Metropolis’s Best of 2018: The Year’s 6 Biggest Design Trends
"Deco Noir," "Nordic Redux," "Trompe L'oeil'—these were just some of the hottest trends Metropolis editors spotted across the year's design fair debuts.
TALIESIN 1 by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation with Cassina Courtesy Cassina
As 2018 concludes, we’re revisiting this year’s top stories: from products to drawings, buildings, controversies, and more. Enjoy the selection below, but be sure to find our other “Best of 2018” lists as they come online!
The design world isn’t unlike the fashion industry: styles and inspirations dominate then dissipate. It can be hard to stay abreast of these shifts, but Metropolis has your back. We’ve kept a weather eye on all the year’s design fair debuts, distilling the top trends below.
Deco Noir An affection for the decorative and all the latter-day lifestyles that the term embodies is again on the rise. We’re in a Deco moment, but its noir side rather than its froth.
Courtesy Moooi
Deco Noir An affection for the decorative and all the latter-day lifestyles that the term embodies is again on the rise. We’re in a Deco moment, but its noir side rather than its froth.
Trompe L’Oeil Tensions between techno-futurist proclivities and nostalgia for craft traditions seem to drive a lot of design today, and a recent trend of intricate, repetitive patterns tinted in alternately exuberant and monochrome colors has accordingly taken a foothold in the design landscape.
Courtesy Florim
Trompe L’Oeil Tensions between techno-futurist proclivities and nostalgia for craft traditions seem to drive a lot of design today, and a recent trend of intricate, repetitive patterns tinted in alternately exuberant and monochrome colors has accordingly taken a foothold in the design landscape.
Look East Although the timeless elegance and gentle complexities of East Asian–inspired craft never disappeared from the design landscape, they’ve had an indisputable if subdued resurgence in recent products.
Courtesy Gan
Look East Although the timeless elegance and gentle complexities of East Asian–inspired craft never disappeared from the design landscape, they’ve had an indisputable if subdued resurgence in recent products.
Forest Interiors There is something new about these visual quotations of nature, which lean more elfin forest than manicured plant wall. They present the forms of nature’s echoes: the shadows of trees, erosion by rivers.
Courtesy Durkan
Forest Interiors There is something new about these visual quotations of nature, which lean more elfin forest than manicured plant wall. They present the forms of nature’s echoes: the shadows of trees, erosion by rivers.
Nordic Redux Scandinavian design has been experiencing a rather lengthy “moment,” but ever so slowly, designers are making small but product-defining alterations to the usual Nordic formula.
Courtesy Fritz Hansen
Nordic Redux Scandinavian design has been experiencing a rather lengthy “moment,” but ever so slowly, designers are making small but product-defining alterations to the usual Nordic formula.
Elemental Forms Today’s streamlined designs don’t quite fit the quest for “honesty” so often seen in architectural history—instead, these pieces seem elemental, presenting some essential concept of a table or chair, but they aren’t severe or even dull.
Courtesy Cassina
Elemental Forms Today’s streamlined designs don’t quite fit the quest for “honesty” so often seen in architectural history—instead, these pieces seem elemental, presenting some essential concept of a table or chair, but they aren’t severe or even dull.
