinks and fluorescent greens together is really catching my eye. I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys create plus the inspiration behind it. Let's move on to our next lesson.
5. Texture & Pattern Trends: If you were to ask me what the five most popular textures, substrates for patterns were in the last 10 years, this would be then in order of relevance. Chevron, cravings, marble, white faux fur throws, hammered copper or polished rose gold, animal prints or umbra or neon. Sorry guys, I could not decide between these last three. Textures, patterns, and substrates are often overlooked. Chances are they're usually intended to be fairly subtle and allow something else to take the spotlight. This could be the background in a product photoshoot, a surface behind a model or [inaudible] or the substrate and an interior space like wood or marble or tile. Let's take marble for example. You have seen it everywhere in the last five or six years on Instagram, interior design blogs stylized on products that hit the runway and is backdrops for still-life product shots. But it's rarely the centerpiece. It's typically just used as an accent, but just because it's not overpowering as a central motif, doesn't mean it's not overpowering in the industry. Texture and substrate trends might not be as sexy as something as iconic as the color tone millennial pink, or as memorable and viral as avocado toast. But they still adhere to trend cycles, just like everything else. You better believe that I leveraged texture, pattern and substrate trends with as much enthusiasm for potential as I do with every other visual category. What am I looking for? Once I identify it, how do I leverage high potential patterns, textures, and substrates? I'm going to answer the second question first. As a surface designer, I use patterns all the time. I incorporate patterns into designs for fabric, wallpaper, tapestries, products, apparel, accessories, and more. In fact, in the last year or so, my surface designs have started earning me more in royalties than single motif paintings. Patterns, no matter how innocuous they are, can have an insanely strong potential for customer sales. Let's talk through how it works exactly. As a surface designer, I create compelling visuals that are going to be applied to products to enhance their appearance. Surface designers like me create in patterns, illustrations, hand lettering and more. As you can see, my surface designs can be printed on just about any product: furniture, wallpaper, kitchenware, rolls of fabric, essentially, anything you could ever print a design on. I probably have that product available through one of my licensing partners. I consider my surface design work in a slightly different category than my original paintings, drawings, and illustrations. For me, at least, the way I approach surface design is by using repeat patterns and shapes. There doesn't necessarily have to be a strong messaging with the design. It's really just about being visually appealing. You buy this cute handheld from anthropology because it's gorgeous and resonates with your taste. Swinging back around to answer the question of what do I look for in circuits designs, patterns, textures, substrates, all of that. I'm looking for commercial viability. What types of textiles, patterns and textures are on the rise? I track this in a few different ways. One, Instagram. I've been mentioning Instagram a lot throughout this course. It's because it's such a right place for contents. Instagram is a visually centric platform, which means that it is packed with talented designers, artists, influencers, and trendsetters. For example, when it comes to tiles and mosaics, which is absolutely up there in terms of on trends surfaces, checkout, I have this thing with tiles. It's a novelty accounts created by architect Gabriela [inaudible]. Last time I checked, she had well over a 100,000 followers. For good reason, she showcases tile works from around the world with our own spin, always feet in selfies. Anyway, it's a great resource for finding interesting global geometrics, refined and playful color palettes, and lovely motifs. Definitely worth the follow. Anyway, after this surge of Moroccan Travel Photography a few years ago, mosaics absolutely blew up. You started seeing them as accents pieces and bathrooms, patios, kitchens and as flourishes on staircases and doorways. Tiles are a great example of a timeless aesthetic that has subsets. They gradually morph with popularity. Tiles are pretty much always relevant with the exact style itself will change. For example, Moroccan motifs were overtaken by Lily Pad tiling pretty much overnight, thanks to creative director Hamish Smith. He was inspired by patterns he found in nature, and his vision was adopted by pretty much every Instagram influencer out there who was revamping a bathroom. Speaking of pattern and substrate trends that pretty much evolved from one to another, let's take a look at terrazzo. A lot of huge trends don't necessarily just die off at the end of the season, but