Expand your imagination with Warp and Wonder

Every year we explore the creative landscape to predict where designers and creators are moving. In our annual Adobe Creative Trends Forecast for 2025, we revealed four main creative trends: Fantastic Frontiers, Levity and Laughter, Time Warp and Immersive Appeal.

These overarching trends, coupled with the influence of artificial intelligence (AI), are creating new microtrends that blend surrealism and the desire for an escape from the human experience with reality. In other words, these trends represent the dueling push and pull of nostalgia and futurism, reality and escape, and whimsy and solemnity.

We recently explored the Press Start microtrend under the Time Warp umbrella and are now turning our attention to Warp and Wonder, the Adobe Express microtrend breathing new life into Fantastic Frontiers.

Overview

Revisiting the Fantastic Frontiers Trend

Pushing beyond boundaries is at the heart of the Fantastic Frontiers trend. Borrowing heavily from the world of gaming, this trend allows you to conceptualize any scenario, including the most imaginative and fantastical — blending real and surreal. Brands can highlight ethereal backdrops that conjure ideas of escaping to another world.

Using design to surprise and delight people is a useful tactic for marketers, since consumers say they are more likely to buy from brands that bring them joy. Being able to generate an image from text on Adobe Express, powered by Firefly, means you can quickly visualize different fantastical environments and develop offbeat concepts at a rapid pace. Imagine how a sleek and surreal design fosters imaginative storytelling that knows no borders in time and space.

Introducing Warp and Wonder

An Adobe Express microtrend within Fantastic Frontiers is Warp and Wonder. Warp and Wonder takes the elevated fantasy environments and heightened-reality visuals of Fantastic Frontiers even further. This microtrend is all about whimsical and dreamlike decor with a focus on imaginative visuals and surreal escapism.

The visual style is surreal and dreamlike. Imagine floating objects, distorted perspectives, and fantastical imagery that delivers you into an illusory world. The color palette is vibrant and unexpected with iridescent textures that are ever changing depending on your perspective.

The imagery is a hybrid blend of AI-generated surrealism and real-life objects — think: plants fused with technology. Here, AI-generated landscapes are the backdrop for fantastical creatures and hybrid things that transport you into a whole new world.

Layouts in Warp and Wonder break conventional grid structures to a level Salvador Dali would appreciate. Asymmetry and layered compositions create depth and intrigue in the most mind-bending way possible.

Experimental fonts are the essence of the typography in Warp and Wonder. The fonts aren’t just bold, but they’re distorted and may have liquid-like effects. Contrast these with clean, modern sans-serifs for the ultimate effect.

Warp and Wonder in action

Prime experiences that could lean into this microtrend tap into experiential creativity like immersive art shows or even music festivals. Templates for event posters or merchandise like t-shirts, caps, and sweatshirts can be customized for each event. Same with TikTok teaser trailers and behind-the-scenes videos, or IG carousels showing the lineup.

As a creative microtrend, Warp and Wonder is fun, playful, and imaginative — it puts a smile on your face. It expands your imagination and can boggle the mind. This is creativity at a level where your imagination absolutely knows no bounds.

Understanding current creative trends and microtrends helps you create designs that are of the moment and maybe even cutting edge, whether it’s for your own personal brand or your company’s brand. Play around with this trend and the broader trends forecasted for 2025 in your creations and see where it takes you.

Try Adobe Express today

Explore more related posts