The biggest brand trends coming in 2026

2025 was a year defined by buttholes and fury.

AI companies, fueled by unlimited piles of cash, got in line with the same approach to branding: what’s been scatalogically dubbed a “butthole logo.” The amorphous circles neither propel you forward like a Nike swoosh nor ground you like an Apple’s apple. Instead they spin you around, hypnotizing you into who knows what’s next, just keep staring. 

At the same time, a polarized America debated its way through a newly political era of design—what you can see everywhere from the Trump administration’s choice of typeface to its decision to weigh in on brand plays from Cracker Barrel and American Eagle. Marketers seized this uneasy moment to snag engagement by overtly pissing us off.

So what’s awaiting us in 2026? 

It’s a question we posed to several leading brand designers. Of the themes that followed, everyone seemed to agree that in 2026, we’ll see the design world’s response to AI—or, perhaps more accurately put, its many responses to AI. At the same time, we’re hearing early indications of designers who plan to draw more lines in the sand with clients, and take a more active role in this tenuous techno-political moment.

Just-Exactly-Not-Quite-Right design

Lately, most every conversation about design turns very quickly into one about AI: How will it affect our work? Our creativity? Our livelihood? I am sure we don’t yet know the answers, but my hope is that we use these new tools in interesting and creative ways. In the meantime, I think a trend we will see in 2026 will be a renewed focus on humanity in the work we do and the brands we create. (And I don’t just mean using puppets to sell iPhones.) I think there will be a deliberateness in the use of the quirky. There will be things that are made purposefully “off” in design, typography, illustration, and photography. The imperfect will become more interesting and powerful. Capturing the in-between moments, qualities that AI would scrub out. 

I like to call it “just-exactly-not-quite-right” design, which suggests a skill and precision in making things look off. The wrong and the weird will be even more interesting and desired. I love the idea of logos that make you uncomfortable while still being beautiful, photography that catches the wrong moment, brand colors that shouldn’t go together but somehow do. I look forward to seeing things that will look perfectly wrong in a way that only imperfect humans can make—a way to show that we are not robots, yet.

And one more thing, if I may: Design and designers need to get more involved. This moment on earth calls for it. Obviously, in terms of using our abilities to make a difference, but also to figure out how to responsibly use this AI that we all can’t stop talking about. 

We need to be part of this conversation. What is our responsibility, in terms of ethics, energy, and ecology? What are the standards and regulations we set for ourselves and our clients? How do we protect ourselves and make the (design) world aware of the deeper implications of the use of AI? I think we owe it to ourselves and to our community to put ourselves in the narrative, because if we don’t, someone else will make the rules for us. I believe we will (we must) see that happening more in 2026.

—Emily Oberman, partner, Pentagram

Micro-epic: the language of now

The micro-epic unfolds in seconds. It is the reel that halts your finger mid-scroll, the meme that captures a cultural mood before you can articulate it. We often view these condensed narratives as a form of manipulation intended to trigger reactions, and, today, to keep us enraged. This skepticism is justified. But criticizing brevity itself overlooks a crucial point: Fitting more into less is not inherently corrupting. This is how stories adapt when attention becomes scarce.

History provides us with insight. In 17th-century Japan, Matsuo Bashō transformed the initial stanza of collaborative poetry into a stand-alone art form—the haiku; three lines encapsulated entire seasons, fleeting emotions, and universes. Constraint didn’t diminish his artistry; it focused it. Today’s micro-epics can function similarly. A screenshot imparts knowledge. A six-second clip moves us. A sharp edit emits truth. The concise format is a pliable tool. The crucial question is what we choose to make: something true and lasting, or an improved way to sell, enrage, and distract. The grammar of the micro-epic is new, but the choice is old.

—Forest Young, global design and AI resident, Wolff Olins

A renaissance of craft

In 2026, we’ll witness the renaissance of craft and detail. A surge of the “How did you do that?!” kind of work, the work that demands serious control and detail-orientedness to execute. A pushback against the ease of automation. 

A few years ago, when AI started becoming more widely used, optimists (myself included) predicted that the economy of craft would rise as a result, that mediocre work would become even more devalued. My prediction is that this year, we’ll start to see a return on that prediction. Since releasing the ornamental Eternal Research identity, I’ve had multiple conversations with fellow design leaders and studio heads who mentioned they’d been attempting similar ideas, which tells me people’s heads are already moving in this direction.

