What the studio is reading.
Daily, curated. 5 to 7 items a day across design, branding, packaging, consumer trends, technology, and India.
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explore WINT design lab’s regenerative futures that connect humans with their bodies
WINT Design Lab's regenerative futures project reframes the body as a design brief — worth 5 minutes if you're building anything in health, wellness, or human-centred tech.
Read on Designboom -
Why are watch brands so drawn to working with artists?
Watch brands keep commissioning artists — not for clout, but because craft and scarcity are the last moats luxury has left; Wallpaper* unpacks why it keeps working.
Read on Wallpaper* -
The new Triennale uniforms draw on workwear culture and Bauhaus-inspired geometries
Triennale Milano's new staff uniforms pull from workwear and Bauhaus geometry — a sharp reminder that institutional identity lives in every touchpoint, not just the logo.
Read on Wallpaper* -
hand-bent after 3D printing, oberdoerfer & krebs’ seating rethinks digital fabrication
Oberdoerfer & Krebs 3D-print seating frames, then hand-bend them — a deliberate hybrid that questions whether digital fabrication needs to erase the maker entirely.
Read on Designboom -
stuffed animal shrine in kyoto invites visitors to honor cherished plush companions
A Kyoto shrine dedicated to stuffed animals is genuinely moving — and a case study in how ritual, object attachment, and space design can build community around almost anything.
Read on Designboom -
The Campaign That Listened Before It Launched
Adweek breaks down a campaign that ran audience research *before* briefing creatives — a sequencing shift that most brand teams still get backwards.
Read on Adweek -
Self-described polymath Larry Tchogninou is here to design differently
Wallpaper* profiles Larry Tchogninou, a self-described polymath whose practice refuses a single discipline — worth reading if you're building a studio identity that doesn't fit a clean category.
Read on Wallpaper* -
Deepfakes are getting more sophisticated in physical goods: eBay CEO Jamie Iannone
eBay's CEO says deepfakes have moved from digital content into physical goods — counterfeit products that fool authentication systems, which is a supply-chain problem, not just a media one.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
five hand-painted cars fill joshua vides’ monochromatic garage at the petersen
Joshua Vides filled an entire garage at the Petersen with five hand-painted cars in his signature monochromatic style — a reminder that a single visual constraint, applied obsessively, is a brand strategy.
Read on Designboom -
Suncorp’s Climate-Proofing Platform for Homes Wins Cannes Lions Titanium Grand Prix
Suncorp's Titanium Grand Prix went to a platform that actually climate-proofs homes — proof that the most awarded work right now solves a real problem, not just tells a moving story.
Read on Adweek -
Claude’s Super Bowl Campaign Mocking AI Ads Wins Cannes Lions Film Grand Prix
Claude's Super Bowl spot won Cannes Film Grand Prix by mocking the very AI ad genre it belongs to — a rare case of a brand being genuinely self-aware rather than just performing it.
Read on Adweek -
mapping street vending typologies as mobile urban infrastructure across india
A research project maps street vending across Indian cities as legitimate mobile urban infrastructure — the kind of systems-level design thinking that rarely gets applied to informal economies.
Read on Designboom -
From Screen to Shelf: Why Context Wins in Real-World Packaging Design
Dieline makes the case that packaging designed for Instagram grids routinely fails on actual shelves — context, lighting, and shelf neighbours still decide whether someone picks it up.
Read on Dieline -
FIFA’s ‘Brand Protection’ Inspires Heinz’s Latest Taped-Over Promotion
Heinz taped over its own branding to dodge FIFA's strict sponsor rules and turned it into a campaign — a masterclass in using a constraint as the creative idea, not fighting it.
Read on Dieline -
ioana teleanu shifts AI tools from thinking for you to making you think
UX designer Ioana Teleanu is rethinking AI tools as thinking *prompts* rather than thinking replacements — a small but important reframe for anyone building AI into a creative workflow.
Read on Designboom -
How HubSpot Built a 50-Million-Person Media Engine Inside a Software Company with Jonathan Hunt
HubSpot built a 50-million-person media engine inside a B2B software company — Jonathan Hunt explains the editorial logic that made it work, and why most brands still confuse content with publishing.
Read on Adweek -
Unilever’s Global CMO reframes the influencer marketing debate: Cannes Lions 2026
Unilever's global CMO at Cannes Lions 2026: influencer marketing isn't broken, but brands are using it wrong — the distinction he draws between reach and *resonance* is worth your full attention.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Honey Brand Waldhonig Turns Every Jar Into a Highly Organized World Of Color
Waldhonig's honey jars use a strict color-coding system to map every variety — proof that a single structural idea, applied consistently, can turn commodity packaging into a collectible.
Read on Dieline -
Mathilda Mutant Designs Conference Merch That Makes You Want to Touch Everything
Mathilda Mutant's conference merch prioritises tactile texture over logo placement — a small brief executed with enough material conviction that people actually want to wear the thing.
Read on Dieline -
Here’s one thing AI can’t do
Fast Company makes the case that genuine cultural intuition — knowing what a moment *means* before data confirms it — is still the one thing AI cannot replicate in creative work.