instead they sort of evolve. A great example of this is terrazzo. Terrazzo is a composite material that's made up chips of marble courts, granite, and glass. You're most likely to spot it on floors and on wall treatments. Anyways, so marble was absolutely everywhere in the 2010s. It was a great surface on which to style the products for photography, makeup, accessories, tech products, whatever else. You also saw it popping up across home decor products, interiors, furniture design, and hardware. The swirling texture of marble was also emulated on fabric, paper and, linens. Marble had absolutely blown up in the early 2010s, but instead of just fading out of relevance entirely, the trend began to morph into terrazzo. It's a similar aesthetic to marble, but distinct enough to inspire a new refreshed take on these slightly overdone gray veined marble. Terrazzo is sometimes referred to as maximalist marble, which I find pretty amusing. Anyway, I'm not telling you this to convince you to sell your marble shares and invest in terrazzo. Instead, I'm painting an example of how one trends massive success can evolve into a new and novel take on a tried and true classic. Marble into terrazzo, jungle greenery and to jungle cats, delicate cursive with florals into raunchy hand lettered quotes. Chevron patterns into a revival of ikat textiles. These are all examples of where the original trends didn't just die. They transformed into a refreshing take on the original success. Now that you've listened to my case studies. Let's talk about where to go to find inspiration for surfaces, textures, patterns, all that jazz. I like to take a look at what product photographers are using to set the scene for their shots. Remember when every single Instagram still-life, whether it was pink and land sea salts or product features, was shot on top of a fluffy white fur rug or blankets. That fluffy white blanket that every single instagramer had in her house. It was never the sole focus of the shots, but merely existed to create an environment for the hero product. This is what I'm talking about when I mentioned surfaces. I really pay attention when I'm at least swiping through products or brands that I love like ban.do. Ban.do is a brand that absolutely dominates the gifting space for millennials. They've got stationery, jewelry, accessories, apparel, home decor, and more. Anyway, their product photography is always a step ahead. If they're doing something like shooting their products on a knit surface or distressed wall, I take notes. Oftentimes, it's simply been observant like this that gets me my first insight into a new surface design trends. You can apply the same method to any brand that you follow. Just be conscious to put additional importance on the brands that share your same target audience. These are the brands that resonate most with your brands. For example, my brand's audience, primarily women interested in arts, design, and entrepreneurship, has a lot of overlap with Brit + CO, which is a lifestyle brand that highlights these same things. If Brit + CO is all over a particular trends like hand lettering positivity. I'm probably going to consider testing that out with my audience as well. But on the flip side, my audience doesn't really have a lot of overlap with John Deerers audience, so I don't really feel the need to pay attention to what top tractor accessories are on the market this season. To summarize this, be observant about what top brands in your industry are up to. They probably aren't going to just straight up announce that they're shooting all of their products on blush tones stucco walls this fall, but you will see evidence of that when they're look books come out. Don't just look at the main product. Look at how it is styled. What's the background substrates? What's the color? Are there any additional props like foliage or twigs? Are there intriguing arrangements around that hero product. Are there any interesting plays with shadow and light? Are their nods to be ingredients or flavors of the product? Be in-tune, pickup on patterns, and look for opportunities to incorporate these rising trends into your own creativity. Ready for the mini exercise? Here we go. Search the web, social media magazines, wherever for product photography. Here's the kicker. We don't really care about the product, but we're going to be laser focusing on the backgrounds and surfaces that are used in that product photography. Pull together a few examples of background or surface that you think is working exceptionally well and that you could see yourself incorporating into your own designs. Here's what I did. I started noticing a pattern where all natural beauty products were styled with shadows of tropical poms. I love this look. Not only is it a solution to highlight the all-natural elements of the product. But it's also cueing in with the tropical trends that you see every summer. I even have some paintings in my portfolio to reflect the same idea. I cannot wait to see what you notice as well. Let's move on to the next lesson.
