The 2026 Design Guide: 4 Core Trends Inspiring Our Products This Year

Every year, our talented design team creates a guide that shapes the course of our products for the following year. For the first time, we’re sharing a peek behind the scenes at the core trends we’re drawing inspiration from in 2026. From topical to evergreen themes, here are the core trends that have inspired our looks for our Spring/Summer 2026 releases.

Trends can signal what’s becoming popular with certain audiences and age groups. From films and TV to books, social media, and art, trends can appear from anywhere and show what people are interested in seeing more of.

Some evergreen trends are always popular (such as seeing robins and Santas at Christmas), whereas fads or micro-trends may appear for one season and never be seen again.

Every year, The Art File publishes a variety of cards, gifts, stationery and gift wrap, designed for everyday celebrations and occasions. Alongside working with skilled external artists, The Art File has a talented in-house design team illustrating the core ‘looks’ for the seasons ahead.

For the first time, we’re sharing a look behind the scenes of which trends inspired our collections for Spring/Summer 2026. From bright patterns to adorable characters, here are the trends you can spot in our products this year.

Pattern Parade is the core trend used as inspiration for our Spring/Summer 2026 collections. This macro-trend is a high-energy, maximalist aesthetic that celebrates vibrant colour palettes and clean, confident graphics. This core theme resonates across ages, genders, and regions, making it a truly universal trend.

For 2026, high-contrast colour combinations, bold blocky patterns, and perennial stripes are resurging across the interiors and gifting market due to their broad appeal. 

In our designs, we’ve applied a contemporary colour palette built around cool blues, fresh greens and complemented by accents of warmer tones such as pink and orange.

This palette allows patterns to be bold, with a central colour theme, or to have a subtle accent, by combining, for example, bright poppy reds with sugary pinks.

The result is a cohesive colour story that translates seamlessly across a wide range of products, delivering a collection that feels punchy, fresh, and distinctly contemporary.

You can spot Pattern Parade inspiration in many of our new designs. The bright ‘Happy Things’ and the bold ‘Oh Hi’ card collections draw from this trend, with many of our new gift wrap and occasion cards also featuring bright patterns and colourful illustrations.

Fruitful Lands is the first micro-trend in our collection and supports the macro trend. Rooted in agriculture and the natural world, it brings a rustic, comforting, and familiar sensibility.

As interest grows in handmade traditions and the nostalgia of simpler times, communities are reviving ancient seasonal festivals, honouring nature’s rhythms, and embracing communal crafting and shared skills.

We’ve carried these themes into our designs, drawing inspiration from farmers’ markets, sweet fruits, earthy rustic vegetables, and traditional sun motifs.

A handcrafted touch is central to this trend. Linocut-style prints and stamped textures introduce a gestural, tactile quality, where subtle imperfections reinforce a sense of human connection—echoing the spirit of artisanship and age-old craft.

You can see Fruitful Lands inspiration in our new gift designs, such as our new tote bag and magnetic list pad designs, alongside card collections such as ‘Under The Apple Tree’ and ‘Sundaze’. These card collections feature food as a focal point, along with farming, gardening and nature.

Quiet Strength is our second micro trend, blending high-contrast, bold design with elegant silhouettes and tonal, monotone palettes. These subtle colour pairings create a serene aesthetic that feels both sophisticated and confident.

Like Fruitful Lands, a handcrafted touch is central to this trend, fostering a human connection through traditional techniques such as linocut and etched illustrations.

Fluid, naïve handwriting softens the typography, providing a delicate counterpoint to blocky colours and bold graphics. Floral silhouettes and trending motifs—including celestial, cowboy, and Japanese-inspired icons—come to life within this pared-back palette, resulting in designs that are elegant yet approachable.

Quiet Strength is echoed in our monochrome collections, such as our ‘Tidal Ink’ card collection, new tote bag design and black and white gift wrap. This trend is subtle and is filtered through our collections with minimalistic designs across cards, gifts, stationery and wrap.

In recent decades, Kawaii has evolved from a distinctly Japanese concept into a global cultural phenomenon. From Hello Kitty to Harajuku fashion, cartoon mascots to cat cafés, communities worldwide have embraced the playful, feel-good spirit of kawaii style.

Rooted in the Japanese word kawaii, meaning “cute” or “adorable,” this aesthetic celebrates charm, whimsy, and childlike creativity, offering a joyful and expressive way to connect and communicate.

This theme brings a light-hearted, personal touch to products, giving recipients an instant mood boost. Think colour-soaked icons, whimsical prints, and cheeky phrases, that turn any item into a delightfully quirky must-have. Key motifs include sketchbook-style smiley faces, rounded fruits and vegetables, and irresistibly cute creatures.

In our collection, we’ve infused this joyful spirit into giftware through high-energy, doodle-inspired icons and expressive, characterful faces, paired with dopamine-bright colours, playful typography, and soft bubble shapes.

You can spot this trend in our adorable card collections such as ‘Happy Things’ and ‘Little Mouse’, where cute characters are paired with pastel and bright colouring. The Kawaii inspiration can also be seen in our notebooks designs, and bold gift wrap with bright colouring.

Have you spotted these trends in our new cards and gifts? Explore the four core trends across all our 2026 Spring/Summer collections and find something perfect for your next celebration or occasion.