Read on Fast Company Design -
EV maker BYD to integrate AI agents into global marketing push: Cannes Lions 2026
BYD is embedding AI agents directly into its global marketing stack — a move that signals how fast automakers are collapsing the gap between product intelligence and brand communication.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
In the Studio with Tobias Hall, the Designer Revamping Legacy Brands for the Modern Age
Tobias Hall on reviving legacy brands: the designer behind recent packaging overhauls explains why the brief almost never starts with 'make it look better.'
Read on Dieline -
Brazil’s First Chili Crunch, Tami Tami, Skipped the Red and Won
Brazil's first chili crunch brand, Tami Tami, ditched the category's default red palette entirely — and the packaging is sharper for it.
Read on Dieline -
the digital vernacular: reframing AI as an unexpected ally for local heritage
A Designboom piece reframes AI not as a globalising force but as a tool for preserving local visual heritage — the opposite of how most brand teams are deploying it.
Read on Designboom -
WD-40 is the Rare Iconic Brand That Succeeds Without Constant Brand Evolutions
WD-40 has held the same blue-and-yellow can for decades — and it keeps winning — which is a quiet argument against the reflex to refresh every few years.
Read on Dieline -
brick chambers and cavernous passages shape this ‘anthill’ house in india
This 'Anthill' house in India uses brick chambers and cavernous passages to build something that actually looks like it belongs to the land it sits on — not a Pinterest mood board.
Read on Designboom -
from loewe to bottega veneta, luxury brands invest in craft beyond the product
Loewe and Bottega Veneta are spending real money on craft that never appears on the product itself — a signal that luxury is competing on process, not just output.
Read on Designboom -
Culture as a Dinner Party: How Brands Earn Their Seat at the Table
Adweek's 'dinner party' framework for brand culture is more useful than it sounds: you're either a guest who adds to the conversation or one who gets quietly uninvited after the first course.
Read on Adweek -
Lion of St Mark winner, Susan Credle warns of ‘advertising pollution’ in a performance marketing world
Susan Credle, fresh off a Lion of St Mark, calls performance marketing's dominance 'advertising pollution' — a pointed warning from someone who has earned the right to say it.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Unilever’s Branden Goodman on the New Rules of Consumer Discovery
Unilever's Branden Goodman on consumer discovery: the old funnel is dead, and the brands winning now are the ones treating every touchpoint as a first impression — not a step in a sequence.
Read on Adweek -
Forget Time Sheets. Outcome-Based Payments Could Be the Future for Agencies
Outcome-based agency payments are gaining ground at Cannes — if your retainer can't be tied to a result, that conversation is coming sooner than you think.
Read on Adweek -
Two Doctors Whiskey Opens Like a Love Letter
Two Doctors Whiskey's packaging opens like a folded letter — a rare case where structural design does the emotional storytelling that most brands outsource to a tagline.
Read on Dieline -
How Nike and Apple won the FIFA World Cup without buying it
Nike and Apple dominated FIFA World Cup conversation without spending a rupee on official sponsorship — a masterclass in cultural timing that every brand team should study before their next big moment.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Deploy from Claude Design to Vercel
Vercel now lets you ship directly from Claude's design output — the gap between 'AI-generated mockup' and 'live URL' just got meaningfully shorter for small teams building fast.
Read on Vercel blog -
Marketing’s new orthodoxy featuring Mark Ritson and Byron Sharp: Cannes Lions 2026
Mark Ritson and Byron Sharp on the same Cannes stage is the closest marketing gets to a title fight — their shared point on mental availability cuts through most of what else was said this week.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
The Ordinary Wins Big Among 8 Grand Prix Winners From Cannes Lions 2026 Day 1
The Ordinary took a Grand Prix at Cannes Day 1 — worth studying how a skincare brand built on radical transparency keeps winning the room that usually rewards spectacle.
Read on Adweek -
Le Méridien Saigon’s Mooncake Box Opens Up Like a City at Night
Le Méridien Saigon's mooncake box unfolds into a miniature city skyline at night — packaging that earns its keep as an object, not just a container.
Read on Dieline -
ILÉM Is an Olive Oil That Puts Its Culture Front and Center
ILÉM, an olive oil brand, puts its cultural origin at the center of its identity rather than treating it as a footnote — a clean reminder that specificity is a stronger shelf strategy than polish.
Read on Dieline -
How AB InBev Won 183 Cannes Lions in Five Years
AB InBev won 183 Cannes Lions in five years — the Adweek breakdown of how they built that machine is more useful than the trophy count suggests.
Read on Adweek -
When Non-Designers Stop Designing (and Start Using AI)
Dieline asks what happens when non-designers stop winging it in Canva and start using AI instead — the answer matters more for brand quality than most founders want to admit.
Read on Dieline -
Shelf Life 116: Should Brands Invest In The Offline Economy?
Dieline's Shelf Life 116 asks whether the offline economy deserves serious brand investment again — a question worth sitting with if your category is drowning in digital noise.
Read on Dieline -
futurewave designs a wearable smart system reshaping communication in elder care facilities
Futurewave's wearable communication system for elder care is a rare case of branding and product design solving a real institutional problem, not just a consumer one.