6. Lettering Trends: All right, now let's talk lettering and typefaces. Creative fonts not only carry a message, but they can have a strong visual impact as well. Typefaces can evoke emotion, expressed nostalgia, they can make you laugh, shiver, and everything in between. Just like every other visual we're talking about today, fonts absolutely adhere to trends cycles. When you look at this design, you immediately think of retro 1960's throwbacks. Same with this Art Nouveau inspired style. It draws inspiration from smooth forms and elegant curviness,aka it belongs on him UCA piece and definitely has a period of time associated with it. Just like the 1960's had retro hand lettering and the 1890's had a modern style Art Nouveau typeface, today's typefaces also rise and fall in popularity. Similar to with colors, motifs, and patterns, there isn't just one style that reigned supreme and topography. Instead, there is a lot going on in the type world at all ends of the spectrum, from hand lettering to typefaces to 3 D custom renderings. There are a ton of visual directions, and there are a few ways that I like to stay up-to-date with the top trends and typography and lettering. I follow my favorite lettering artists and designers on social media, especially Instagram. If you're looking for typography insights, Instagram is a great resource. Pretty much all of the top designers and agencies out there have a social media presence and Instagram is usually the preference. It's visual, it's constantly updated with new contents, and it's a great way to communicate, network, and share with other creatives. If you want to check out experimental typography, head over to Becca Clason's page. She's one of the best resources out there for tactile lettering and stop motion. It's pretty inspiring stuff. She uses all sorts of materials to construct her messaging. Food, ingredients, candy, cut paper, icing, vegetables, toothpaste, sands, flowers, honey, even punch bowls. In the world of experimental typography, she's absolutely killing it. She's a great resource for seeing what the newest designs and experimental typography are looking like. If you're looking for more traditional typeface inspiration on Instagram, I've got you covered there as well. I loved the topography works of Louise Fili. Not only does she post process shots of identity she's currently designing, but she also shares snapshots of where she finds her typography inspiration, which is usually storefronts, vintage packaging, and retro find from antique shops. Her typography design style is incredibly refined, elegance and timeless. She draws inspiration from her love of Italy, modernism and Art Deco styles, giving her type families a distinct air of early 1960's aesthetics. All of this makes her stand out as a typographer. When you see the typefaces she creates, you know it's hers. She is an industry leader. When it comes to post-modern, returned to historical type styles. She modernized as her typefaces with on-trend color palettes and compositions which make her work relevant to today's trends, especially since postmodernism is on the rise. All right, it's a few more lettering artists and typographers to take note of. These are the designers that are on fire and setting trends across their industry. Jessica Hische, she pioneered her signature style of delicate script calligraphy and sophisticated hand lettering, which has been emulated by creatives all over the world. Chances are you've seen her work in the world. She worked with Wes Anderson to design the title sequence for Moonrise Kingdom. She's also collaborated with Adobe, Hershey's Facebook, Victoria Secret, Old Navy, the list goes on and on. Point is, she's a trendsetter with typography that's worth paying attention to. For some more unique lettering inspiration, check out the Lettering Bug London. It's an account filled with beautifully intricate and color popping dropped caps, all hand painted. All right, some other notable typographers and hand letters to follow on Instagram. Gemma O'Brien @mrs.ags101, Lorin Home @sweethome. Jessica Walsh @jessicaviewwalsh. Eric Motivic @ericmotivic, [inaudible] Timothy Goodman @timothygoodman. For variety, checkout curatorial accounts, these are Instagram accounts that aren't just the works of one designer, but a collection of various types of designs by notable designers all over the world. Good type is a classic. This curatorial account has over a million followers and showcases type and lettering and examples from a huge selection of global designers. Not only is there a ton of variety, but you're seeing design work that is getting churned out right this moments. The pieces are relevance, usually brand spanking new and vetted by a team of experts. In addition to tracking top lettering trends at the source, aka the type designers that are making them. You can also get a pretty solid glimpse by observing consumer facing companies like Nike, Coca-Cola, Google, and Disney. These brands all pay top $ for design agencies to design the best of the best in terms of marketing and branding. They all use typography and lettering in their materials. Take note of how they're doing it. What typefaces are they using? How are they designing their compositions? Are here any fonts that are using that you could start incorporating into your own work. Fun story. When Airbnb launched their animal experiences, my first thought was, holy crap, I can go have a draft while helping socialize a rescue dog or play with baby goats in Colorado, but my second thought was, what is this typeface that are using? It is awesome, and you better believe I started incorporating that record data into my design work. Side note here, if you find a cool typeface like this out in the wild and you want to identify it. There are a lot of resources out there to help you out. I used the WhatFont, it is an extension for Chrome. But this only identifies web fonts that are HTML. If it's a flattened image. I'll take a screenshot and upload it to WhatTheFont or the Font Squirrel Matcherator. All right, I'm going to end this lesson with a streaming observation of fonts trends that have either already taken off or they're still at early stages of popularity. High contrast serifs. These are reminiscent of high-fashion think Vogue, but we're now seeing applications of them and a wider variety of industries. These typefaces are dramatic, fancy, and are packed with a lot of personality. Outlines and Inlines. They're modern, mature and feel a little bit industrial. I see a lot of these on branding for craft beers and cold brews. 