UI Design Direction 2026–2027

Spotify changed their flat logo to a disco-ball image for their 20th anniversary and the internet started talking about a new "disco-morphism trend".

As someone who coined two morphisms already (neumorphism and glassmorphism), let me break it down for you and explain why I stopped naming new morphism and why you probably should too.

There is only one exception to this rule.

A truly interesting trend that hasn't been fully figured out yet, so there's potential for both innovation and obscurity. And another one that has a lot less use-cases, but can be extremely refreshing for some products.

There's metal-morphism, disco-morphism, Squircle-morphism, light-morphism and many, many others. There's also a rather funny Figma joke we'll also go through.

These are all subsets of Skeuomorphism though. They're not something that specifically makes sense as a separate trend.

Let's talk about why.

All the Skeuomorphic children

But isn't Glass and Neumorphism also a subset of Skeuo? Yes, but there's a catch.

They both share the most important characteristic of being a separate trend.

Glassmorphism is a pattern that works both with regular Skeuomorphism, minimalist flat design and anything in between. Because of the unique relationship to any style, I presented is as a separate, floating branch that can move along the main axis.

Glassmorphism is also not entirely material related. Sure the transparent material in itself is an important part, but the whole idea is to use the material to show multi-layered approach to UI. Keeping context semi-visible even if slightly obstructed.

Some kind of UI continuity that's supposed to make navigating the interface easier. Is it actually easier? That's hard to say.

But it makes glassmorphism more than just a material. It's a design language, like another layer on any kind of regular design that adds these depth and context qualities to it.

Without showing those layers and context the glass texture itself would be just as gimmicky as metal, little square mirrors or balloons.

Neumorphism

Neumorphism is almost a 50/50 split of flat and skeuo, so it also deserves its own name. And contrary to popular accessibility tropes, it can be done both tastefully and with readability in mind.

How do I know? I'm currently working on a Neumorphic operating system, exploring various approaches to both floating and attached same-material planes. A lot of the things I mentioned in my first Neumorphism articles still stand.

It's a semi-defined minimalism.

When done right, the icons, button labels and fields should all have triple-A contrast levels. And the barely visible button outlines can fade into the background. If someone can't discern them, the rest of the interface should do the job of setting hierarchy and layout anyway. This is just extra. And yes, it definitely CAN look beautiful, especially if you experiment with the edge states.

Disco-morphism

Disco-morphism, or the disco-ball aesthetic is not a UI design style. It's a skeuomorphic texture. In the case of Spotify it was only applied to the app icon logo.

It makes objectively specific sense for a music streaming app. A disco ball is associated with partying and music. Which connects to what the app is about.

Seeing the little square-mirrors applied to other app icons online doesn't make any sense unless they're also music related.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for design exploration and even just having fun doing experiments and imagining "what if". Do it! Knock yourself out! But don't call it a "design style" because it's not.

Squirclemorphism

A while ago square-circles became the soft norm of a friendly interface. As usual, it was led by Apple's approach to truly rounded corners on icons and having that soft, friendly feel.

Sharp corners are primaly associated with danger. Apparently sharp edges remind us subconsciously of sharp teeth of predators from the prehistoric times.

But they do work well for super-minimalist, luxury oriented, professional brands. For everyone else, some level of roundness is the best possible approach and here we are. Squircles. Probably the most pleasant shape that still retains the four-wall bounds that help our brain with typical layout structures.

Balloon-morphism

Let's give it to Figma. We may not have always been on the same page, but their recent balloon-morphism joke meant they understand what I mean with the morphism overload.

It also shows that some of the UI obsession are little thought bubbles. Inflated for the sake of clicks, but without much substance. Just air inside.

Metalmorphism

There were also tries to use shiny metal surfaces in interfaces, often with on-the-fly calculated reflections, but this is not a new style.

If it's more realistic metal texture, it's simply Skeuomorphism. We had metal buttons in the 2000s. If it's more flat, it can be an offshoot from Neumorphism with a subtle texture.

The difference is that Neumorphism's whole idea was the direct connection of most objects with the background. Extrusion. Here, whether it's metal, wood, rock or some kind of crystal, it's just a material. They essentially behave in mostly the same way, except for maybe how the light bouncess off of them.

I made a joke trend called LiquidIce (morphism) with a button that looks frozen and causes small ripples around it when pressed, as if it's submerged in a water like background. But this was not an attempt at a design style, just a funny experiment which is something I encourage designers to do.

AR-morphism

One of the more interesting approaches to UI is AR-based. Using the sensors, cameras and orientation, we can modify parts of UI to reflect the surroundings. That way we can have a metal texture that actually behaves like metal. All the way to seeing your distorted face reflected inside the button itself.

From all of the trends, I think this one has the most potential to become a style. It may not have a lot of usefulness, but it definitely goes beyond just a flat material that behaves the same way.

