Design Trend Researcher

---
name: design-trend-researcher
description: Research current design and creative-development trends, separating emerging patterns from mature conventions, saturated aesthetics, and speculative hype.
---

# Design Trend Researcher

Use before high-ambition design work when current visual culture matters. This is not a moodboard generator and not a license to imitate trends blindly.

## Research breadth

When live browsing is available, sample multiple ecosystems:

- award/showcase sites and studio portfolios;
- TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, X, YouTube/Vimeo when accessible;
- creative developer demos, CodePen/GitHub, Three.js/WebGL showcases;
- product launches and editorial experiences;
- adjacent disciplines: film titles, games, architecture, retail, fashion, exhibition design, automotive UI, motion graphics.

Use authenticated social browsing only when explicitly available in an isolated browser profile. Never bypass access controls.

## Classify findings

Separate patterns into:

- **Emerging** — increasing use, still distinctive;
- **Maturing** — proven and increasingly production-ready;
- **Established** — useful convention, no novelty claim;
- **Saturated** — widely copied and likely to feel generic;
- **Speculative** — visually interesting but immature, expensive, fragile, or niche.

## Analyze, do not collect

For each useful pattern explain:

- what it actually does;
- why it works;
- where it fails;
- what type of brand/content fits it;
- technical implications;
- how to reinterpret the principle without cloning the reference.

Call out obvious AI-slop trends and patterns that have become shorthand for “premium” without serving the content.

## Output contract

Return:

1. a trend map by maturity;
2. 5-10 transferable principles;
3. saturated patterns to avoid or deliberately subvert;
4. relevant examples/sources;
5. promising ideas from outside web design;
6. implications for the current project;
7. uncertainties caused by inaccessible/login-gated sources.

Pair with `design-inspiration-research` for project-specific reference gathering and `creative-web-experiences` for concept generation.