Read on Designboom -
Cannes Lions 2026: India’s creative scoreboard gains momentum with fresh shortlist
India's Cannes Lions 2026 shortlist is building early — worth watching which categories are pulling weight before the final scoreboard locks in.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
james turrell’s largest-ever museum skyspace at ARoS photographed by danica o. kus
James Turrell's largest-ever Skyspace at ARoS, photographed by Danica O. Kus — a permanent installation that makes the sky itself the medium, not the backdrop.
Read on Designboom -
herzog & de meuron unveils al maha island masterplan in qatar
Herzog & de Meuron's Al Maha Island masterplan for Qatar is the kind of commission that signals where serious architectural ambition — and Gulf money — is pointing right now.
Read on Designboom -
public library clad in washed timber integrates with warsaw’s wooded neighborhood
A public library clad in washed timber that reads as part of Warsaw's forest edge — proof that civic buildings don't need to announce themselves to earn attention.
Read on Designboom -
lilla tabasso sculpts the melancholy of botanical decay in hyperrealistic murano glass
Lilla Tabasso renders wilting botanical decay in hyperrealistic Murano glass — the kind of craft-meets-concept work that makes you reconsider what a material is allowed to say.
Read on Designboom -
India opens its shortlist account at Cannes Lions 2026
India opened its Cannes Lions 2026 shortlist account — worth watching which categories are pulling weight, because that's where Indian creative ambition is actually being tested right now.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
The Urban Friction Tax: Why India’s Retail is Shaping Like a Dumbbell
India's retail market is splitting into a dumbbell — premium and ultra-value both growing, while the middle gets squeezed — and every brand targeting 'aspirational India' needs to reckon with this.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
sports-themed meeting pods by studio c11 organize decathlon zagreb office interiors
Studio C11 built sports-themed meeting pods into Decathlon Zagreb's office — a rare case of workplace design that actually reflects what a brand sells, rather than just hanging the logo on a wall.
Read on Designboom -
thousands of drones reimagine taipei’s skyline as an urban exhibition canvas
Thousands of drones turned Taipei's skyline into a moving exhibition canvas — a signal that large-scale brand experiences are no longer bound to stages, screens, or fixed surfaces.
Read on Designboom -
jenny holzer leverages the plasticity of language to create powerful visual messaging
Jenny Holzer's decades of text-as-image work are a masterclass in how language itself becomes the medium — worth studying if your brand still treats copy as an afterthought.
Read on Designboom -
Korean Air is redefining the airport lounge as a new expression of luxury hospitality
Korean Air's new airport lounge isn't just premium seating — it's a full hospitality rebrand that treats the pre-flight hour as the product, not the flight.
Read on Wallpaper* -
obama presidential center museum opens in chicago as a tour of democracy and protest
The Obama Presidential Center in Chicago is designed as a tour through democracy and protest — architecture with a declared point of view, which is rarer and harder than it sounds.
Read on Designboom -
The Beer That Turned Its Bottle Into a Bee
A beer brand reshaped its bottle into a bee to drive pollinator awareness — the form *is* the message, and it works harder than any label redesign could.
Read on Dieline -
schindler elevates the seconds of transit into a cohesive architectural journey
Schindler turned elevator interiors into a considered architectural sequence — proof that brand experience lives in the 30 seconds nobody thinks to design for.
Read on Designboom -
7 Things That Hit This Week: Meta’s Next Stab at Commerce, New Hires at Sephora and Lowe’s, and Pinterest Goes Deep on AI
Meta is making another run at in-app commerce, Pinterest is going deep on AI discovery — two platform bets that will quietly reshape where Indian D2C brands spend next year.
Read on Adweek -
materializing the future: indian architects on the shift to regenerative design
Indian architects are moving past sustainable-as-buzzword toward regenerative design — materials that give back — and this piece names the practitioners actually doing it.
Read on Designboom -
Brands&People Builds Pride Into Moctezuma’s Refreshed Identity
Brands&People's identity refresh for Moctezuma beer weaves Pride into the brand's core visual language rather than bolting on a rainbow — the difference shows.
Read on Dieline -
Creative veteran Senthil Kumar joins Famous Innovations as managing partner
Senthil Kumar — one of India's most awarded creative minds — moves to Famous Innovations as managing partner, a signal that independent agencies are pulling serious talent away from networks.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Alpa’s Gluten-Free Pasta Looks Like It Belongs in an Upscale Trattoria
Alpa's gluten-free pasta packaging ditches the health-aisle aesthetic entirely — it looks like something you'd find on a shelf in Bologna, which is exactly the point.
Read on Dieline -
CVS Swaps Plastic OTC Bottles for Aluminum
CVS is replacing plastic OTC medicine bottles with aluminum across its store-brand range — quiet proof that sustainable packaging is now a retail shelf decision, not just a brand values statement.
Read on Dieline -
Shopify Wants To Be Merchants’ Built-in AI Agency
Shopify is building a native AI agency layer directly into its merchant dashboard — if it ships well, a chunk of what performance agencies sell today becomes a default feature.