For starters we can have realistic (real) reflections and refractions in the materials that come from the camera with shaders and processing. Modern smartphones are so powerful now, this won't affect performance at all and can run smoothly every time.

The main issue is that current proof-of-concept videos circulating online push that style to the 11. That's because for it to be impressive and get likes, the effect needs to be very visible.

That however causes it to become comically exaggerated to the point of higher cognitive overload.

We can have nice, shiny things, but when they require too much attention, it means the UI went too far.

I am really interested where talented designers will take it though. That curiosity, exploration and fun of building is now supercharged with AI tools. For once, I feel in hands of skilled designers AI can help them visualize things that are new and exciting. Push UI in brand new directions instead of recycling the same slop.

I'll leave this morphism for a while and observe. Maybe I'll give it a name when I notice someone taking it in the right direction. Beyond gimmicks and clickbaity visuals. Some people are already close.

But it may not be required to name it, because I feel like we're moving into a rather specific direction with UIs. To avoid easily repeatable, generic, flat-design slopware, there's only one path to take.

Skeumorphism 2.0

Maybe it's simply time for Skeumorphism 2.0.

It could be a version that ingests all Glassmorphism variants into it and uses the AR-processing for realistic object interaction.

And I don't just mean shiny reflections of your face from the camera inside a button. That is nice, but that's not all that processing power should go to.

Think of it that way: We now have the ability to calculate plasticity of all elements. Their relation to one another, friction, 3-axis light and shadow calculation and a lot more.

A metal button can cast a shine onto a glass panel above it and a wooden trim below and both those shines will behave differently.

A rubber-like button can bend and press with true plasticity that adjusts to WHERE you pushed it specifically. This can end pre-made animations completely and have next-level simulated plasticity.

Quick prototype

Just to show you what I mean I quickly prototyped this in SwiftUI.

The visual pattern behind it comest completely from the real world. When an object bends in one direction, it often rebounds on the other side. You can test it with household objects. Look at how the texture distorts.

How light behaves. When away from view, most things get darker. At least that's how we can easily display that on a flat screen. But in this case, one part goes further down, but the other side goes up. Which means we need to specify a lighting overlay on the other side and they need to animate from the click point towards the final animation keyframe.

I also added an extra layer of depth bending the main background, not just adding a shadow. These kinds of explorations is what we need more of to have cool, fun and innovative interfaces.

The best way to do them with AI right now, is by creating an inspector like set of sliders to tweak the values by hand. Then, once they're dialed in and look perfect in every scenario, you can hard-code them as behavioral rules.

That approach allows for actual human scrutiny in the process, instead of just relying on what AI suggests. This is the only way to actually make some innovative UI transformations.

Don't ever just accept option one!

I recently found this Apple-TV inspired card hovering transformation that also proves the point. Interfaces can easily explore depth now with zero lag.

Here's a very cool take from Zsolt Kacso.

There's also Voicu Apostol, who's one of the most curious designers who are pushing UI in weird new directions. When he made this "Jelly slider" most people dismissed it as a pure gimmick. Dribbble like "artwork". And then someone made a coded, working version.

Is it a viable option? For most UI's it's not. But there may be a product that this actually fits. The thing is we need to think about it in the right order. When designing a product, especially now when AI saves us so much time on boring tasks, we should totally explore new UI ideas that boost and augment the product in question.

This future of UI is bright. Generic, generated design-system flat components will still be there, but they're too boring to talk about them.

Sketch-morphism?

With everything mass-generated, a small new trend has emerged not long ago that uses handwritten / hand-drawn elements for UI. It's like a rough paper sketch brought to life. It's flat design with different edge definition, so we can treat it as a subset of that.

It definitely adds character and personality but won't work for a lot of products. For some it could be a very cool way to humanize the experience. I've seen a couple of portfolios done in this style and a really nice, minimalist running tracker app.

I will be keeping a close watch on this one too.

Curiosity vs slop

The good thing is that designers can use these modern tools to prototype anything now. And while most of them make blue-and-purple gradients with "effortlessly streamlined", there are some that try new things. Because they can. The technical barrier to experimentation has been lifted.

I'm not the biggest fan of AI when it comes to replacing thought or overtaking all the processes. That leads to quality decline across the board.

But quick prototyping and curiosity driven experiments are one of the most ideal use-cases for that technology. Nothing stops you from building something unique. It's literally just a couple hundred prompts away, with lots of failed experiments along the path.

We do need new UI paradigms for both anti-slop deterrence and just pure fun of being in a non-stagnant industry.

Of course this means sane experiments. Backed by solid design foundations, layouts, grids, color theory. Some rules can be bent if you give way in other places. It's for us to make stuff and test, then adjust.

In my apps I'm constantly playing with new concepts, just to see what sticks and works. And seeing some creative examples of pushing UI into the unknown makes me very excited for the future of UI design.

Generic will stay generic, but we may now get things we haven't even dreamed of.

And maybe it will be you who shows us one of these paths.

Fingers crossed!