Despite the knockouts of technology across all fields lately — and the constant buzz around AI, new apps, and software — when it comes to visuals, this year’s trend seems to be heading in the opposite direction. As designer Joe Diver puts it in this year’s Stills Trend Report, people are “increasingly rejecting hyper-modernity and embracing a sense of grounded tradition.”
Across campaigns, treatments, and brand work, there’s a clear shift: from sterile perfection to human emotion.
Photography in 2025 is messier, moodier, more tactile. It leans into flaws and feeling. And in a pitch environment where everything competes for attention, that shift can be the difference between something that feels current and something that feels like last year’s layout template.
For instance, grain and surface texture bring the image back to earth — back to human hands. The resurgence of disposable-style flash photography is also feeding this return to tactility. You can feel the lens. Feel the moment. And when it comes to treatments, it breaks the monotony of overly clean compositions and adds more character and storytelling to a visual selection.
Here are some of the image directions we’re keeping an eye on this year:
Images That Look (and Feel) Less Processed
There’s a growing preference for visuals that feel unpolished in just the right way — the kind of candid that still hits the mark compositionally. Whether it’s subtle blur, imperfect lighting, or a shot that looks like it was pulled from a real-life moment instead of a polished shoot — it’s in. This trend pushes back against the surgically retouched aesthetics of stock libraries. The clean, stylized digital polish of the late 2010s and early 2020s has given way to images that feel warmer, more human, and sometimes even lo-fi. If the last decade was about ultra-HD clarity and CGI precision, 2025 is leaning into softness, subtle storytelling, and analogue emotion.
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Image Libraries That Feel Like Portfolios
Stills founder Finn Anderson puts it well in the report: “We’re moving away from homogenised, studio-setup imagery to photographer-led libraries that feel like folios.” That hits home for treatment makers. When we search for reference images, we’re not just hunting for what’s happening in the frame — we’re looking for tone, texture, and intent. Increasingly, the sources we lean on are either from editorial-style libraries or from photographers’ personal sites. There’s something about work shot with purpose that reads better in a deck. It communicates direction, not just decoration.
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Texture, Grain, and Abstract Influences
Flat design is giving way to images rich in texture and abstraction. These visuals add depth and a tactile quality, bridging the gap between digital precision and physical sensation. Robert McCombe describes this fusion as “a balance of digital and physical, leaving a more lasting impression.” Think soft blur, ISO grain, light leaks, burned edges — all subtle cues that pull the viewer in.
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Surrealism, But Grounded
Even though there’s a strong swing toward realism, we’re also seeing a refined use of surreal visual language — but it’s less about digital fantasy and more about elevated metaphor. This new surrealism favors in-camera techniques and tangible props to create dreamlike yet believable scenes. Think optical trickery, unusual framing, or tactile sculpture used to build strange, striking compositions. More Salvador Dali, less digital VFX. These are surreal images that still feel human. In a treatment, they can serve as strong metaphorical anchors or concept openers.
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Visual Mood That Skews Dark
There’s a new wave of images leaning into darkness: low-light interiors, moody blue-hour skies, cinematic tones that create a sense of isolation or psychological depth. This aesthetic might have once felt too editorial or fashion-driven for brand work, but now it’s making its way into commercial treatments — especially for premium, prestige, or slightly off-kilter campaigns. These visuals often carry emotional weight, and when paired with restrained design, they land hard.
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Collage elements
Another strand we’re seeing is the return of collage — but rougher, rawer. More punk zine than Pinterest board. Photography mashed up with text, sketchbook scribbles, tape, torn paper. It might not always make its way into the final campaign, but it’s powerful at the treatment phase to convey tone and intention, especially in projects that benefit from a more handmade or analogue feel. It’s also a quiet rebellion against the “clean deck” syndrome.
If there’s one throughline in all these directions, it’s this: treatments in 2025 are looking for imagery that helps the director say something. The era of decorative filler is behind us. The image pool might be infinite now, but clients still respond to something they haven’t seen a hundred times before.
Source: Stills 2025 Photography in Design Trend Report
What Next?
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