3D rendered fonts. When Jessica Walsh split from side Mr. Walsh to create her own agency, she rocked the design world, not just with this news, but also with a bold and futuristic branding ever new agency, her team designed 3D renderings of the new logo and surreal and striking environments. Since then, designers had been distorting, stretching, bending, and swirling their designs to create these compelling 3D effects on their typography. Fonts with rough and messy forms. Especially if they feel hand created, not digital. Nostalgic and vintage inspired fonts. It's pretty much a given that if you use a vintage fonts, your product is going to look more elegant and serious. Personally, I love seeing the resurgence of bold, intricate, and jazzed up classics with modern applications. Last but not least, the polar opposite of intricate vintage, minimal Sans Serif. There's simple and easy to work with, and even though they're not packed within your face personality, they can still be powerful when used well. I like it when they're used in an eerie composition with some room to breathe. I wanted to end this lesson with a resource that I use all the time when I'm looking for really on trend and intriguing fonts to download. Check out lost type of foundry. Lost type is the first of its kind. It's a pay what you want to type foundry and it's been around for nearly ten years. It's a really great resource for unique typefaces designed by contributors from all over the world. It's a pay what you want to model. So it's up to you to determine how much you think a particular typefaces worth. A 100 percent of the funds from sales of these fonts go directly to the respective designers. All right, mini exercise time. I encourage you guys to pull screenshots of typefaces that you're noticing right now that are appealing to you and typefaces you can see yourself incorporating into your own work. If you want to go an extra step, upload your screenshot to a font identifier like what the fonts. If it's an actual typeface and not something hand lettered or hand created, you have a really good chance of identifying it. For example, I'm loving the minimalists look of this sensor of typeface on the Gucci website. I'm simply going to screenshot it and then upload the screenshot to WhatTheFonts. That gave me a pretty immediate match its future. Have you spotted a typeface or fonts and the wilds that you'd like to identify. Give this a try and see where you net outs. All right, time for our next lesson.
7. Motif Trends: First things first, what do I mean by motif trends? I'm talking about iconic images, subject matter, and overarching concepts that can be applied visually. Some examples of motif trends that really took off in the past few years. Pineapples, succulents, and cactus motifs, jungle scapes, and tropical foliage, rainbows, SAP Lisa Frank throwback. Other 90s, nostalgia like boomboxes, mix tapes, and vapor wave aesthetics, woodland animals like owls and foxes, and specific social activism, movements like girl power and environmental awareness. I mentioned, Alpaca as before, and they're a great example of a popular motif, as our social movements. One is simple and straight forward, the other represents social disruption and protests for change. But one thing Alpacas and activism do have in common is that they can both be woven into visual representations and then commercialized. If you shop in anthropology, you can buy both Alpaca Lamps and feminist playing cards. I don't mean to sound class or dismissive of social movements. I'm just trying to paint a picture of how any concept can be turned around into a popular trends, whether it's acute animal or a significant social movements, they can both be highly relevance and commercially lucrative and today's culture. How do you track motif trends? I know I've mentioned this, but I really want to hammer it in. One of the best ways to understand and predict trends is to pay attention to what's out there right now. Take it all in, look for repetition and then connect the dots. For example, remember when the internet became obsessed with avocado toast, it was more than just a tasty snack. It represented the downfall of millennial budgeting capabilities across the nation. It all started with the interview of Australian billionaire Tim Garner. He made an off-hand reflection of the younger generation, stating, "When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn't trying to buy smashed avocado for $19 and four copies at four bucks a pop?" His quote went viral and the sarcastic stereotype was born, Millennials should stop spending money on trivial things and start budgeting practically, everyone was polarized. The results, you started seeing avocado motifs everywhere. It was a great opportunity to mine in on a pop culture phenomenon that either triggered you, made you roll your eyes or burst out laughing, Whatever your reaction avocados were relevance and retailers, influencers, and trendsetters cashed in on this movements. You could find avocado socks, avocado dish towels, avocado face serums, avocado mugs, tape, key chains, jewelry, even USBs and novelty throw pillows and yes, I was right there with them. I hand painted a series of avocado slices and offer them up to all of my retail partners. They got snatched