I believe this shift will show up across all facets of design, from fashion (see the era-specific details in Chanel’s recent subway show) to interior design (already having a maximalist moment) to architecture, where Google’s top search terms now include postmodern, art deco, and googie.

How this impacts branding is both a question and a challenge. The strongest logos have notoriously been the simplest ones, and I don’t believe that fundamental truth will change. However, we may see more vintage logos redrawn for the digital age (see Mouthwash’s Fender), detailed custom typefaces (I’ve got my eyes on Sharp Type), and craft that comes forward in design systems and motifs.

The real question is whether this resurgence of craft will be a lasting cultural immune response, or if it’s merely a countertrend. My prediction is that, like all trends, it will rise, peak, and eventually balance out with another trend that fights back (perhaps the return of minimalism in a couple of decades). But whatever is to come, the bottom line is that we are at the very, very exciting beginning of an incredible and mind-blowing design shift, and I couldn’t be more excited to witness it.

—Talia Cotton, founder and principal, Cotton

The AI logo apocalypse continues

There are more than 212,000 active AI companies worldwide. More than 62,000 are startups. In the past year alone, more than 300 new AI companies launched. The gold rush is real. The money is loud. And the visual landscape looks like a cosmic field of identical swirling apertures paired with bland product interfaces.

Call it the AI “butthole logo” phenomenon. Credit the meme that said what the industry wouldn’t.

Despite the anxiety that AI will replace creatives, these companies are still hiring the best ones. Top-tier designers. World-class agencies. Serious budgets. And yet the output keeps collapsing into the same hyper-sanitized aesthetic: abstract gradients, circular vortex marks, glowing rings, vaguely “intelligent” blobs, and product design so neutral it feels algorithmically flattened.

This is branding by autocomplete. Safe. Smooth. Instantly forgettable.

This isn’t a creativity problem. It’s a confidence problem.

For an industry obsessed with disruption, AI is remarkably afraid of standing out. Legitimacy is signaled through sameness. Familiar shapes. Approved colors. Visual language that’s already been validated by capital.

When OpenAI’s sphincter-adjacent logo succeeded, it didn’t just brand a company—it branded the category. It quietly set the standard for what “serious AI” is supposed to look like. Circular. Abstract. Untouchable.

Now any AI company that doesn’t resemble a glowing anatomical opening risks being written off before it’s even understood.

Innovation everywhere. Originality nowhere.

—Lisa Smith, global chief design officer, Uncommon

Old dogs, new tricks

In a disrupted world, new ideas and talent will rise from unexpected places. Incumbents will realize that what got us here will not get us there. As the old guard works to reinvent, many will break away, resulting in unexpected work from unexpected places. It will be the best of times and the worst of times for creativity. 

We are seeing change to our industry that we have not seen for 100 years. Holding groups are in decline, creative leaders are being replaced with tech and finance experts, and some of the most prolific creative firms have ceased to exist. This fallout creates incredible opportunity, a leveling of the playing field, where independent agencies will claim their space and usher in a new wave of creativity. 

What will play out this year is a continued battle over the use of technology: What is real. What is fake. What is human. We will continue to discuss the uncanny valley of AI advertising and whether brand evolutions done the hard way are good, even if no one can tell.

Work has become easier to make and harder to remember. As production tools are democratized, speed and scale are mistaken for value, even as quality, memorability, and persuasion are left behind.

—Tosh Hall, global chief creative officer, JKR

Democratic tools drive differentiation

Creative tools are easier than ever to access and engage with. We’ve moved from desktop, single-serve software that was often the regard of a few—hidden behind downloads and deep technological know-how—to cloud-based creative platforms where everyone gets to play.

And now we’ve welcomed AI into the mix. Image generation makes an art director of everyone and vibe coding democratizes code. Everyone gets to be grammatically correct and sharp in their writing. Brand guidelines are checked by machines, not people. AI is bringing people closer to the ability to execute their ideas, which means know-how is no longer enough.

So what happens? The expectation of brands, and the standard of their design, rises. We’ve seen this before in consumer expectations of the web—for example, compare the aesthetic of Web 1.0 to 2.0. The result of better tools is better practitioners and more experience. Design itself becomes more critical than ever, but is less of a differentiator. It’s table stakes. 

So where’s the opportunity? Taste, ideas, and—perhaps most importantly—daring to differentiate from the market and vertical you exist within.

