Design Trends: Out with the Owls, in with the ?

Have you noticed that even animals can be trendy?

For instance, way back when, dragonflies were “the thing”. Personally I still love their delicate look, but you don’t exactly see anyone getting tattoos of them anymore, do you?

Then we started putting birds on it: That trend seemed to hold for a long while:

Next the fox and owl have had brief flings with our design tendencies:

…By the most awesome of circumstances, I was able to attend (for the first time ever!), The One of Kind Show in Toronto. Wow, was I overwhelmed by the sheer talent and ingenuity of today’s artists and artisans. It took us HOURS to go through it all, and it never did get old! But that’s for another post…

The one thing that struck me: the latest animal trend. Maybe you are more observant than I and already saw it coming. I actually really like this one; I even already framed a photocopy of a page out of a children’s book where I just loved the illustration and wanted to preserve it. Does this make me a trendsetter?!

But the OOAKS is where it really shone…

[cough. insert amazing photos of fantastic art from OOAKS here. ]

okay, so I REALLY wished I had taken even just a couple of shots at the show so I could illustrate what I mean, but I somehow never did. So I will humbly present you some really great links from Etsy Canada instead:

Yes, whales (and squids) are in. From a design perspective, kinda ugly, kinda beautiful. Personally I love that it’s a tad more “masculine” than the animals of the past; ifyouknowhatImean? What’s your take on the whole whale thing, anyway?