up and sales spiked. My avocado art prints even wound up in Target stores. How's that for a season or rising trends? Back to tracking potentially lucrative motifs and trends, the avocado toast thing went viral overnight, but so have a lot of other trends. Remember what I was saying earlier about micro-trends? Avocado toast is a perfect example, and so are a lot of other topics that go viral. They explode seemingly overnight and they start to disappear afterwards. In the same context as viral trends, phrases also seem to jump out from time to time and gain a lot of exposure. There's OK Boomer, the catchphrase that internet mean they gained popularity by millennials to mock the baby Boomer generation. If you get on Amazon and search, OK Boomer, you're going to see a lot of products all created by individuals and companies that are attempting to capitalize on this surely short-lived statements. Other catchphrases that similarly took off Bichon, thanks to Stranger Things. Not today's Satan from the show Ru Paul's drag race. That's so fetch from Mean Girls and an older throwback. Oh my god, Becky, thanks to Sir, makes lots of baby got back. These phrases all come from pop culture, movies, television, news, and the Internet. Careful here if you're planning on commercializing off of this, a lot of these phrases come backed with copyright protection. So the point is, things that go viral have the potential to be leveraged commercially and we've seen it with all of the above. But what else? I also gather trending motif inspiration from fashion and lifestyle brands. If I'm trends tracking, I'm specifically looking at brands that have a lot of motifs or icons in their product selection, made well is a lovely brands and it has great denim, but their clothing is fairly minimal and simple, so not a lot of good opportunities for finding rising motif trends. However, then there's Mod Cloth. It's another retail clothing brands also aimed at that same audience, but their products are loaded with patterns, playful illustrations, bright color palettes, and relatable quotes and phrases. In other words, ModCloth is a great inspiration for me when I'm looking for a motif trends that they even have a selection called Now trending. Not all of these categories or relevance to me as a surface designer and illustrator, but I can still scrape up some inspiration in terms of color palettes, overall themes, and pattern mixing ideas. Here's a good tip. If you're specifically searching for motif inspiration, check out the gifts section of retail browns. This will give you the most hits on physical motif trends. For example, we're already on ModCloth, so let's take a look at their gifts section. It's loaded with literal motifs. Slots, dinosaurs, turtle shell surfaces, jungle cats, animal prints, unicorns, cats. Basically all of these motifs are really strong sellers and they wouldn't be up there if they weren't so many exercise time. Check out your favorite brand for fashion clothes, accessories or whatever, and look for patterns within their products. For example, I'm going to pull up ModCloth again. As I showed you earlier, I'm going to scroll down on ModCloth, and I saw all of those repeat motifs. Dinosaurs, cats, slots, bumblebees, unicorns, and you get the just, these are all cues into popular motifs and I could consider gathering inspiration from one or more of these to start incorporating into my own artwork. Actually, I already have and surprise, surprise this bumblebee has brought in a lot of strong sales for me. Now that we've got a good handle on motif trends, let's dive into trends tracking tools that will help you pinpoint the next big thing.
8. Trend-Tracking Tools: Throughout this class, I have spent a bunch of time talking about being observant and pinpointing patterns as a method for tracking trends. But there are also a ton of outlets out there specifically designed as trends tracking tools. Some are better than others, and some will apply to your industry better than others as well. So today, I'm going to walk you through the platforms that I currently use for tracking and understanding trends. Google Trends is an insanely powerful tool. That's pretty understandable since it harnesses all the data from the biggest search engine on Earth. Here's how it works. You can see what searches are currently trending on Google, then dig into the specific topic for more information. For example, I'm searching digital nomad. I picked that term because that's pretty much what I am. I travel the world full-time, working off my laptop as I go. Scrolling down, you can see how popular this phrase was over time, plus interest by region. You can see related topics, as well as related searches. I'm going to do one more. Let's try Halloween. Cool, that data makes sense. It's really only trending during October. It's fairly even spread in popularity across the US, and it has related topics that also make sense. If you stick to the front page of Google Trends, you can scroll down to see the most popular search engine inquiries, at this very moment. Google Trends is awesome for overarching trends. But what about trends specifically related to creative industries? Enter Trend Hunter. Trend Hunter proclaims itself to be the world's largest, most popular trends community. They leverage big data, human researchers, and AI to identify consumer insights and deep-dive opportunities for the world's most innovative companies. But do take notes. Trend Hunter primarily operates as a paid subscription service. Their clients; Samsung, Kellogg's, Crayola, are all paying for their premium customized service. Still, I don't pay for their subscription. I just browse through their free content, and so far it suited me just fine. Trend Hunter categorizes pretty efficiently, so you can filter by design specific trends as well. It covers interiors, architecture, products, design, and more. Some other platforms that are pretty similar to