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Breaking the status quo with new aesthetics

2020 is a year of hardships, revelations, and confrontations. As blindspots and instabilities of the modern society unveil, visual communication takes on the challenge of dismantling the status quo and forging forward new and, or renewal aesthetics. Two themes we observe and believe will continue to evolve in 2021 are Afrofuturism and Dot Matrix.

We want to emphasize that Black Arts and Culture are, and always have been an immense driving force of culture. This work and artistry is continuing to inspire and shape today's aesthetic and visual communication.

Trend 1: Afrofuturism

"Black to the Future"

Afrofuturism is defined by Ingrid LeFleur—curator, activist, and afrofuture strategist—as "a way of imagining possible futures through a black cultural lens." This methodology which originated in the early 90s is seeing a comeback across all means of visual expression from TV series and fashion, to digital arts and D2C brands.

Afrofuturism narratives are usually inspired by the themes of feminism, alienation, and fluidity. These narrative expressions are characterized by their deviant, disembodied, and grotesque nature. In elevating these characteristics, heavily-hued color palettes, spiritualized human figures, extended body parts augmented in 3D, as well as alienated textured surfaces are common motifs.

When taken together, Afrofuturism's visceral, surrealistic, and tactile visual universe helps its beholders shift out of the world as we know it, and imagine a future that's an expressive and liberating space—a space where personal identities are plural and boundless, and where technologies are used not to replace, but to elevate and extend all of humanity.

Trend 2: The Dot Matrix

An antidote to the post-truth era

This year's cultural themes of unrest and uncertainty will most likely have an impact on visual trends in the coming years. A space where we have already seen the influence of these two factors is in the display of information.

In a time where misinformation travels faster than truth, and people have shortening attention spans, designers are combating this phenomenon with a more pragmatic, direct, poignant, and evocative approach to presenting text: the dot matrix.

The dot matrix aesthetic is inspired by the early days of the personal computer and the visuals portrayed on screens in the 80s—back when displayed graphics weren't that far from the look of the actual system that produced them.

In this new approach, we see a departure from the visual fads of the past years like the use of color layers, gradients, rounded corners, and those pristine drop shadows. In place of those, we see the applications of ascii art, cut-into typography, limited color ranges, and blown-up low-res images in combination with rudimentary animations to depict early interfaces.

How user experience is changing

Gen Z, which accounts for ~35% of the global population and represents ~ $143B in spending power, is undoubtedly the generation that is shaping how ~~consumers~~ `creators` and `fans` will be interacting with one another in the future. Driven by their pragmatic optimism and fueled by their digital savviness, Gen Z is finding new ways to make money while investing in their identities simultaneously.

In this area, there is a rising phenomena called **The Ownership Economy**, sometimes also referred to as "The New Fan Club," "The Participatory Economy," or "The Tokenization of Culture."

"The Ownership Economy"—pioneered and powered by cryptonetworks—allows `Creators` to monetize content and give `Fans` economic incentives to help drive their creators' success.

An example of this new model is Foundation- a culture stock exchange that allows creators to tokenize their creation. These tokens can then be bought, sold, and/ or redeemed for other goods and services by fans. A similar development can also be seen in the move of Reddit launching their Community Point program, or the rise of nascent platforms like Cent, Rally, or Roll.

With the backdrop of increasing ethical and monopolistic charges against Big Tech, it's not hard to speculate that this trend of redistributive and cooperative economic system is here to stay.
— Viet Hoang, Senior Experience Strategist and Magnus Löwing, Principal Designer