Highlights
- 2024 is bringing new design trends to biotech marketing, including earthy color palettes, serif typography, and bold minimalism.
- Incorporating elements of these trends can showcase your forward-thinking brand identity, but it’s important to maintain practicality and functionality in your design choices.
- If keeping up with trends is leaving you exhausted, rest assured that, here at Samba, we live for this stuff.
Hottest Design Trends for Biotech in 2024
The biotech marketing landscape is always evolving, so biotech companies should be aware of key trends to stay current and connect with their target audiences. As we head into 2024, let’s look at some of the top graphic design trends identified in a recent article by JukeBox, and how they apply to your biotech brand.
1. Earthy, Organic Color Palettes
The 2024 Pantone Color of the Year, Peach Fuzz, ushers in a movement towards more earthy, natural color palettes. Biotech brands can tap into this organic trend with neutral and grounded hues. For example, off-white, light taupe, pale green, or subdued blue can evoke a connection to nature. This gives brands an inviting, trustworthy aesthetic compared to cold grays or neon brights more indicative of technology and engineering. When used strategically, these sorts of calm earth tones make companies feel familiar, warm, and dependable.
2. Serif Typography
Serifs, the small embellishing lines adorning font letters, are resurging in popularity after years of being seen as old-fashioned. As serifs convey a more classic, established brand identity, they work well when biotech companies aim to communicate maturity and trustworthiness. Startups may wish to avoid serifs so as not to seem overly serious but for organizations wanting to build trust and emphasize their track records, a serif font offers visual credibility.
3. Bold Minimalism
Use of large typography and negative space is expected to increase in 2024. This “bold minimalism” removes unnecessary visual elements to fully spotlight key messages. Large font sizes naturally capture attention while empty space makes details stand out. The high drama of this style creates striking, energetic visuals. Used judiciously, big text can flag critical info and reduce clutter. For example, an infographic’s most vital data points could feature enlarged stats hovering over mostly blank backgrounds. This style also makes content more scannable.
4. Informational Motion Graphics
Animated data visualizations and informational motion graphics have grown more popular as a way to engage audiences. Subtle motion can help illustrate processes and concepts. For example, an animated flow chart can clarify clinical trial phases, or cell diagrams could showcase mechanisms of action. Animation can make complex biotech ideas more memorable and easier to digest. Brands producing explanatory materials might incorporate short video loops or parallax scrolling web pages (different image layers moving at varying speeds).
5. Brutalist Design
Brutalist design is characterized by a limited color palette, bold typography, angular shapes, and a raw or even distressed appearance. To some, brutalism looks chaotic or under-designed, but it can suit brands taking revolutionary stances.
For example, a biotech instrument firm showcasing its cutting-edge technology could reflect that through brutalist design. Customer-facing companies in the healthcare space, however, should steer away from this trend.
6. Pixel Art
The use of pixels as abstract design elements elicits futuristic vibes, but their use in graphics harkens back to the 80’s and 90’s. Pixel art illustrations have limited applications in web design, but are starting to appear in conference backdrops and handouts as the rising generation of management at biotech companies embraces nostalgia for the low-resolution video games they loved growing up.
Implementing Trends for Biotech
As with any trend, care should be taken to ensure design choices align with your brand identity and connect with your audience. Thoughtfully weaving in select elements of these 2024 trends can showcase forward-thinking brands.
For conference materials in particular, these trends open creative possibilities. Vibrant colors, playful stickers, and tactile prints elevate giveaways. Serif logos printed with unique inks, papers, or embossing promote the individuality of your brand.
Most important is maintaining practical functionality. Pushing creative boundaries too far risks confusing or alienating your audience, but an infusion of innovation makes brands stand out.
Stay Ahead with Strategic Biotech Branding
Following core trends can help biotech companies engage audiences in new ways while reinforcing their ingenuity, but all tactics should align with overarching brand objectives.
Carefully tracking audience preferences, experimenting, and course-correcting when needed allows biotech marketers to remain agile. This ensures a distinctive brand that’s still relatable. With care, companies can leverage the latest trends while maintaining recognizable identities.
If trying to stay ahead of the latest design trends leaves you confused and exhausted, let’s chat!
Written by:
Josh Anderson is the Director of Operations at Samba Scientific. He is an expert in sales enablement, CRM optimization, digital marketing, and marketing strategy. Prior to joining Samba, Josh led numerous digital marketing teams, helped build inside sales teams, and scaled several businesses.
