Behance is home to 30 million creative voices and the best place to find inspiration across all creative genres. At the end of each year, we survey thousands of top projects on Behance to identify visual trends that fascinated the creative world.

Here are the top visual trends of 2022.

Fields of Green

A key color that emerged in 2022 was not a singular hue, but a collection of colors — vibrant, saturated greens, ranging from lime to forest and kelly. Fields of Green is a bold and attention-grabbing group of greens that dominated across multiple creative fields, including graphic design, 3D, and motion art. 

From left to right: work by Zachary Corzine, Zelig Sound, and Nando Costa, ATOM63 (You Zhang), Futura

See the full Fields of Green moodboard on Behance

Vibrant greens are a prominent feature of 3D artist You Zhang a.k.a. ATOM63’s series Procedural Study. “Green is a cool toned color that usually feels calming and soothing. However, bright and vibrant greens can also be associated with vitality and energy. The use of bright green creates eye-catching environments that also feel dreamy and unreal,” You explains. 

Procedural Study - Landscape Generation by ATOM63 (You Zhang)

You combined shades of bright greens with a variety of colors to amplify their visual effects: “Using green alongside other vivid colors such as orange draws great attention because it is bold and dynamic. On the other hand, using green with a darker tone solely can create a mysterious atmosphere or deliver a feeling of security and trust.”

These vibrant greens can have a bold impact even when they are used as accents. Onmi Design chose a simple black, white, and gray palette for their identity design for bicycle brand LUCHIA, and as the third and highlight color, chose a bright green.

LUCHIA eMotion - Brand Identity by Onmi Design

“The sensations of green are really strategic for this project. It represents progress, activation, optimism, electricity, technology and sustainability,” shares the agency. Although the green hue is not at the forefront of the design, it plays an important role in unifying the look: “Green never appears as the main character, but in small details that lead the way and connect all the dots.” 

Block Type

2022 was the year of big type energy. These confident and triumphant texts command our attention with their simplicity and size. When coupled with minimalist color palettes, they delivered a packed visual punch in graphic design, editorial design, branding, and packaging projects. 

From left to right: work by Mateus Araújo, PERSPECTIVA, Deux Huit Huit, Anne Sylvestre, and Consulat Agency, Monumento Studio

See the full Block Type moodboard on Behance

“Type is a huge part of the design, and a well-done combination can transmit as much, or even more, as illustration or colors,” says graphic designer Tais Kahatt. Together with Bicho Raro, she created impactful branding for a chili oil brand using a combination of bold and minimalist fonts that were inspired by Asian street food signs.

Gulp by Tais Kahatt and Bicho Raro

“Nowadays, we are seeing so much more design where type combinations are the main graphic element, new bolder experimental typefaces that communicate so much,” adds Tais. “From web to packaging, I'm excited to see how great designers use them in every field.”

Layered

From left to right: work by Rik Oostenbroek, CL Studio and He.N, NotReal (Valeria Moreiro, Milton Gonzalez, Lucila Mansur, Roberto Connolly, Vitor Teixeira, Macarena Mosquera), Linus Zoll, Alberto Carbonell, Joana Cabrera, Josefina Llano, Davide Rubini, Zelig Sound, Sergio Fuego Damonte, Carol Erique, Juan Pablo Sciaccaluga, Manuela Caceres, Simon Fiedler, Flor Tasso, Carolina Carballo, Oscar Pettersson, Nando Costa, and Microsoft design, Mikhail Rezne, Igor Zuev, Stepan Morozov, Uniq Sound, Aman Rejepov, 0101 Production, and Anton Guskov

See the full Layered moodboard on Behance

One striking compositional theme we saw across many of the top projects, particularly in 3D art and motion, was intricate layer upon layer of striking colors, forms, and textures. Repetition of the layers provide balance, while changes in color and direction provide visual intrigue. Combined with motion, these layers are the ultimate spectacle. 

Hercules and Randy by Lola Dupre

“Everything builds on things which already exist — layers create a feeling of mystery,” says Lola Dupre. Her surreal portraits are made from dozen of intricate layers of paper. “By shrinking or expanding areas of the image with collage you can bring things closer or further apart. Layers become windows into the image.”

FINIERIS by Arnis Vitols

Layers, combined with motion, can produce spectacular visual effects. “Following the principle of layering is the best strategy to achieve rich and complex 3D animations. Animations with multiple layers bring a great sense of structure, order and relationship between them,” says 3D artist and motion designer Arnis Vitols.

Arnis’ strategy for building animations is to divide the main motion from additional movements: “The main motion is the overall gesture, but secondary motions like interaction, dust, ripples, and particles are gradually added as new layers. This layered approach allows tweaking each effect in every nuance, and all of that leads to my favorite part, the moment when all layers smoothly come together to form a solid whole.”

Monochrome

From left to right: work by TEG Studio, Husky Fox, Heewon Kim, Doohee Lee, Yong Hyeok Shin, Eunjoo Lee, riverpushwater, Kiyoung Jung, Sohyun Kwak, and Taehee Lee, Yoon Kim, Kihun Lee, Suna Jung, and Hansol Ryu, and Vratislav Pecka

Black and white is a timeless palette and monochrome projects made a fierce comeback this year. Creatives mixed the classic black and white with shades of gray, and experimented with unlikely shapes and varying line weights for a more light-hearted look. 

See the full Monochrome moodboard on Behance

“The beauty of black and white is in its simplicity. It allows the viewer to focus on the shapes, the contrast and the spacing,” says designer Clément Brichon. “Omitting colors is an effective solution to highlight composition. Sometimes it is refreshing to see something in its simplest form.” 

When creating the campaign for Macbeth with Watson Design Group, Clement paid close attention to evoking the same strong emotions involved in the Shakespearean tragedy. “We were thrilled to work on this campaign and truly capture the dark and gloomy atmosphere that Joel Coen was going for with the use of black and white, geometric layouts, unappealing illustrations, and disturbing animations.” 

The Tragedy of Macbeth A24 x AppleTV - Campaign by Clément Brichon and Watson Design Group

Monochrome color schemes also bring with them an element of versatility. “The black and white color palette gives the brand freedom to be as expressive as it wants, with some extra pops of color or images to complement it,” says Jorge Espinoza, Graphic Designer at Debut. 

For their client Live Ball, the studio opted for a “sober color palette” that allows the witty illustrations and playful typography in their designs to shine. “In this case it does generate more impact — having the freedom to add colors and other resources along the way allows the brand to have the charm it currently has.”

Live Ball by DEBUT

See all the projects in our Best of 2022 moodboard. We can’t wait to see what incredible projects our community will share to Behance in 2023!