Top 3 healthcare graphic design trends we’ll see in 2023

Graphic design trends are fun to discuss, explore, and use if they make sense for your healthcare brand — that’s a big if.

Yes, animations are cool. Know what’s not cool? Painfully slow webpage loading speeds. So unless you have a compelling reason to add that Michael Scott GIF to your website, let your design and copy do the talking.

Note: For important demonstrative purposes. Nothing frivolous here.

Always proceed with caution. The nature of trends is such that they tend to come and go quickly. Be sure you don’t hitch your wagon to a style that will be overused or could look dated soon after you attach your brand to it.

Tons of design trend listicles are published every year. We sifted through some of them and locked into these three trends we believe will be big in 2023 and beyond. They particularly lend themselves to the healthcare tech, biotech, and pharmaceutical spaces.

1. Custom photography and renderings

Over the last several years, we’ve already witnessed an inspired transition to photo-dominant designs. Global powerhouses such as Apple continue to lead the charge with their brand consistency, strong imagery, and sleek look.

This next-level marketing is easier for some companies than others, depending on their products and services. Still, there are ways to be creative in industries such as SaaS and IoT, namely by using images of people to leverage emotion. For companies that sell attractive tangible goods, an emphasis on lovely, photo-dominant design is a no-brainer.

There are two essential components in leveraging the full power of engaging photography:

• Invest in great product photographers or 3D illustrators
• Build your image library, whether your assets represent products, people, or places such as the office or lab

2. Creative stock image treatment

Social media users and website visitors can smell a stock image a mile away. But don’t get it twisted; stock imagery is indispensable to any marketer’s toolkit. Just because an image is from a stock service doesn’t make it inherently corny or bad. It just needs love, that’s all.

Thoughtful design can breathe new life into imagery that needs to be brand specific, and your prospects will take notice.

I treated a stock image with our client’s brand palette and standards for this graphic to create a fresh new look.

Adding depth and layers to a stock image gives it a unique look and feel. The viewer might still know it’s from a stock service, but a bit of TLC effectively tells your story.

Now, a caveat: one risk in using stock images is duplicating your competitors’ choices. Be sure to thoroughly search their assets before moving forward with that perfect smiling nurse photo.

3. Animations: small, subtle, and selective

Different schools of thought regarding user interface (UI), CSS, and JavaScript animations exist. Naysayers often point to short attention spans. Visitors are likely to bounce if a site takes too long to load because it’s inundated with animation for animation’s sake. Proponents, on the other hand, argue that an additional second or less will not negatively impact the user experience (UX).

Here is my take: when used correctly, animations can assist with entertaining, engaging, and explaining content to potential customers in a more interactive way. My philosophy follows the three S’s.

1. Small: Animation files should be very small in size so as not to slow your page loading speed. People aren’t going to wait for that 10MB GIF to download, especially if they are on a mobile device. There are ready-made animations via LottieFiles (an open-source animation file format), which are fluid and scalable animations at tiny file sizes.
2. Subtle: Animations should not cause your users to get motion sickness. Keep them simple and inobtrusive, getting your point across without injecting movement for the sake of movement. Consider just having your animation cycle once on the first view, as looping animations can be overwhelming.
3. Selective: You do not want your entire homepage filled with animations begging attention. Overpopulation will cause user eye fatigue, and people will not know where you want them to look. Save animations for the most critical sections that would benefit from some action.

Would you like to have a conversation about graphic design trends and which you should consider? Whether you’re rebranding or devising a go-to-market strategy for your healthcare, life science, biotech, or pharmaceutical business, our healthcare marketing agency would love to hear from you!