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- 🔗 🧠Links for Thinks #10: Looking Ahead to 2025
🔗 🧠Links for Thinks #10: Looking Ahead to 2025
UX, Web Design, Visual Design, & Technology Trends
Jake Zuke
January 06, 2025
Five resources every week with actionable takeaways to make you a better designer.
And just like that, we’re barreling into 2025—a year that will most certainly continue to usher in significant changes to how we all work and create. I’ve compiled a few trend reports to take a look at what we might be seeing as we venture into the new year. And though it might feel overwhelmingly AI-focused, there are plenty of other goodies woven in between.
— Jake
TODAY'S EDITION
WHAT HAVE WE BECOME
Design’s hit an inflection point. The UX buzz from the late 2010s has faded into something more complex. Designers may no longer be creative visionaries shaping products but part of a larger machine driven by algorithms, business metrics, and AI-powered tools. As scary as that might sound, it doesn’t need to be a story of loss—it can be a story of evolution if we craft it right.
THE JUICE
They’re Learning: Your tools are learning from you. Everything from your interactions within Figma to how you’re deploying your apps on Vercel might become training data for the next generation of automated design. This isn't just about faster workflows—it's reshaping who can design and what design is worth.
Growth Over Empathy: We've swapped user research for A/B tests and traded careful craftsmanship for engagement metrics. Design systems now optimize for clicks rather than clarity. In 2025, the numbers won’t lie—but they might not tell the whole story.
The Politics of Design: Your most valuable skill might not be your Figma expertise anymore. Success increasingly depends on navigating organizational dynamics, stakeholder management, and finding the delicate balance between user needs, business metrics, and general human psychology.
The Way Forward:
Consider deeper specialization in areas AI can't easily replicate: psychology, accessibility, strategy
Focus on becoming a "meta-designer"—someone who designs the systems that design systems
Return to craft fundamentals—there will always be value in thoughtful, human-centered design
Explore adjacent fields where design thinking meets emerging technology
The tools change, but the core mission of design—making technology more human—remains constant. The question isn't whether design is dying, but how it's evolving. The best designers will adapt not by fighting change, but by shaping it.
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LONG LIVE THE WEBSITE
What is the future of websites you may ask? Do they still matter? Well according to Webflow’s State of the Website, they're huge revenue engines. With 91% of marketing leaders reporting their website as their top revenue driver and 62% of companies generating over half their revenue online, it’s safe to say they probably aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
THE JUICE
The Tech Stack Reality: Only 17% of large enterprises feel their tech stack meets their needs. Despite 90% reporting tech stack growth, the gap between capability and execution remains pretty big. Most interesting: 58% believe they need a complete overhaul to improve user experiences.
AI's Growing Impact:
79% of teams actively use AI tools
69% plan to increase or maintain AI investments
Key benefits: customer insights, operational efficiency, SEO optimization
Focus on predictive analytics and personalization at scale
The Collaboration Challenge: Engineering dependencies remain a critical bottleneck—96% of marketing teams need better collaboration with technical teams. This disconnect slows innovation and hampers speedy responses to market changes. This is where designers can shine, learn to speak all the languages and be the connective tissue.
Path Forward for 2025: Folks are looking to:
Increase experimentation
Invest in modern CMS and CRO tools
Build API-first infrastructure
Focus on cross-functional workflows
Deploy AI for personalization and efficiency
Struggling to Keep Up: While websites are driving more revenue than ever, most organizations are still wrestling with the technology and processes needed to fully capitalize on this digital opportunity. Designers are primed to help bridge this gap in 2025.
CREATIVITY’S NEW FRONTIER
As AI cements itself in the creative toolbox, we're witnessing a fundamental shift in how design and creativity scale. The narrative isn't about replacement—it's about amplification. Adobe's latest research reveals how AI is becoming the bridge between imagination and execution.
THE JUICE
Breaking Reality's Boundaries: Generative AI isn't just making creation faster—it’s enabling previously impossible visual concepts. Folks are blending surreal environments with product photography, pushing traditional advertising into new frontiers. The most successful examples create worlds where products feel both cutting-edge and otherworldly.