Trend Hunter; Cool Hunting, Topsy, and trend watching. These large trend tracking platforms span multiple industries, from finance and tech developments, to culture and education. They're great for keying into large-scale change. But a lot of the time, I'm simply looking for design inspiration that I can incorporate into my artwork. For that, I get trend reports right from the source. It's becoming more and more common for companies that sell art like Society6, to send out frequent trend reports to their contributing artists. It's in everyone's best interests. Society6 wants to have relevant and on-trend designs to sell to their customers, and artists want to create work that has strong purchasing potential because we want to make money. Here's how it works. For example, with Society6. They have an entire section of their blog dedicated to artist's education. It's a fantastic resource all around for a lot of different reasons. Every month or so, they publish their findings and predictions for what types of artwork and designs their customers will be heavily demanding in the months to follow. It's fantastic. They show you examples of motifs that are on the rise, high demands color palettes, and themes that are likely to really take off in the coming months and more. As an artist who sells a lot of products through Society6, this is an insanely valuable resource. This is just one example of a print on demand company that sends out trend reports to their licenses. I also received trend reports from Redbubble as well as the brands that I work with, like Creative Co-Op, Targets, ModCloth, HomeGoods, and more. I love receiving these, because not only does it give me a heads up of what my licensors are looking for, but it also informs me of what I can expect to see expanding out across the entire industry. Industry leaders also publish their own trend forecasts, usually in January when everyone is searching for what the upcoming trends are going to be for the year. Stock companies like Shutterstock, Adobe, Getty, iStock, and Dreamstime, all prophesies what they believe will take over in the year to come, and you've got to give it to them. Their data is based off of hundreds of thousands of individual downloads and interactions. So if their algorithm is solid, and it usually is for these big players, then these guys absolutely know what they're talking about. Let's take a peek at Shutterstock. Since they're arguably one of the largest stock photo companies with over 70 million assets. Every year, they announce the upcoming years colored trends. To discover exactly what colors are on the rise, they sort through their customer downloads and analyze hundreds of billions of pixel data from these images. They map the pixels to the closest named hex code, and from that, they deduce which colors have the greatest growth between last year and this year. It's a pretty technical system, and it's not quite the same as Pantone's approach to trend forecasting, which is a little bit more subjective. Remember, they send out teams to calm the globe for color influences and pop-culture film, art design, fashion, and more. But it's always good to get your information from more than one source. Pantone maybe the color industry leader, but other companies all have things to offer as well. Especially a brand as influential as Shutterstock. A couple more tricks and tools I use to predict trends. I prioritize identifying trends in my industry, AKA art licensing and surface design. One of the platforms that I sell my artwork through is Society6, and I do quite well there. I'm among their top one percent earners. One of the coolest things about Society6, you can filter all their artwork by popular, and this little feature is absolute gold. It allows me, an artist and content creator, to see what designs are absolutely killing it on Society6. Because my audience doesn't just align with Society6's, it is Society6's audience, this is insanely valuable information. So I can use these same methods for picking up repetition and patterns, and apply it to the new artwork that I'm producing now. Next up, I'm going to dive into the blogs and brands that I personally follow for trend tracking inspiration.
9. Brands & Blogs to Follow: All right, this is a fun lesson. This is where I show you all of the influential brands, blogs, designers, and creatives out there that I follow to cue into what's relevant right now and what is soon to be on fire. First things first, everybody knows I'm a big believer in community over competition, so I'm going to walk you through some of my absolute favorite artists out there right now on Instagram. First up, Charly Clements. Charly primarily uses procreate on her iPad to design her illustrations and fun fact, Charly is also a top teacher on Skillshare, and she teaches one of my favorite classes, fun with faces. Another fun fact, she also lives right here in Chiang Mai, Thailand, actually just a few blocks this way and the two of us get coffee from time to time. Charly you're awesome. All right, moving on. I also love following Natasha Martin. She's the founder of a creative still-life photography studio, and her photos are absolutely stunning. She's another great resource for color inspiration, composition ideas, and seeing how she adds her own unique and colorful twist on flat lay photography. Ann Shen is one of my favorite bad girl illustrators. Her hand painted style is delicate, girly and bursting with color. One of my favorite parts about her Instagram is all of the behind the scenes moments where she captures glimpses of her everyday experiences. Hunting for vintage treasures, strung seashells on a tropical vacation or retro wallpaper from a diner. Ann is also the author and illustrator of Bad Girls Throughout History and Legendary Ladies. Those titles alone tell you that she's a pretty cool lady. Lauren Hom. This lady isn't just a lettering artist. She's a marketing genius, educator, and