Investigating Contemporary Typography Trends: Liquid metal/ chrome typography

Inspired by/ references

90s/2000s computer graphics

Heavy metal music typography

Rave culture

Nostalgic ideas of what the future would look like

80s/ 90s Sci Fi eg terminator

Commonly seen on
music branding, nightclub posters

‘Trendy’ clothing brands

Generally stuff marketed towards young people

Specifically used by

Eric Hu Director of Design at SSENSE

The New Company, marketing agency who’s clients include Nike

Guccimaze, typographer worked with for Nicki Minaj, FLYING LOTUS etc.

Studio push

Dazed beauty (can’t find name of specific designer)

Tinged with irony, as in ‘I can’t believe this is what we thought was cool and cutting edge back then’, but also think designers feel affectionate towards these early digital graphic styles.

It could be seen as an evolution of the ‘vapor wave’ aesthetic, which now is considered pretty cringe but was cool from about 2012-2016.

Don’t think this trend will last long as instagram poser types seem to have adopted it pretty quickly, so soon it’ll be over done.

The style of type is quite complex to make, so in an age where so many people have access to digital software and anyone can use a template to create a minimalist, helvetica centric poster, this reassert designer's ability to do something that the general public can’t. 

For a while, design trends have been geared toward minimalism (evolution of google logo, iOS) to the point where we can’t really get more minimalist. Where do we go from this when we have already reduced everything down to simple black vectors? Acid graphics are the opposite of this minimalism, employing maximalism, embracing faux-pars and breaking the ‘rules’.

Creatives have always been at the forefront of doing something new by breaking the rules, and a lot of this stuff looks very original and fresh, although it does have visible references.

An updated retrofuturism aesthetic

Similar to 90s postmodernism (sagmeister, etc) this trend is a rejection of what’s considered safe and come to be expected from graphic designers. 

The style is very fluid, as if made from actual liquidized metal. It focuses less on the smooth forms of vector type and instead embraces the imperfections of early computerized graphics. Often animated. 

It’s a cool version of powerpoint word art from 2005.

We like it because we kind of recognise it, but it feels fresh.