Read on Adweek -
WPP Enterprise Solutions and AWS Team Up on Agentic Transformation
WPP and AWS are co-building agentic infrastructure for enterprise marketing — the holding-company model isn't dying, it's rewiring itself around AI orchestration before clients do it first.
Read on Adweek -
mist-filled bubbles grow out of A.A.murakami’s SYMBIOSIS installation for BMW at art basel
A.A. Murakami's mist-filled bubble installation for BMW at Art Basel isn't just spectacle — it's a case study in how a car brand can show up at a cultural moment without screaming its own name.
Read on Designboom -
Get into the Multicultural, Controlled Chaos of Daniela Barrio de Mendoza
Daniela Barrio de Mendoza's packaging work is a masterclass in designing for multicultural audiences without flattening them — messy, specific, and commercially sharp.
Read on Dieline -
how kristian v.k. falden unravels AI images into fragile textiles
Kristian V.K. Falden unravels AI-generated images into physical textiles — a genuinely strange practice that asks a real question about what it means to make something by hand.
Read on Designboom -
How The CREATOR Act Does and Doesn’t Protect Creators From AI Theft
The CREATOR Act aims to protect designers and illustrators from AI scraping — what it actually covers, and where it quietly falls short, matters for every studio with a portfolio online.
Read on Dieline -
The Agent Stack
Vercel's 'Agent Stack' lays out exactly how production AI agents should be architected — worth 10 minutes if you're building anything that talks to an API or runs autonomously.
Read on Vercel blog -
Swiggy’s Next Order
Swiggy's brand strategy post-IPO is shifting fast — this piece unpacks where the business is heading and what that means for how it talks to 11 million weekly customers.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Designing With Uncertainty: How AI Supercharges Probabilistic Thinking
Smashing Magazine argues AI sharpens probabilistic thinking in design — not by giving answers, but by forcing designers to hold multiple futures at once before committing to one.
Read on Smashing Magazine -
WARC: Strait of Hormuz Closure Could Cost Billions in Ad Spend Growth
A Strait of Hormuz closure could wipe billions from global ad spend — WARC runs the numbers, and the downstream hit on media budgets in emerging markets would be felt first.
Read on Adweek -
Fernet Branca Goes for Gold
Fernet-Branca's redesign goes full gold — a bold call for a bitter liqueur that built its identity on austerity, and a case study in when a legacy brand earns the right to flex.
Read on Dieline -
Cool Roast Curves Brews Up Retro Vibes By Boxing Their Beans in VHS Cases
Cool Roast packaged their coffee beans in VHS cassette cases — absurd on paper, completely coherent on shelf, and a reminder that the best structural packaging ideas come from outside the category.
Read on Dieline -
Why ‘We Cut Costs With AI’ Is No Longer a Selling Point
'We cut costs with AI' no longer moves buyers — Adweek breaks down why efficiency narratives have become table stakes, and what actually differentiates a brand's AI story in 2026.
Read on Adweek -
Why Two Companies With Identical Financials Can Sell for Wildly Different Prices
Two companies, identical P&Ls, wildly different exit valuations — this Adweek piece explains exactly which intangibles move the number, and brand equity is higher on that list than most founders expect.
Read on Adweek -
india pavilion at venice biennale reflects on how craft keeps the idea of home alive
India's Venice Biennale pavilion uses craft — weaving, pottery, embroidery — to ask what 'home' means when millions carry it only in memory. Worth seeing what we chose to show the world.
Read on Designboom -
iF Design trend report 2026 decodes macro shifts into strategic thinking for creators
iF Design's 2026 trend report maps four macro shifts — including material honesty and post-digital craft — into strategic moves creators can actually use, not just mood-board fodder.
Read on Designboom -
Moonwalking past branding norms
Brand Equity's piece on moonwalking past branding norms spotlights Indian brands quietly ditching convention — useful if you're building something that doesn't fit the standard category playbook.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Vira, and The Art of the Whisper
Vira's packaging works at a whisper — no loud hierarchy, no hero claims — and it's a sharp study in how restraint, done with precision, can carry more shelf authority than noise.
Read on Dieline -
Yes, There’s a Drumstick Hidden In KFC’s Global Rebrand
KFC's global rebrand hid a drumstick inside the logo — a small, confident move that rewards attention and proves the best brand details aren't announced, they're discovered.
Read on Dieline -
Inside Hermès’ extraordinary new London Maison, which is rooted in British eccentricity and craft
Hermès' new London Maison doesn't import Paris — it roots itself in British craft and eccentricity, a reminder that the strongest luxury flagships are built from where they land, not where they're from.
Read on Wallpaper* -
Stop writing like a brand
Stop writing like a brand — Brand Equity's case for dropping corporate voice is a direct challenge to every founder still hiding behind formal copy that nobody actually reads.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
The great beauty blur: Why brands are disappearing in a sea of sameness
Brand Equity names the real problem: when every brand chases the same tone, palette, and positioning, distinctiveness dies — and the sameness isn't accidental, it's algorithmic.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Shelf Life 115: The Fake Empire of “Authentic Marketing”
Dieline's Shelf Life 115 dissects the 'authentic marketing' performance — brands manufacturing rawness at scale — and it's the most honest packaging critique you'll read this week.
