Design Trend: Sticker-style icons and emojis

Website design with a touch of nostalgia. That’s what you get from the latest design trend that reminds you of childhood with sticker-style elements, including icons and emojis, that add a little something extra to projects.

This design style pops up everywhere and includes everything from a complete design theme to smaller elements sprinkled throughout.

What’s great is that for a certain demographic, this look has a distinctly throwback feel to the sticker books we had as kids, making this design trend interesting and engaging.

Here’s a look at everything you need to know about the sticker design trend.

What is the sticker style design trend?

You’ve probably seen and used them on Instagram or Snapchat – digital stickers you add to photos or videos. They have a tactile look and feel that brings back the concept of playing with stickers as a child and adds a wonderful element of lightness to design projects.

In this website design trend, stickers appear almost everywhere. They can be “stuck” on top of other elements, navigation directions, buttons, or almost anything else.

Digital stickers seem to work best if they have a tactile feel that helps you imagine peeling it off the back and sticking it to something.

This technique is a fun and whimsical alternative that allows you to break some design rules while creating containers for items that wouldn’t otherwise work in the overall design.

Key features of the trend

Often stickers are not perfectly aligned...