Seasonal
Summer 2022 stock Visual Trends are loud, bold, and unapologetic
As summer campaigns start to get into full swing and consumers shift their attention poolside, Adobe Stock is here with summer color palettes, visual collections, and themes to inspire you and show where the hottest winds are blowing.
Summer 2022 stock Visual Trends are loud, bold, and unapologetic
By Brenda Milis
As summer campaigns start to get into full swing and consumers shift their attention poolside, Adobe Stock is here with summer color palettes, visual collections, and themes to inspire you and show where the hottest winds are blowing.
As the days get longer and warmer, summer brings with it an air of excitement and energy. People let themselves shine as brightly as the sun, and look for pursuits, products, and brands that speak to that vitality, confidence, and authenticity.
So as summer campaigns start to get into full swing and consumers shift their attention poolside, Adobe Stock is here with summer color palettes, visual collections, and themes to inspire you and show where the hottest winds are blowing.
Adobe Stock presents: Summer 2022
Summer’s dreamy and mouthwatering colors and textures.
Color is one of the most powerful and immediate ways stock imagery can engage an audience. A well-placed splash of color, shape, and contrast can stop a viewer in their tracks, and certain tones and palettes evoke a powerful and contemporary sense of specific seasons.
The Adobe Stock Free Spirit palette is the sort of color palette designed to evoke a sense of dreaminess and calm. An indisputable aspect of summer is fantasy and whimsy: compared to the tangible freshness and immediacy of spring, the languid and sultry days of summer invite reverie. Letting your image ground itself with shades of cooler colors on the indigo, slate, and lavender will let bursts of yellow or red pop and evoke those long ethereal blue hours of the night and early morning.
Credits (from left): Adobe Stock / Yury Goryanoy/Stocksy, Adobe Stock / Alp Peker.
Get the Free Spirit color palette on Adobe Color.
A delicious, almost mouthwatering color contrast to play around with is Summer Sizzle. This palette is almost entirely warmer hues and robust earthy tones, reminiscent of a sprawling barbeque filled with crimson cherries, luscious watermelon, fresh pineapple, with the only contrast coming from the seemingly endless blue sky.
In addition to color, there is of course also composition, shape, and texture. Our Summer 2022 Colors and Textures collection provides plenty of inspiration - particularly in using sharp focus and soft shadows to give largely monochromatic images depth, vividness, and a painterly sense of control.
Credit: Adobe Stock / wendy laurel/Stocksy.
Get the Summer Sizzle color palette on Adobe Color.
Rediscovering the great outdoors, near and far.
With so many consumer trends over the last two years being an explicit response to a global pandemic, it’s easy to think, like homemade sourdough and Tiger King, many will fade to obscurity almost as quickly as they began. But after two years one thing seems certain worldwide: people are getting outside.
A global fitness report last year showed outdoor exercise gaining in popularity while gym and spa memberships declined. Americans are camping 121% more now than 8 years ago, while more than half of Germans now consider themselves “active hikers.”
What this means for creators of stock content is of course a need for new, fresh and diverse imagery and video that captures this explosion of interest in outdoor sports and adventure. Our Go For It collection features imagery across the spectrum, from extreme sports like kiteboarding and skydiving to more earthbound pleasures like volleyball and skateboarding. It’s also a call for more diversity in outdoor sports, which historically has many barriers for people of color and those with disabilities.
Another pandemic response that seems to be sticking around, especially in urban areas, is dining alfresco. We primarily imagine dining outside to be a feature of suburban and rural life, where backyards are more common. But even in cities, 86% of people would like to see more outdoor dining at restaurants. When (at least in the US) almost a third of their land is used for parking spaces, citizens are clawing back precious public space and eagerly enjoying that glass of rose anywhere there’s a faint breeze.
Adobe Stock’s Outdoor Dining collection shows how stock content can speak to a world where people everywhere are eager to enjoy a repast under the sky, far away from it all camping, in your backyard feast to right in the city with food trucks and rooftop picnics.
And this shift in where we eat hasn’t been ignored by professional and home chefs - especially not the 68% of Americans who own a grill. Our collection shows how dining outside is pushing us beyond the iconic nostalgia and crowd appeal of hotdogs and hamburgers toward seasonal veggie-centric dishes like grilled eggplant, fresh salads, and squash blossoms.
Of course between the adrenaline highs of surfing and sumptuous patio dinners, there are also the tranquil hours in-between. Summer is a time when people seek out vacations to unplug, disconnect, and enjoy some much-needed R&R. Our Golden Hour collection is full of inspiration for images that can resonate with a population looking for quieter pleasures like blowing bubbles, reading a book, or catching a sun-drenched nap.
Living authentically.
While so much of stock imagery is bound to cyclical trends, there are particular seasonal experiences that creators and consumers anticipate every year. Summer will always bring to mind the beach, pools, BBQs, vacations, and long sunny days outdoors. But photographers, videographers, designers, and brands are looking at each of these activities with an eye toward current trends and evolving interests.
Take swimwear as an example. The body positivity and inclusivity movement are changing how major brands think. Pinterest, for example, banned all weight loss ads on its platform. Nike’s new Victory Swim collection, made in collaboration with the Muslim Sisterhood, contains sleek, athletic, and adaptable swimwear designed with Muslim communities and modesty in mind. Model Paloma Elsesser and Dos Swim’s recent collection shows sexy swimwear designed for all body shapes and sizes. From corporate giants to high fashion, there’s a clear demand for inclusive swimwear.
The Every Body is a Beach Body curated stock collection shows how stock visuals can speak to brands and audiences eager for more diverse, body positive, and inclusive content of beach, lake, and pool life. Similarly, our Pride 2022 collection shows what inclusivity of gender and sexuality looks like in the hottest season, with LGBTQ+ individuals lapping up the sunshine at the beach, chilling in campervans, and thriving in nature.
The push for body inclusivity in swimwear is of course part of a larger orientation towards diversity, equity, and inclusion that companies are making. In 2022, companies are expected to invest 9.3 billion dollars in D&I initiatives and are estimated to spend 15 billion by 2026. A lot of this will translate to visuals where companies will look to communicate these values internally and to customers.
Summer 2022 Call for Content
Whether it’s imagining new ways to enjoy the great outdoors, seeking more authentic representation for your favorite aquatic pastimes, or experimenting with a new set of colors and textures, remember that summer is not the season for timidity. Crank the heat up and let your images radiate as hot as a bit of asphalt in mid-August.
Take a deeper dive into the inspiration collections and full Summer Call for Content for Adobe Stock, and start uploading your best seasonal photos, illustrations, and video clips.