The Return of Creative Joy: Data shows 2x higher purchase intent for brands that surprise and delight. This is driving a renaissance in playful, imaginative content that merges nostalgia with futurism. The #retro futurism hashtag has hit 35.5M posts on TikTok, showing people might be craving more creativity in their lives. So maybe it’s time to start building joyful experiences again, only moving forward as we do it.
New Creative Workflows:
AI tools are removing technical barriers to creative expression
Teams are using generative fill and expand features to accelerate production
Brands are training custom AI models on their assets for consistent scaled creation
Collaboration tools are evolving to support AI-augmented creative processes
The Future of Creative Work: We seem to be leaning towards physical experiences again. Mastercard reports a 65% increase in experience-related spending since 2019. This signals a shift toward immersive, multi-sensorial brand engagement where AI-powered tools help craft richer narrative universes and bring folks together in real spaces.
TRENDING FOR YOU
Canva has seen a lot of designs this past year—over 8 billion, to put a number on it. If your 2024 designs felt a little meh, it’s time to level up. These trends will help shake things up, blending motion, grit, and a dash of botanical flair to keep your work ahead of the curve.
THE JUICE
Designers Just Wanna Have Fun: Remember a few minutes ago when you read about surprise and delight? Well, it seems like we might be looking at more fun in 2025. While the world can often feel like doom and gloom, it seems like we might be able to turn a corner here in how we bring our designs and daily interactions to life.
Dynamism Is In: Static is out, and movement is in. Whether it’s animated gradients, interactive typography, or modular layouts with bold shapes, this trend is all about creating flow and personality.
The Modern Minimalist: Less was always more—but how much less depends on your vibe. From the edgy, stripped-back grit of bold visuals to the luxurious calm of understated glamour, minimalism is taking a turn. Think raw materials meet refined details for a look that’s as distinctive as it is versatile.
Organic Tech: What happens when nature shakes hands with innovation? Magic. Dreamy gradients, negative space, and nostalgic touches like scrapbook collages meet AI precision to create designs that feel both fresh and familiar. It’s harmony between worlds.
ARE WE SINGULARITY YET
Of course, we know the biggest tech trend of 2025 will be AI. You might think designers' roles are diminishing because of it. But maybe they're actually becoming more critical. As tech gets smarter, the human touch in design—making complex systems feel intuitive and natural—becomes the real differentiator. In our emerging AI world, the uniquely human aspects of design might be our most valuable asset.
THE JUICE
Design's New Canvas = Spatial + AI: Not just screens anymore—spatial computing demands we think beyond flat interfaces. The real opportunity lies in crafting experiences that blend the digital world seamlessly into physical spaces. Instead of designing on screens, your next design challenge might just be orchestrating how AI-powered interactions feel natural in three-dimensional space. This isn't sci-fi anymore.
The Core Challenge: Making Smart Feel Simple: As core systems get AI upgrades, your role evolves from pure visual design to experience architecture. The trick isn't showing off how smart the AI is, but making complex capabilities feel accessible and human. Think about Netflix's recommendation engine—the tech is complex, but the interface is simple. Every AI interaction needs that level of thoughtful design to build trust and understanding.
Hardware Renaissance: The pendulum is swinging back from software-only solutions to smart hardware. This means industrial design is getting its moment in the sun again, but with a twist. The future of hardware will need to show off its AI capabilities without feeling overwhelming. Consider how Apple made complex technology feel approachable through careful design choices. How do you make a smart device feel smart without making it feel alien?
Strategic Design Priorities:
Bridge the gap between traditional design patterns and AI capabilities
Create design systems that scale across both human-driven and AI-powered interfaces
Document design decisions knowing they may become training data for future AI
Focus on making AI's decision-making visible and understandable to users
Design for varying levels of AI processing power across different devices
The best designs will make AI feel less like magic and more like a natural extension of human capability. When done right, users shouldn't even notice the AI—they should just notice how much easier everything has become.
THANKS FOR READING—SEE YOU NEXT WEEK
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Cheers, Jake