successful entrepreneur, all wrapped up into one package. She does incredible things with hand lettering to be sure but she also posts a lot of her process work, which I absolutely love. It allows you to see the behind the scenes of how she constructs her compositions. Plus, her captions are hilarious. Jonathan Adler. Okay, this one isn't exactly a small independent artist. Jonathan Adler is a powerhouse of a namesake brand. The Jonathan Adler brand isn't just aware of trends, they define them. The reason I follow them, even though my industry is not pottery, furniture, or product design in general, is because it's always a good idea to see what similar industries are up to if they have any overlap with yours, and home decor really isn't too far of a stretch from the surface designs that I create. I get inspiration on color combinations, patterns, and motifs, all from Jonathan Adler. In addition to following influential creatives on social media, I also track fashion. Especially when it comes to pivotal moments in the fashion industry that trigger big trend changes, like Fashion Week in New York, Paris, or London. I like to know what is on the runway right now, and that will affect what we see in mass retail for the next few years. I also track fashion through publication and blogs. Vogue is always tried and true and is a great inspiration for patterns, color palettes, textures, motifs, and materials. Like most fashion powerhouses, Vogue, has an entire section on their website that is dedicated to trends that we're seeing emerge on the runway and on the streets at this very moment. Moving on to one of my absolute favorite blogs for trends tracking and for entertainments. Man Repeller. It was started by Leandra Medine back in 2010 and has since grown into a multi-faceted website with a score of contributing writers. Because Man Repeller is centered around fashion, it's chock-full of inspiration for what is decidedly on trend now and is projected to be in the future. A lot of brands and blogs that I've just mentioned are pretty fashion-centric, which is crucial for trends trucking. But what about other outlets? This is where TED comes into play. You're probably already familiar with TED, but here's a quick intro. TED is a platform for spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks, like 18 minutes or less.The topics range from Tech, entertainment, design, global issues, art, entrepreneurship, and more. You can browse through categories, filter by language, and watch the most highly ranked influential talks out there. Not only is this a great source for finding out about emerging trends through various industries, but it's also fuel for broadening your horizons and gaining knowledge. Okay, A few more brands, blogs and platforms to follow. Dribbble is great if you're into logo design. Behance falls into that same category and expands to designers in general. With both Dribbble and Behance, you can not only see what other creatives are up to, but you can contribute your own work as well and build up a portfolio on both of these platforms. For a daily dose of inspiration, checkout Design Milk. It covers architecture, home, style, arts and technology, plus loads of yummy visuals and designer features. I also enjoy reading the 99designs blog. Even if you're not into their platform or design contests, which personally isn't really my scene, their blog is filled with valuable gems for creative professionals, like resources for building a creative business, design inspiration and trend projection. Creative Review is also a great resource. They deliver sharp opinions and advice on life in the creative industries. They highlight powerful design work and dig into how and why it gets made. Their insights are gold. I've just named a few brands, blogs and resources, but there are so many out there that are worth checking out. I absolutely encourage you guys to do some independent research. Find quality resources out there that are applicable to your particular industry or style. All right, next up, now that we've learned a lot about trend forecasting and the resources that go into it, it's time for the final kicker. How to adhere to trends without losing the integrity of your own personal creative style.
10. Infusing Your Style: Adjusting your creative output based on trends can make you a lot of money, but it's absolutely vital to remain faithful to your own creative style. What is your fresh take on a new trends? You always want to keep it proprietary to you, and this is how you build a strong brand. You can absolutely do both at once. You can key in the trends and create work that people want to purchase. You can do that while staying consistent with your own personal style. After all, it's important to ensure that your work is proprietary to you as an artist. For example, let's take a look at my cheetah painting. It's definitely recognizable as my own cat coke style. The negative space with the watercolor swatches, the infusion of greenery and the way that I caricatured the animals themselves. It's all consistent with my personal art style and if you're familiar with my portfolio of work, chances are you'll probably recognize this as mine, even without the signature on the bottom. But the reason I decided to paint these cheetahs, it's because at the time, we were beginning to see this rise of jungle cat motifs across fashion, home decor, art and design. I wanted it on this, so I jumped in on this opportunity to paint these guys, and it aligned pretty seamlessly with my brands. I frequently paint animals, I have about a million different designs of jungle leaves, and my most recognizable art style is watercolor. Yeah, I painted these cheetahs because I wanted to cash in on a trends, but I also painted them because they would blend in seamlessly with the rest of my portfolio, and further amp up my brand recognition because I painted them in a style that is consistent