As story designers, we’re obsessed with visual content. We’re also expert designers and copywriters, and story design is the perfect intersection of these two worlds. So what is visual content, anyway? It can encompass everything from videos to high-impact infographics, reports, presentations, and ebooks.
Our team of designers is always looking ahead to see trends in visual content marketing. It’s fun to see what could potentially be a hit with customers and consumers alike. Here are a few trends that we’ve seen this year, and looking ahead to what we might see in 2018 when it comes to visual content.
Augmented and Virtual Reality (VR):
We have seen lots of examples of this in 2017 and definitely think more companies and brands will experiment with this next year. It is somewhat unchartered territory; many are sheepish to jump into the VR world. We love this piece that Oreo did. Consumers can explore a 360° interactive world and discover how Oreo’s latest flavor is created. If you have a mouse, you can navigate through a VR video! The thing that’s awesome about VR and 360-degree imagery–it allows brands to fully immerse their audience within the story.
(Even More) Emphasis on Mobile:
If they’re not already doing it, marketers will design visual content and websites with mobile in mind first. How something looks on a mobile device is more important than ever. Mobile now accounts for nearly 70% of digital media time spent [comScore]. It’s no surprise that social media is more heavily consumed on mobile devices, so it only stands to reason that marketers will design content and promotions with mobile in mind.
Live-Streaming Video:
According to Facebook’s head of video Fidji Simo, one-fifth of the videos shared on the site are now live videos. Live video affords brands unique opportunities for connecting with consumers. Uses of live video include giving customers a behind-the-scenes look at your business and how it works or focusing on a specific aspect of your business that consumers might not know about. We’ve seen people give tours of their offices/headquarters, introduce new fashions or designs, and even introduce new team members. The possibilities are endless!
Color!
We love the way punched-up, saturated colors are being featured everywhere, from print ads to TV commercials. One need not look any further than this: Samsung claims that their new QLED TV can display one billion colors. They made a commercial for it that used every single one of them! To accomplish this, agency R/GA went to Paris, the City of Light, to fill the spot.
According to AdWeek‘s Marty Swant, “the agency built an algorithm that counted the colors in the film and mapped them against a 3-D cube containing all 1 billion colors the television is capable of displaying. Every scene was assigned a specific palette of colors. Then, in postproduction, R/GA ran the film through the algorithm, which allowed the team to restore any colors that were lost in the production process.” The result? Stunning.