Summertime Etsy trends – What you need to know for your design ideas

It’s officially summer!

Summer 2020 is for sure going to be weird with social distancing and face masks and not being able to partake in all of our favorite summertime activities, but we have to find ways to cope and keep on living our lives as best as we can.

Throughout all of the COVID craziness, ecommerce has remained strong. People are still shopping for themselves and giving gifts to loved ones — not a lot has changed in that department.

And so, there’s still plenty of opportunities to create new designs and products to sell.

With the summer upon us, I’ve come across a couple of different articles discussing the top summertime design trends happening on Etsy.

It isn’t always easy discerning popular designs from dud designs. What customers respond to can be so variable. But if you pay attention to what’s trending, you can gain an advantage.

And as always, this is all for scaling up AFTER you’ve gotten the hang of normal-style LHS designs.

That said, the trends include…

• Chartreuse
• The 80’s
• ‘Grandmillennial’ style
• Honey bees
• Retro sunsets

If you incorporate these trends into your design ideas, you can optimize your chances of creating products customers will love.

Let’s take a closer look…

Chartreuse

The color chartreuse is popular this summer. It’s bold and bright and makes a statement. And you see it popping up everywhere on Etsy from apparel to home décor.

Design ideas 

You can add this color to pretty much any design you want. For text-based designs, you can make the font chartreuse. And any image-based designs you create, you can infuse chartreuse elements.

Here are a few examples I found after doing a Google image search for “chartreuse coffee mugs”:

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Social media post example

#Chartreuse is the new black. This color is SO in right now. And we just added new chartreuse-colored #gifts to our store, which are sure to be crowd-pleasers. Check them out here: [insert link] Save 10% when you use promo code CHARTREUSE

The 80’s 

What’s old is new again. And according to this article from Fuzzy and Birch, the 80s are back in style on Etsy.

Design ideas 

What this translates to in terms of design ideas are lots of bold, bright colors, geometric patterns, and throwback phrases and pop culture references.

Here are a few examples:

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And here’s a list of 80s slang words and phrases you might want to include in your designs:

• Gag me with a spoon
• Barf me out
• Phat
• Bad
• Bag your face
• What’s your damage
• Have a cow
• No, duh
• Choice
• Not even
• Gnarly
• Tubular
• Word
• Grody
• Grindage
• Bod
• Zeek
• Bounce
• Rad
• Eat my shorts
• Psych
• Radical
• Righteous
• Take a chill pill
• Totally
• Where’s the beef?

Social media post 

The #80s are back, baby! And we just added a bunch of 80s-inspired designs to our store. Check out our totally tubular selection of #gifts here: [insert link] Save $5 when you use promo code RADICAL

‘Grandmillennial’ style

Another term for ‘grandmillennial’ is ‘granny-chic.’ And what this refers to is the younger generation — millennials (people in their mid-20s – mid-30s) — popularizing things more often associated with older generations (e.g. floral wallpaper and macrame doilies). This is a throwback style that’s ripe with nostalgia.

Design ideas 

Look at things popular with older generations, especially in terms of home decor — things like flowers, lace, doilies, et cetera. You can create designs with verbiage that appeals to millennials and add nostalgic, background accents.

Here are some examples:

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Think about things your grandmother would love. Incorporate those elements into your designs while giving them a modern twist by including text that would appeal to someone from a younger generation.

Social media post 

Feel the nostalgia with our collection of #grandmillennial merchandise. It’s granny-chic at its finest. Shop now and find tons of great ideas for #gifts: [insert link] Promo code GRANNY saves you 15%

Honey bees

According to an article on GoodHousekeeping.com, honey bee motifs are super in style right now.

Design ideas 

You can create honey bee designs for almost any product you sell, from coffee mugs to canvases. You can have the image of the honey bee stand by itself, or you can add text. There are TONS of bee puns you can come up with to create some really cute designs for this trend — for example, “Bee mine,” “I’m happy to bee with you,” or “You are un-BEE-lievable.”

Other bee-related words you can work with include buzz, sting, honey, swarm, wasp, bumble, and hive.

Here are a few examples of mugs with honey bee designs:

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Social media post 

Who doesn’t love adorable honey bees? We just added some new designs to our shop featuring lots of #honeybee cuteness. Check out the products here: [insert link] They make awesome #gifts.  Save 10% with promo code HIVE

Retro sunsets

Retro sunsets are very stylized. They typically include color blocks and horizontal lines of varying thicknesses. Sometimes, they also include the silhouettes of palm trees or seagulls. Here’s an example:

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Design ideas 

Turning this particular trend into a design can be pretty on the nose. Just get the colors right, do the color blocking, and add in any extra elements, such as palm trees or seagulls, that you want. The designs can also be more abstract looking.

You can create retro sunset designs for just about any product. This type of design is one that works especially well on canvases.

Here are some examples of retro sunset canvases:

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Social media post 

Who doesn’t love a good #sunset, especially one with a #retro feel? Check out these colorful designs that have a nostalgic beachy vibe: [insert link] Lots of great #giftideas! Use promo code SUNSET to save 20%

I hope you found this post useful! Leave a comment below and share any thoughts you have. Also, if you enjoyed this post, please be sure to share it with your friends and followers!