In today’s world, where everyone can have great design, the meaningful, strategically rigorous brands that take a strong position on who they are and how they appear will ultimately win.

—Jowey Roden, chief creative officer, Koto

A scarcity of taste 

AI will continue to pollute the world of marketing and communications, contributing noise, clutter, confusion, and complexity through artificial imagery, videos, messaging, and brand elements—something the world isn’t asking for and surely doesn’t need more of. If you look at the Jaguar, American Eagle, and Cracker Barrel of it all, these brands made noise, and some were immediately rewarded for it. 

But they could have seen better outcomes if they committed to answering some essential, tough questions beforehand.

We will see more cases like this next year as budgets continue to tighten, and as the competition for attention intensifies. At the same time, we’ll see the opposite from truly great brands making investments in what not to do and where not to show up. 

As asset creation becomes cheaper, marketing budgets will reallocate to high-quality foundational brand building (clarity, consistency, voice). Since audiences can now smell the faintest BS more easily, smart marketers will ask, What do we actually stand for, and how do we say it clearly? This will give rise to the intermediary expert in 2026.

The winning brands will almost appear to play it safe, when in fact they’re just intentional, consistent, focused. Deliberately narrow in their ambition and crystal clear in their positioning. They won’t sound like they were written by the algorithm—they’ll sound like someone who knows exactly what they believe, who they’re talking to, and why it matters.

If that sounds simple, it’s because it is. But committing to simplicity, clarity, and authenticity so that your customers “get” you requires the opposite of what AI offers. It requires taste.

—Jason Cieslak, global president, Siegel+Gale

2000’s Techno-Dystopia and the return of Playstation 1 and 2

What’s resurfacing under the name 2000’s Techno-Dystopia is not nostalgia for the early internet so much as a reacceptance of its emotional climate. Metallic sheen, hostile minimalism, moody art direction, synthetic hues, sharp typography. This was an era when technology felt powerful, alien, and immersive. Interfaces didn’t bend to legibility, they required you to adhere to their logic. They didn’t have “best practices.” They had vision. They didn’t baby you. You didn’t customize them. You entered them. 

What makes this trend different from earlier nostalgia cycles is its lack of comfort. There is no warmth, no sepia filter, no promise of simpler times. This isn’t classical retrofuturism, it’s a new retrofuturism. Cyber Y2K is not about childhood—it’s about adolescence under fluorescent light. When design has taken out all danger, well, that’s exactly what we begin to crave. 

This brand of Cyber Y2K does not ask to be liked. It asks to be registered. Its surfaces are reflective but emotionally opaque. Typography is narrow, sharp, slightly uncomfortable to read. Motion design favors glitches, flickers, abrupt transitions. There is often a sense that the interface is not meant for you. Or at least not designed with you in mind. This is branding that does not flatter the user’s self-image as a creative collaborator. It restores a kind of asymmetry: The brand has power; you encounter it.

For a decade, branding moved in the opposite direction. Platforms softened their edges, adopted warmth, and borrowed the language of care just as they consolidated control. In the age of AI, that friendliness has collapsed under its own dishonesty. Generative systems speak fluently but impersonally; they produce without intention or empathy. Against this backdrop, 2000’s Techno-Dystopia reads as truthful. Cold surfaces, dark and shiny, mirror how technology is actually felt now.

This aesthetic always carried sex appeal. Early-2000s futurism framed the body as optimized, sharpened, and slightly inhuman. Slick skin, hard lighting, hyper-controlled silhouettes. Desire was technical, not romantic. That logic converges almost perfectly with the cultural rise of GLP-1 drugs. No discipline arc, no wellness sermon. Just outcome. The body, like the interface, becomes something tuned rather than understood.

Together, these forces explain what’s to come. 2000’s Techno-Dystopia rejects reassurance in favor of intensity. It doesn’t promise warmth or fun, but it does have momentum and a strange, polished appeal, not optimistic for the future necessarily, but a promise to look good getting there. 

This aesthetic is not anti-capitalist. It is capitalism shedding its friendliness. It reflects a recognition that users no longer believe brands are on their side. And so brands can stop pretending. They become systems again. Brands don’t need to feel human to be enjoyed.

In an era saturated with friendliness, the cold interface is radical. Chrome reflects, but it does not empathize. That may be the point. 

—Rion Harmon, cofounder and executive creative director, Day Job