Escaping to the familiar — and the surreal: Adobe 2025 creative trends forecast
In today’s often overwhelming world, where our daily reliance on technology has left so many of us seeking a break from our screens, we’re witnessing a fascinating convergence as consumers express their desire for both escapism and reality. Certainly, people want to get away. According to Mastercard, spending on travel and experiences increased 65 percent between 2019 and 2023.
In this year’s annual Adobe Creative Trends Forecast, we find that the top trends for 2025 reflect this urge for both escapism and reality, with creators leaning into imaginative and surreal new visuals, humorous perspectives, immersive experiences, and more. Read on to discover how the creative landscape is evolving and learn about key 2025 trends you may want to incorporate in your creative work. To take an even deeper dive into these trends, read the full 2025 Adobe Creative Trends Report.
Explore the creative trends for 2025
Fantastic Frontiers
Image credits: clockwise from top left: Adobe Stock/Addictive Stock; Adobe Stock/Addictive Stock; Adobe Stock/Marcos Osorio/Stocksy.
The Fantastic Frontiers trend invites audiences to explore magical, uncharted worlds where imaginative and unreal new visuals reflect our desire for escapism.
Fantastic Frontiers merges technology and culture, signaling a future in which our imaginations are truly limitless. Years of digital world-building, especially in gaming, have prepared us for this shift, fueling consumer appetite for these dreamlike images. Generative AI is also revolutionizing creativity, allowing artists to make the extraordinary possible. And we are seeing this trend now in traditionally produced commercial projects just as often as in AI-generated content.
Levity and Laughter
Image credit: Adobe Stock/Zamrznuti Tonovi.
Humor has long been media’s secret sauce, with 90 percent of consumers more likely to remember funny ads over serious ones. At the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, 52 percent of category-winning films were comedies —up 43 percent from 2022 — highlighting humor’s universal appeal.
Representing the next wave of comedic perspectives in brand messaging, the Levity and Laughter trend is characterized by the use of humor to make content more engaging and memorable. Brands are discovering that memes and other funny posts are shared more often than serious posts on social platforms, so they’re crafting humorous posts to reach larger audiences. And by embracing the casual, playful tone we use online, companies are building more personal connections with consumers, making their brands feel more relatable and human.
This trend also allows creators to approach serious issues without being heavy-handed or divisive, boosting engagement with sharable experiences that are at once joyful and meaningful.
Time Warp
Image credit: Adobe Stock/palangsi; Adobe Stock/Ahmed Shaffik.
As the space economy surges, reaching an estimated US $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2040, we’re seeing a similar rise in retrofuturism.
Turbocharged by AI, the Time Warp trend blends futuristic components with historical and vintage elements, pulling styles from ancient Rome, the roaring twenties, the groovy seventies and beyond, to create a nostalgic yet fresh aesthetic. Generative AI has played a key role in popularizing this style by making it easier to experiment and combine elements from different eras. But as this aesthetic has gained mainstream engagement, we are seeing a surge of traditionally produced (non AI) commercial projects in this style as well.
Image credit: Adobe Stock/Maria.
This juxtaposition of past and future is even capturing the attention of Gen Zers, who are increasingly showing interest in, and even yearning for, a past they didn’t experience firsthand. The world is changing rapidly and Time Warp remixes eras and reimagines history for the future.
Immersive Appeal
Image credit: Adobe Stock/Addictive Stock; Adobe Stock/Vuqar.
As we spend more time on screens, there’s been a corresponding demand for multisensorial experiences. The Immersive Appeal trend offers a powerful solution by creating interactions that spark joy and wonder. From immersive art installations and theme parks to experiential shopping, examples of this trend can go far beyond the visual to involve touch, sound, and even smell.
Image credit: Adobe Stock/STGZ.
With consumers craving more sensory involvement and today’s technology making it possible, we’re seeing a rise in marketing campaigns that literally surround us. Brands are using a strategy known as ‘world-building’ to transport us into their fully realized universes.
The best-known example of this is the Barbie marketing phenomenon, which encompassed a blockbuster movie, real-world events, and a variety of themed “Barbie-core” experiences.
Immersive Appeal cures screen fatigue by inviting audiences to enter fantastic interactive worlds and prioritizing profoundly felt experiences over passive consumption.
Start planning your creative campaign today
If you’re a creator or a stock user, we encourage you to browse the Adobe Stock galleries, watch the Creative Trends Sneak Peek webinar, and read the full 2025 Creative Trends Report to find visuals and ideas that will help you produce more timely and resonant content. We hope that, by exploring these new trends and incorporating elements of them in your projects, you’ll be able to engage more meaningfully with your customers in 2025 and beyond.