Read on Dieline -
using food as her medium, laila gohar crafts familiar objects and ephemeral landscapes
Laila Gohar uses food — actual, edible, perishable food — as sculptural material, which makes her work a useful provocation for any brand thinking about what 'ephemeral' really costs.
Read on Designboom -
PLAT ASIA uses box-like frames to connect fitness, dining, and play in beijing community hub
PLAT ASIA's Beijing community hub uses a strict box-frame system to hold fitness, dining, and play in one site — spatial zoning as brand architecture, done without a single logo doing the heavy lifting.
Read on Designboom -
Why are festival line-up poster designs getting so hard to read?
Festival posters are deliberately unreadable now — designers are treating typography as texture, and it's worth asking whether that trade-off serves the audience or just the aesthetic.
Read on Wallpaper* -
Meet Shiro Kuramata, the designer of playful impermanence
Shiro Kuramata made furniture that looked like it was already disappearing — his idea of 'playful impermanence' is a sharper design brief than most studios write for themselves.
Read on Wallpaper* -
UT austin researchers develop a jacket that pulls drinkable water from the air
UT Austin researchers built a jacket that harvests drinkable water from air — the kind of material innovation that will eventually land on a brand's origin story, so worth knowing early.
Read on Designboom -
taarini anand on creating whimsical menswear inspired by indian art and culture
Delhi designer Taarini Anand is building a menswear language rooted in Indian art history — worth watching if you think local cultural reference can anchor a global brand.
Read on Designboom -
Chicago’s new Obama Presidential Center isn’t a monument – it’s a moment
Chicago's Obama Presidential Center opens not as a museum but as a civic campus — the brief itself is the design story, and it's one worth studying before your next institutional pitch.
Read on Wallpaper* -
Shark believes colour is the magic ingredient to elevate the quotidian chore of cleaning
Shark redesigned its vacuum range around colour as the primary differentiator — a deliberate bet that product aesthetics can reframe a category most brands treat as purely functional.
Read on Wallpaper* -
Oudh 1722 brings a forgotten Indian culinary tradition to London
Oudh 1722 is bringing a centuries-old Indian culinary tradition to London — proof that hyper-specific cultural heritage, named and dated, travels further than vague 'authenticity'.
Read on Wallpaper* -
UN/SEEN—Women: an archival publication rewriting the narrative of early graphic design
UN/SEEN—Women is an archival publication recovering the women who shaped early graphic design — a sharp reminder that the canon was edited, not discovered.
Read on Designboom -
Turner Duckworth Refreshes McDonald’s Sub-Brand McCafe As Part Of Larger Beverage Push
Turner Duckworth's McCafé refresh is a masterclass in sub-brand clarity — giving a $5B beverage business its own visual language without breaking from the McDonald's system.
Read on Dieline -
Poderi Macchia’s Tactile Design System Is Shaped by Architecture
Poderi Macchia built a packaging system from architectural logic — tactile, structural, consistent — the kind of design that makes a wine shelf feel like a curated space rather than a row of labels.
Read on Dieline -
david hockney, british painter who filled the world with color, dies aged 88
David Hockney, who died at 88, proved that a singular point of view — obsessive color, swimming pools, iPad sketches — is a more durable brand asset than any positioning document.
Read on Designboom -
oversized vegetables and whimsical creatures fill gentle monster’s veggie farm pop-ups
Gentle Monster's Veggie Farm pop-ups swap product display for oversized cabbages and surreal creatures — retail as spectacle, and a reminder that experience *is* the brand communication.
Read on Designboom -
A surreal interpretation of a sewing box shapes this eclectic Kolkata workspace
A Kolkata workspace shaped around a sewing box — eclectic, precise, unmistakably local — shows what Indian interiors look like when designers stop borrowing from Dezeen and start from place.
Read on Wallpaper* -
Why Brand Design Belongs in the Boardroom, Not the Briefing Room
Brand Equity makes the case that brand design decisions belong at the leadership table — not handed down after strategy is already locked. Worth sending to your next client who briefs you last.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Sir Martin Sorrell Sees No Easy Exit for Holding Companies
Sir Martin Sorrell sees no clean exit for holding companies — a candid read on why the old agency model is structurally stuck, and what that means for independent studios positioned differently.
Read on Adweek -
Coca-Cola Launches a Global Collectible Can Craze for the FIFA World Cup, Inspired by Soccer Jerseys
Coca-Cola's FIFA World Cup cans mimic 32 national soccer jerseys — collectible packaging as a global distribution strategy, not just a design exercise.
Read on Dieline -
Thirst and Bruichladdich Turn an Invisible Process Into Alchemy
Thirst repackaged Bruichladdich's distillation process — turning an invisible, technical step into the entire visual and narrative identity of the bottle.
Read on Dieline -
LogoLounge Releases Its 2026 Trend Report, and Everything Is on the Move
LogoLounge's 2026 trend report says marks are getting kinetic — motion and morphing are replacing static lockups as the default expectation for brand identity.
Read on Dieline -
EXCLUSIVE: HP Hands Global Media to Publicis, Ending Omnicom’s 17-Year Run
HP just pulled $1B+ in global media from Omnicom after 17 years and handed it to Publicis — a reminder that no agency relationship is too old to be repriced.
