You don't have to be too much of a prophet to realize: The climate of uncertainty that characterized 2023 will also be with us in 2024. The wars in the Middle East and Ukraine will continue, economic and social challenges will grow in many European countries, and right-wing populist parties gain strength.

2024 will also be the first year in which Artificial Intelligence is a natural part of our everyday lives. While we were in experimentation mode in 2023, more and more companies are asking themselves how they can implement the new possibilities into their processes.

The sounding board that brands use is therefore changing. Priorities are shifting. And so are aesthetic perceptions. What trends does this mean for brand communication and design? Our teams have taken a closer look and published a compact presentation with the ten most important trends of the year. The clear conclusion: the hyper-realistic aesthetics of AI tools are becoming omnipresent. At the same time, however, they are triggering a countermovement: In order to form close emotional bonds, people need an equally human counterpart. Brands will harness this power and make targeted use of designs that are clearly handmade – i.e. human.