2013 is officially over and 2014 is in full swing! Earlier this month, we compiled our annual year end recap: The Dieline’s Top 100 of 2013. These 100 posts, including The Dieline Awards 2013 winners, were the most read posts of 2013. (If you have not read it yet, start there!)
After compiling the list, we began to notice several patterns and similarities between some of the top packaging projects of the year. Certain attributes such as color, type, shape, substrate, or style, started to appear over and over again across projects from around the world. After further analysis, we were able to distill these attributes into 7 distinct design trends that I believe will continue to take hold in 2014.
One major thing we noticed in 2013, was one “traditional” design element that was omitted among nearly all top projects & The Dieline Award winners: Product photography. Only 5 in the top 100 contain any sort of product photography, most opting for flat graphic illustrations, showing the product itself, or nothing at all.