Read on Adweek -
How Crocs Made a Punchline Into a Competitive Advantage
Crocs turned a decade of mockery into a moat — their brand story is a masterclass in owning the joke before the market does it for you.
Read on Adweek -
How Okara runs CMO agents for 120,000 companies on Vercel
Okara runs CMO-level marketing agents for 120,000 companies on Vercel — the clearest live example yet of AI operating at brand scale, not just content scale.
Read on Vercel blog -
Why Global Retailers Are Setting Up GCCs in India Before Opening Stores
Global retailers are planting GCCs in India before opening a single store — using the market as an intelligence operation, not just a sales channel.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Latin America’s World Cup Ads Have a Secret U.S. Brands Keep Missing
Latin American World Cup ads are outperforming U.S. brand work by leaning into cultural specificity — a lesson that applies directly to how Indian brands talk to their own regions.
Read on Adweek -
Over Two-Thirds of Consumers Will Ditch Brands They Don’t Trust
Two-thirds of consumers say they'll walk away from brands they don't trust — a number that should reset how much budget you're putting into performance vs. brand.
Read on Adweek -
Can ChatGPT Ads Get People to Buy? OpenAI Partners With LiveRamp to Prove They Do
OpenAI is partnering with LiveRamp to track whether ChatGPT ads actually drive purchases — the first real attempt to make conversational AI accountable on ROI.
Read on Adweek -
Fortín Rum Puts Naturalist’s Field Notes on Its Bottles and We’ll Drink to That
Fortín Rum printed a naturalist's field notes directly onto its bottles — proof that a strong editorial concept can do more for a spirits brand than any lifestyle shoot.
Read on Dieline -
Has the Premiumisation Story Hit the Accelerator?
India's premiumisation wave is accelerating — and the brands catching it aren't just raising prices, they're rebuilding the entire experience around a new consumer self-image.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Many Indias, Many Worlds
Brand Equity's 'Many Indias, Many Worlds' is a sharp reminder that building one brand for 1.4 billion people is a strategy for being relevant to none of them.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
The Coors Light ‘Tallerboy’ is Both Stupid and Wonderful
Coors Light made a taller-than-standard can just to win bar shelf visibility — a packaging brief so blunt it loops back around to being smart.
Read on Dieline -
Did Pirate’s Booty Just Walk the Plank With Its Latest Refresh?
Pirate's Booty refreshed its packaging and the result is a cautionary tale: smoothing out a brand's rough edges often sands away the very thing people loved about it.
Read on Dieline -
Riot Atelier’s Design For Everin Makes Peptide Medication Luxuriously Serene
Everin's peptide medication packaging by Riot Atelier treats clinical pharma like a luxury object — proof that 'medical' and 'considered design' are no longer mutually exclusive.
Read on Dieline -
Nestlé’s Stefan Kovačević on Building Brands for Both Humans and AI
Nestlé's Stefan Kovačević argues brands now need to be legible to AI recommendation engines, not just humans — a quiet structural shift most CMOs haven't priced in yet.
Read on Adweek -
prada and axiom unveil cooling inner layer for NASA astronauts’ spacesuits on the moon
Prada designed the cooling inner layer for NASA's lunar spacesuits — a brand collaboration where the brief was survival, not aesthetics, and that constraint shows in the work.
Read on Designboom -
The Discipline Behind Enduring Brands
Adweek's piece on enduring brands keeps returning to the same uncomfortable truth: discipline, not creativity, is what separates brands that last from ones that merely launch.
Read on Adweek -
The FIFA World Cup’s biggest branding contest is happening on jerseys
The FIFA World Cup jersey is now a $100M+ branding battlefield — and the sponsor placement wars happening on those shirts are a masterclass in real-estate thinking applied to fabric.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Finally, A Sustainable Bandage For People With Taste
A sustainable bandage that actually looks considered — small product, but it signals that even commodity health items are fair game for brand-led design thinking.
Read on Dieline -
100 Top Designers Used Chocolate Bar Wrappers as a Canvas for AGI Open 2025
100 designers turned AGI Open 2025 chocolate bar wrappers into a collective canvas — proof that tight constraints and a shared brief still produce the most interesting design work.
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EXCLUSIVE: Accenture Song Will Buy Whalar, Gaining Global Scale in Influencer Marketing
Accenture Song buying Whalar gives it global influencer infrastructure overnight — the consulting-to-creative land grab is moving faster than most agencies want to admit.
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adidas adds corners to the iconic stan smith with square-toe SQ edition
Adidas squared off the Stan Smith's toe for its SQ edition — a small geometric shift on a 50-year-old silhouette that shows how much mileage a single design decision can still generate.
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‘The Bottle is the First Impression’: Aaron Paul’s Vision for Dos Hombres Tequila
Aaron Paul on Dos Hombres: 'the bottle is the first impression' — a useful reminder that for a challenger spirits brand, packaging *is* the pitch deck, not an afterthought.
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At What Point Are Brands Launching New Products Just To Launch New Products?
