8 designers on the trends they want to die in 2025

There is no escaping the tyranny of trends. But as 2024 draws to a close, we reached out to eight designers and architects, including Talia Cotton, Joe Doucet, and Pentagram’s Giorgia Lupi, and asked them to play Ceasar for a day. Their task? Pick a trend that gets to live next year, and one that gets the thumbs-down.

Stay tuned to see what trends will live to fight another year. In the meantime, here are the eight trends our panel voted out. (Teaser: AI only came up once.)

Products designed for social media

The trend I’d like to see disappear is fast-to-market goods created solely to grab attention in fleeting videos or viral posts. These products are often made cheaply, with questionable materials and little thought to long-term value or craftsmanship. They’re designed for quick dopamine fixes, enticing consumers with aesthetics or gimmicks that don’t often hold up once the product is in hand.

The problem is, you can’t truly convey the quality of an object through a casual video or staged photo. Quality is something you feel—the weight of a well-made object in your hand, the texture of premium materials, the subtle details that reflect care and craftsmanship. Designed-for-social-media products strip away this depth and contribute to the growing problem of products quickly destined for landfills. —Ti Chang, industrial designer, cofounder and chief design officer, Crave

Arches

The design trend I hope dies in 2025 is arches . . . just because there is a transition from one room to the next does not mean it deserves an arch. There is definitely a time and a place when there is historical rationale . . . but most of what I’m seeing does not fit that rationale and is just lazy. —Ben Willett, designer, founder, Willet

Measuring success by revenue over values

In 2025, I hope to see the outdated metric of equating a firm’s success solely with its revenue or square footage portfolio fade into obscurity. Architecture and design should not be measured by capital-driven parameters but by values like sustainability, social impact, and cultural relevance. The work we do shapes lives, communities, and ecosystems. Success should be defined by how thoughtfully a project engages its context, improves the well-being of its users, and contributes to a more sustainable and just world. Let’s move beyond celebrating profit margins and instead champion the firms and designers who are actively making a difference. —Pascale Sablan, architect, CEO, Adjaye Associates, New York Studio

Designers blindly following every new visual trend

We’re tired of the rapid-fire, repetitive, Instagram-focused design approaches from brands and studios big and small—we owe ourselves (and our clients) more. Whether it’s the thoughtless implementation of AI-tools into the design process without critical thinking, the self-aggrandizing feedback loop of design solutions targeted at an audience of entirely graphic designers, or the vapid regurgitation of retro styles, things in our industry sometimes feel like they’re moving with a speed and thoughtlessness that is not conductive to long lasting good work. Connecting design moves to the content and context of a project rather than the broader visual trends of the industry as well as focusing on how the work will be implemented and applied is a must. —Giorgia Lupi, information designer, partner, Pentagram

The AI aesthetic

In 2025, the trend I’d like to see retire is designs that look like they were made by AI. AI is a powerful tool, and designers should definitely continue to experiment with it to push its boundaries. But this year, still in its early stages, we’ve often seen creatives stop at the default aesthetic AI provides instead of evolving it. You know the one: “perfect worlds”—crisp, smooth, and eerily polished. We saw it most recently in the Coca Cola holiday ad—and it simply didn’t resonate. In contrast, controversial as it was, Pentagram’s illustration direction for performance.gov was the first I’ve seen this year that pushed really hard to make the AI truly follow their direction. We still have a long way to go, but I’m excited to see more designers push beyond the natural aesthetic. Because if we don’t, we’re no longer designing—we’re simply using a tool. —Talia Cotton, designer, founder and creative director, Cotton Design

70s Retro Futurism

I was in Palm Springs for the recent holiday and spent some time walking through some furniture and antiques stores. I was struck by how a considerable number of pieces from the late ’60s and early ’70s look exactly like “contemporary” design; well beyond notions of the past influencing current trends, they seemed to be used as blueprints. These classic design pieces were, at the time, a reaction to the past and heralded an optimistic vision for what the future could represent. To simply borrow forms to create a new pastiche of something that already exists is a waste of talent and resources. If we’re going to copy anything, let’s copy the ethos of the time and create a new vision for what the future could be. —Joe Doucet, industrial designer, founder, Joe Doucet x Partners

Green bling

The excesses of unrealistic representation of nature in renderings needs to evaporate. Design needs to evolve through deep knowledge of place: the environment, culture, and its context. We need to lead with ecosystem services and design our building and engineering systems to operate like the natural world around us. We can borrow from the intelligence and natural systems of a site to create holistic building systems. Likewise, buildings can reinforce their place by expanding the area, conditions, and resources for landscape to thrive. The ecology of the site and the technology of the buildings should interface with and support each other. Biology becomes technology. —Sean Quinn, director of regenerative design, HOK

Bland finishes

It’s time to evolve past default finishes that lack character and durability. There are ways to invest wisely in your home to a greater benefit. Interiors, like fashion, invite you to balance highs and lows, and can yield significant returns with the right guidance for your budget. —Emily Shapiro, interior designer and founder, TALD