Shaping Tomorrow: Unpacking the iF Design Trend Report 2025
The fourth annual analysis unveils six major global transformations, exploring how interdisciplinary design acts as a crucial mediator to shape a more liveable future
The iF Design Trend Report 2025 (available for free until 17 July 2025) offers an insightful look into the global transformations influencing our present and future, with the core intention of serving as an internationally oriented analysis of global design trends. It provides a holistic view of interdisciplinary design trends and relates them to important technological and societal developments.
The report challenges us to think in visionary ways, to assume responsibility and foster dialogue between various disciplines for a world where people are at the forefront and technology, economy, nature and politics work in harmony with design playing a crucial mediating role in shaping a more liveable future for all. Far from a mere summary, it is envisioned as a “cornucopia of trends, case studies and food for thought” that will influence how we design in the coming years.
Now in its fourth annual edition, the report is a collaborative effort between iF International Forum Design GmbH, Hannover, and researchers from “The Future:Project,” Frankfurt/M. Its comprehensive methodology draws on a broad analysis across various industries, combining expert perspectives with findings from the iF DESIGN AWARD 2025, which saw nearly 11,000 submissions from almost 70 countries. The report features valuable insights from interviews with designers from ten countries, including Austria, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each observed trend is illuminated with current best practice examples from the iF DESIGN AWARD 2025, chosen based on factual and contextual criteria, ensuring objectivity.
The report is designed for flexible reading, offering visual elements to emphasize key learnings from each chapter. Its focus on a broad spectrum of product categories allows for the recognition of shared characteristics and diverse design approaches to similar societal challenges. The iF Design Trend Report 2025 decodes six major transformations shaping our society.
Human Digitality explores how design promotes interaction between people and technology in an increasingly networked society, especially with generative AI and robotics. A noteworthy finding is the exponential growth of AI capabilities, including text, audio and image processing, and improved conversational understanding. Design acts as a “referee” in human-machine teamplay, addressing critical challenges like trustworthiness, accuracy, data acquisition, biases and ethical questions related to AI. The report highlights that technology promises “effortlessness,” “body enhancement” and “companionship,” with design mediating these multifaceted relationships. Playfulness emerges as a decisive design strategy, fostering curiosity and emotional ties, and aiding learning processes, moving beyond mere tech products.
Conscious Economy focuses on how design helps create more empathetic interaction in companies, as values and social developments increasingly shape corporate strategies. A key insight is that pure profit maximization is becoming outdated; leading companies now seek to combine profitability with organic growth, value orientation and longevity. The global talent shortage (affecting 74% of employers worldwide) is a significant driver, resulting to a “care for talents” approach where companies focus on employee development, loyalty and wellbeing, offering purpose and flexibility over superficial perks. Servitization, the blurring of product and service design boundaries, creates long-term customer relationships and new forms of emotional design through artificial empathy.
Co-Society addresses the desire for social cohesion in an increasingly fragmented and polarized world, examining how “wealth is reinterpreted” and care is revolutionized. A significant finding is the reinterpretation of “wealth,” shifting focus from material accumulation to quality of life, including health, work-life balance, and purpose. This manifests in “Quiet Luxury,” where status is conveyed through understated elegance, high-quality materials, and innovative technology, moving away from ostentation. The “Care Revolution” redefines care work, increasing appreciation for caregivers and integrating new forms of care into daily life, often through technology, while balancing autonomy and privacy.
Eco Transition highlights design’s role in accelerating the shift towards a holistic, circular and ecosystemic society. The paradigm is shifting from linear processes to circularity, with products embedded into larger circular systems. “Green High-Tech” forms the foundation for a post-fossil economy, with solar power leading as the cheapest and most decentralized energy source globally, rapidly expanding and being integrated into architectural design. Smart grids are changing how regenerative energy is integrated, moving towards open, interactive systems. Sustainable Sharing concepts are undergoing re-evaluation, driven by scarcity and focusing on efficient resource use and social interaction, including B2B sharing. Architectural Upcycling creatively reuses materials and adapts old structures with modern design elements.
Mindshift Revolution explores the emerging relationship between identity and society, where power dynamics are redistributed, and values, norms and worldviews are transformed. The movement towards an “Ungendered Lifestyle” deconstructs stereotypes, offering a multifaceted, fluid approach to roles and lifestyles, including gender-neutral baby accessories and beauty products. Meta-irony in Gen Z communication reflects this fluidity, allowing for layered interpretations of seriousness and irony. The “Mental Health Shift” recognizes psychological wellbeing as crucial, leading to a preventative approach to mental hygiene, with design integrating mental wellbeing into daily life through accessible products and services, often leveraging AI and artificial empathy to analyze emotions. The report also notes the surprising revival of “dumbphones” as a means for digital detox and promoting mindfulness.
Glocalization describes the search for a new connection between local actions within the global network, strengthening local locations through regionalized production and intercultural learning. It complements globalization by fostering local stability and resilience in response to global crises. “Cross-Cultural Learning” is essential, involving understanding other cultures, reflecting on one’s own, and fostering knowledge exchange and intercultural competence. Resilient Supply chains are a critical economic necessity, emphasizing adaptability, decentrality, diversity, collectiveness and holism over pure efficiency. Packaging design plays a “hidden champion” role by integrating protection, efficiency, and flexibility. 3D printing supports decentralized production, customization and reparability, transforming product design and manufacturing. “Rural hacking” empowers local communities with smart, low-threshold solutions for self-sufficiency and communal living.
Download a full copy of the iF Design Trend Report 2025 for free until 17 July 2025.
Register here for the iF DESIGN AWARD 2026. iF Design is an active member of the international design community committed to excellence, objectivity, transparency and impact since 1953. Owned by the iF Design Foundation, a German non-profit organization, the iF DESIGN AWARD is one of the world’s most prestigious design awards
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