Dieline asks the uncomfortable question — at what point are brands launching new products just to fill a content calendar, and who actually benefits when the answer is no one?
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What Brands Can Learn From IPL’s Saturation Problem
IPL's ad saturation problem is a case study every brand team should read — when every slot is sold and every brand shouts, the ones who stay quiet start to look like the smart ones.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Advertising agencies should completely pivot towards a holistic business advisory: Ram Charan
Ram Charan argues ad agencies must pivot to holistic business advisory — a bold call, and one Indian founders hiring agencies for the first time should weigh carefully before signing a retainer.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
six murano glass flowers turn into portable table lamps that glow at a touch
Six Murano glass flowers that collapse into portable lamps and activate by touch — small-batch craft meeting interaction design, and a reminder that tactility is still an underused brand asset.
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PAX proposes a cavernous museum embedded into norway’s fjord landscape
PAX's proposed museum carved into a Norwegian fjord treats the landscape as load-bearing architecture — the building doesn't sit in nature, it disappears into it, which is a harder brief than it sounds.
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A European textile designer in Japan, Mae Engelgeer transforms memory and tradition for the future
Dutch textile designer Mae Engelgeer spent time in Japan translating memory and traditional craft into contemporary fabric — a quiet case study in how cultural fluency produces work that neither culture could make alone.
Read on Wallpaper* -
ouka transforms a century old house into a stayable gallery of japanese woodcarving craft
Ouka converted a century-old Japanese house into a guestable gallery — the craft of woodcarving *is* the interior, not a decorative afterthought. This is what brand immersion looks like when it's structural.
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casa langosta opens as nereidas’ pink concrete stay in the coastal desert of mexico
Casa Langosta is a pink concrete hotel in Mexico's coastal desert — the kind of project where the building *is* the brand, and no campaign budget could do what the architecture does.
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davidpompa and mexican artisans handcraft ceramic series tracing human touch and heritage
Davidpompa's new ceramic series documents the literal fingerprints of Mexican artisans in the clay — a case study in how heritage craft becomes a brand differentiator, not just a backstory.
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The ₹40 Lakh Crore Blind Spot in Indian Marketing
Indian marketers are ignoring a ₹40 lakh crore consumer segment — Brand Equity names it the biggest blind spot in the country's marketing right now, and the math is hard to argue with.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
The Anti-Marketing Phenomenon will change marketing
The brands winning without traditional marketing aren't lucky — they've built something structural, and this piece breaks down why the old playbook is losing its grip on Indian buyers.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
LEGO honors antoni gaudí with 12,060-piece sagrada família architecture set
LEGO's 12,060-piece Sagrada Família is the most ambitious architecture set the brand has made — proof that when IP and craft align at the right scale, the product markets itself.
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The World Cup Is Back, But U.S. Brands Are Still Lost in Translation
The FIFA World Cup is weeks out and U.S. brands are still fumbling cultural context — a useful reminder that global moments punish generic briefs harder than any other media buy.
Read on Adweek -
Lagunitas and Iron Maiden Partner On Latest ‘Trooper’ Beer
Lagunitas and Iron Maiden's Trooper beer collab is a masterclass in fan-brand licensing — two cult followings, one SKU, and a packaging brief that practically writes itself.
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Young Jerks’ Eastern Gold Looks Like It’s Been on the Shelf Since 1987
Young Jerks designed Eastern Gold to look like a forgotten 1987 shelf find — deliberate retro patina as brand strategy, and it's more convincing than most heritage brands with actual history.
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How Oura’s CMO Took It From Sleep Tracker to Wellness Disruptor
Oura's CMO reframed a sleep ring as a full wellness platform — the strategic move wasn't the product, it was deciding what category they were actually competing in.
Read on Adweek -
‘the community is the client’: how fernando laposse turns craft toward rural regeneration
Fernando Laposse treats rural craft communities as the client, not the raw material — a model that reframes what 'design with purpose' can actually mean for a studio's practice.
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Shift to pricing feelings; not products
Brand Equity argues the next pricing frontier isn't tiers or bundles — it's charging for how a product makes someone feel, and Indian brands are barely at the starting line.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
The premiumisation problem no beverage brand saw coming
India's beverage brands chased premiumisation without solving the core tension — consumers want to trade up, but the category's price-value logic was never built for it.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Colombian Studio Epigrama Design New ‘Reuse’ Symbol
Colombian studio Epigrama has designed a new 'Reuse' symbol for packaging — a quiet but serious attempt to give circular design a visual language as recognisable as the recycling arrow.
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Jack Daniel’s and McLaren Built a Whiskey Box That Works Like a Race Car
Jack Daniel's and McLaren built a whiskey box that opens like a race car's DRS system — proof that packaging can be a product experience in its own right, not just a wrapper.
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Nike Reveals a World Cup Universe That Rips Up Its Own Script
Nike's World Cup campaign tears up its own brand playbook — a rare move from a company that usually protects its visual grammar like a trademark, worth studying before the tournament noise peaks.
Read on Adweek -
Is Packaging’s Secret Weapon Photography?
Dieline makes the case that photography — not illustration, not 3D render — is still packaging's most underused strategic tool, and the argument is more rigorous than the headline suggests.
