NEW YORK, Jan. 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Shutterstock, Inc. (NYSE: SSTK), a leading global technology company offering a creative platform for high-quality assets, tools and services, today released its 2018 Creative Trends Report. The major trends identified in this report from Fantasy to New Minimalism are determined by analyzing billions of searches within Shutterstock's collection of 170 million images by customers including those in the advertising, film, and media industries. The data gathered over the past year across images, videos, and music helped to determine the standout ideas and concepts that we believe will influence creative direction and design aesthetics in 2018.

Shutterstock predicts major trends that will dominate popular culture as well as emerging trends that will burst onto the design scene this year, like Holographic Foil and Natural Luxury. The annual Creative Trends report takes new shape this year, with strong data pointing to a few distinct trends and identifying major increases in specific themes as well as showcasing 20 country specific trends. A team of data scientists, creative professionals, and content reviewers interpreted year-over-year surges in 2017 to compile a cohesive list of 11 styles that will permeate design in 2018.

Below are the top three major trends for 2018 from the report:

• Fantasy: From mythical beasts to magical landscapes, symbols and styles of the fantasy genre help us slip into another world. Searches are increasing for recognized fantasy characters – the term unicorn is up 297% and mermaid is up 145% from the previous year. Epic, orchestral music is also growing in popularity as marketers and creative professionals look to add a bit of the supernatural to our everyday.
• New Minimalism: Minimalism is evolving from its modest roots to a look fit for modern times. The new minimalism goes beyond crisp, clean lines to feature bold, vibrant colors and fluid styles that reimagine this consistently popular artform. While searches for continuous line increased 432% from the previous year, a new contender in minimalism, neon circle, was searched for 387% more than the year prior.
• Space: The sci-fi genre continues to triumph the box office and the creative world is taking note with an emphasis on space. Searches for solar are up 991% and interest in astro has increased 671%, while the popularity of the unmistakable sci-fi synthwave sound has increased 494% from the year prior.

"Now in its seventh year, our Creative Trends report inspires creative professionals all over the world as they strategize creative planning for the year ahead," said Shutterstock's Curator, Robyn Lange. "Our 2017 report was particularly accurate in its predictions, identifying trends like 'Glitch' early on. Throughout the year we watched as the style grew, developed, and thrived into major campaign themes for brands across the world. We look forward to watching 2018's trends blossom the same way."

Explore the 2018 Creative Trends Report here.

About Shutterstock, Inc.

Shutterstock, Inc. (NYSE: SSTK), directly and through its group subsidiaries, is a leading global provider of high-quality licensed photographs, vectors, illustrations, videos and music to businesses, marketing agencies and media organizations around the world. Working with its growing community of over 300,000 contributors, Shutterstock adds hundreds of thousands of images each week, and currently has more than 170 million images and more than 8 million video clips available.

Headquartered in New York City, Shutterstock has offices around the world and customers in more than 150 countries. The company also owns Bigstock, a value-oriented stock media agency; Shutterstock Custom, a custom content creation platform.; Offset, a high-end image collection; PremiumBeat a curated royalty-free music library; Rex Features, a premier source of editorial images for the world's media; and Webdam, a cloud-based digital asset management service for businesses.

For more information, please visit www.shutterstock.com and follow Shutterstock on Twitter and on Facebook.

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SOURCE Shutterstock, Inc.