with my cat coke illustration style. If you searched pinterest for cheetah painting, you're going to see a million different ways just to depict this one motif. Even though a lot of artists are jumping in on these trends, the successful ones are getting the best of both worlds. They get increased exposure and revenue by painting something popular, and they're reinforcing their branding by staying true to their own personal aesthetic. Here are some examples of creatives who have absolutely nailed their own aesthetic and have established a strong style that it feels proprietary to them as artists. Tad carpenter. Tad is a fellow who came to city as a designer. What up, Casey, and we're good friends. He and his wife Jessica are the powerhouses behind carpenter collective, a Midwestern based design and branding studio. But when you take a look at Tad's work, you'll immediately pick up on consistencies and his unique style. He frequently works with limited color palettes and he creates these digital illustrations with a feeling of hand created textural elements. Motif wise, he started a movement called Sunday suns, and what he depicts a new illustration following a sun theme every single week. His style is strong and definitely his own. Another creative who was absolutely on top of it in terms of this brand game is Ahda Firdaus of Misterdoodle. Ahda is an Indonesian designer with a strong and recognizable design aesthetic. Just check out the consistency of his Instagram feed. He's known for his unique masculine take on hand lettering and stripped calligraphy, and he presents his work in a style that feels true to his brands. I want to show you one more example of a trend setting creative who has a strong and consistent personal style. Jesse Raulet, the founder and artist behind Ettavee, which is a French based illustration brand. Just scrolling down her Instagram feed, you can understand why her style is well known throughout the industry. She's got these hand painted, right and bold abstract designs down. Her color palettes are vibrantly optimistic and her overall style is so uniquely hers. I haven't seen anyone else doing what she's doing in such an iconic and noticeable way. Take note of how well she's working with an art style that is true to herself, while still optimizing her work for trends and color palettes and motifs. Even though her work is abstract, she still finds opportunities to weven popular themes like animal prints and fowls. Alright, my final piece of advice regarding your own personal style. I really want to hammer this in, consider your competitive advantage. It's more than just copying of trends. What is your unique take on it? You need to own it and make that artwork belong to your brands. Otherwise, it's easy for someone else just to rip it off. Infuse your own personal style into your work, especially when you're keen into popular trends. Ultimately, this will make your body of work stronger and reinforce your brand recognition. By infusing your own take into a popular fad, you can become a trend setter versus a trend follower. Moving on, let's chat about our class projects.
11. Your Project: Welcome to the class project. Now that you guys have listened to me go on and on about trends, let's get our creative juices flowing and have some fun. For your class project I encourage you to share one of your many projects from this class or a design, illustration, photo, whatever you created that is based on a trend projection that you have. For example, you could share a painting here like I did of these tigers. This one is pretty literally transparent. Jungle cats trends, tigers, there you go. Or you could share a logo design and identify what is relevant and on trend with your logo. Is it the fonts, color palette, textural elements or something else? If you're a surface designer and working on some new projects, please share them in the gallery and give us a quick explanation as to your concept or idea for designing surfaces that have mass appeal. Here's a quick recap of our mini-projects. At the end of the color video, I showed you examples of how I use Pinterest to pull together custom color palettes inspired by images of exotic destinations, on trend interiors, and fashion. I would love to see your take. After the textures and patterns video, I encourage you to keep an eye out for popular backgrounds that are used in photography, for product styling. If you noticed any patterns for yourself and would like to share, please upload them to the project gallery. After the lettering lessons trends, I showed you how to screenshot and identify fonts and typefaces that you see in the wilds. Please feel free to share what you discovered. Lastly, Motifs. I showed you how I look for patterns within brands I like, like ModCloth. I found scores of motif inspiration for animals like sloths, bumblebees, cats and unicorns. In addition to sharing on the class project section, I'd also love it if you shared your project on social media and tag me @catcoq, I can't wait to see what you guys create. All right everyone, thank you so much for taking the time to listen to me talk about trend forecasting. I hope you got plenty of great inspiration and knowledge from this course. If you have any questions or comments, you can drop them down below in the class discussion. You can follow me on Instagram and everything else under catcoq. Don't forget to follow me on Skillshare by clicking the Follow button up top. This means that you'll get an e-mail notification as soon as I launch my next class. Plus, I'll occasionally send messages directly to my followers with announcements like giving away a free Skillshare membership or announcing free goodies that I have available on my website. You can get access to all of this by following me on Skillshare, by clicking the Follow button up top. Thank you again and I will see you for my next class.
Cat Coquillette, Artist + Entrepreneur + Educator
