RIP To the Millennial Brand 🪦
Millennials, it's time to say goodbye...
Goodbye to carefully curated perfection. Goodbye to the meticulously polished Instagram feeds, the soft pastel palettes, and the ‘just right’ fonts. Goodbye to consistency as the ultimate marker of success.
Oh, and goodbye to hiding your gorgeous founder face behind a perfectly arranged flat-lay 🫣.
We built our brands on minimalism and precision. But design is shifting, and whether we like it or not, the millennial brand as we know it is dying.
The new era demands something different—something bolder, messier, more human.
here's a snapshot of the aesthetic shift 👇
I give some more examples of the trend here.
Brand strategy consultant, Eugene Healey, recently called it the end of the millennial brand era. In a fascinating article on The Dieline, he summed up millennial brand identity as "look nice, say nothing."
🛑 This 'look nice, saying nothing' approach is no longer enough for brands. Consumers are wanting more personality and not just hyper aesthetic products that look good in their homes.
👉 Tastes are shifting from polished perfection to more human, more spontaneous, more personality-packed brands.
For millennial designers and founders, this is a hard transition.
8 design deaths we need to grieve ⚰️
❌ Minimalism → Eclecticism
❌ Consistency → Spontaneity
❌ Curated Feeds → Messy authenticity
❌ Inoffensive Neutrals & Pastels → Unapologetic colour, eccentric palettes
❌ 'Nice' Clean Fonts → Mixed fonts, Expressive typography
❌ Face-less Brands → People-centred, Personality-packed content
❌ Looking pretty → Having a point of view
And let’s not forget...
❌ Static images—RIP, because video has taken over.
It’s weird when your own taste starts feeling… outdated.
But the shift is happening, and it’s all about embracing more personality, more play, more rule-breaking 🤘.
If you've been following Freckle for a while, you'll know that we are all about personality-packed brands and merging the premium and the playful. So, while I'm not going to be whacking bubble fonts on everything just yet, I think the direction is positive and exciting.
Oh, and I have a strong hunch these trends aren't going anywhere, so giddy 'up 🐎!
What do you thik? Are you ready to say goodbye to perfection, or are you holding onto your millennial minimalism?