Brands started to manufacture consumer-oriented products and look for active methods to appeal their brands to consumers, in the 1990s. As a result, actively adopting graphic design to clothing designs has recently become an important strategy among others. Graphic design has important significance in contemporary fashion design in the aspect that it has expanded the range of expressive methods by bringing over expressive methods of visual design, and has led to an increase in sales due to consumer satisfaction, but it has been vaguely handled together with textiles design, and research on the topic has been insufficient. Therefore this study aimed to clearly define the idea of graphic design based on documentary research, and analyze applying case and formative features of graphic design expressed in clothing, through case studies from 2004 to 2006, and derive the trends of graphic design expressed in contemporary fashion design. The results of this study are as follows. The common characteristics of images that reflect recent graphic design trends in fashion design are hand writing and irregular composition, and images that actively pursued these pointes were retro and craft images, and modern and sporty images reflected these graphic design trends in a comparatively passive manner. It is important to maintain style differentiation rather than indiscreetly adopting graphic design trends to clothing, and to appropriately apply trend characteristics of fashion design and other design areas. Expressive methods of design are expected to expand through appropriate application and development of graphic design, and can potentially provide a new solution to brand differentiation.