Flat-design is out this year. The latest trend in UI design is 3D elements and dynamic looks. Here’s a collection of 3D UI inspiration, tools, and free resources.
You may also be interested in my last article about UI trends: Voice Control, 3D Illustrations & Face Masks in Current UI Trends
Common 3D elements
Trending dynamic/3D elements in user interface design are:
- 3D humans & hand gestures
- Floating UI cards & widgets
- Gradient spheres
- Weather icons
- 3D logo & favicons
- 3D blocks
- UI mockups in real-life footage (AR/VR)
Inspiration for 3D UI Design
UI design in 3D is mostly used for social media content and marketing material. It creates a “wow”-effect. But it is also used for illustrating futuristic concepts of AR and VR products.
Here’s a list of 3D UI design inspiration, with credits in the image description.
3D in UI mockups
Designs where there’s a UI screen, but elements in the screen has been made into 3D objects.


Tran Mau Tri tram

AR & VR
Combining real-life footage with 3d UI mockups.



3D UI Illustration
Illustrations with 3D humans, logos, and floating cards have been especially popular. Here is the inspiration for 3D illustrations that were made for user interfaces
3D Humans & Floating UI cards


Logo
3D logos and related



Tools
If you want to create your own 3D UI elements, there’s a lot of 3D UI Tools that you can use.
The common 3D software Blender and Octane work as well. But they may not be the best suited for UI elements. See the list below for some tools.
The Best 3D UI Tools
Some of the resources was found on this video by Punit Chawla on YouTube. Check it out below!
Free 3D UI resources
In my post about the best free Figma Community files, I also included some free 3D files. Here are more!






Thanks for reading! I hope this was helpful.
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