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EXCLUSIVE: Criteo Cuts ChatGPT Ad Minimums, Offers Incentives to Woo Retailer Brands
Criteo is cutting ChatGPT ad minimums and offering incentives to pull retailer brands into AI-native placements — early infrastructure moves like this tend to set the rules everyone else inherits.
Read on Adweek -
Cleared for takeoff. Not for content.
India's aviation regulator has cleared new routes but content restrictions remain — Brand Equity's framing points at a wider tension between platform growth and creative control that brand teams here know well.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Green signal: Suzlon rebranding shifts focus to integrated energy solutions
Suzlon's rebrand drops the wind-only identity for an integrated energy positioning — a signal that India's clean energy sector is maturing fast enough to demand brand architecture, not just logos.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Apple Turns Rival Browsers’ Trackers Into Creepy Chrome Stalkers
Apple's new Safari ad reframes rival browsers' tracking pixels as literal stalkers following you home — sharp creative that makes a privacy argument without a single policy word.
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‘quiet luxury is utterly boring’: stuart semple’s happywatch shows a squished smiley face
Stuart Semple's Happywatch puts a squished smiley face on your wrist and calls quiet luxury boring — a deliberate provocation, and a useful reminder that personality is still a viable brand strategy.
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How To Make Your Design System AI-Ready
Smashing Magazine lays out what it actually takes to make a design system legible to AI agents — token naming, semantic structure, the unglamorous work that determines whether your system survives the next tooling shift.
Read on Smashing Magazine -
Sitecore Snaps Up GEO Startup Scrunch for an Alleged $225M
Sitecore paid an alleged $225M for Scrunch, a GEO startup focused on generative engine optimisation — the clearest signal yet that the SEO-to-GEO transition has a real dollar figure attached to it.
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Googly at Google Sparks Hope, Ethics Debate
Google's antitrust ruling is reopening questions Indian founders should be asking about platform dependency — Brand Equity frames the ethics debate, but the business risk underneath it is the real story.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Body by Cheese: ‘Parm Bars’ Rebrand Parmesan as a High-Protein Gym Snack
Parm Bars rebranded Parmesan as a gym snack — proof that repositioning a 700-year-old ingredient is a packaging brief, not a product brief.
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OpenAI Needs Two CMOs Because It Has a Problem Marketing Can’t Solve
OpenAI hired two CMOs because its core problem — what exactly is it selling, and to whom — isn't one marketing can fix without a clearer answer from the top.
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Pack of the Month: JKR Gives World’s Oldest Soft Drink a Redesign Worthy of its Heritage
JKR redesigned Dr Pepper — the world's oldest soft drink — and the work earns its heritage claim without leaning on nostalgia as a crutch.
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Nammi Turns the Dubai Chocolate Moment Into a Full, Illustrated Universe
Nammi built an illustrated universe around the Dubai chocolate trend instead of chasing it — the difference between brand-building and moment-chasing.
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Havas Bets on a Record Label to Reshape Brand-Music Partnerships
Havas launched a record label to broker brand-music deals — a structural bet that the old sponsorship model is too blunt for what culture actually costs now.
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Ad spend could fall 10–15% in next quarter amid ongoing uncertainty: Navin Khemka
Ad spend could drop 10–15% next quarter, per Navin Khemka — if that number holds, every Indian brand team should be rethinking where the remaining budget actually works.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Use AI to augment design, not replace it
Fast Company makes the case that AI belongs in the designer's toolkit, not in the designer's chair — a useful frame for any studio still figuring out where to draw the line.
Read on Fast Company Design -
Use AI to augment design, not replace it
Fast Company makes the case for AI as a design collaborator, not a replacement — the argument is familiar, but the framing is sharper than most takes doing the rounds.
Read on Fast Company Design -
for bad bunny’s tour, a stadium became a lush puerto rican landscape
For Bad Bunny's tour, an entire stadium was transformed into a Puerto Rican landscape — proof that concert design has become one of the most ambitious branding canvases alive.
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Dukes Coffee Makes Its Presence Felt With Blind Debossing
Dukes Coffee skips ink entirely, using blind debossing to make its packaging speak — restraint as a design decision, not a budget one.
Read on Dieline -
In World Cup Ad, Hyundai Signals Its Future Ambitions With Players You Don’t Know Yet
Hyundai's World Cup ad bets on unknown players rather than established stars — a deliberate signal about where the brand sees itself heading, not where it already is.
Read on Adweek -
Do brands play favorites with influencers?
Indian brands are quietly tiering their influencer relationships, and Brand Equity is asking the question founders should have asked first: who actually gets the good brief?
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
What does the controversy mean for Ranveer Singh’s brand value?
Ranveer Singh's brand value is under scrutiny after the recent controversy — a sharp reminder that celebrity equity is borrowed, not owned, and brand teams should plan accordingly.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Are ads becoming memes?
Brand Equity asks whether Indian ads are becoming memes — and the answer matters, because if your campaign only works as a joke, you may not have a campaign at all.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
RETROCORE reimagines retro-futurist lighting as modular wall and ceiling compositions
RETROCORE's modular lighting system pulls retro-futurist aesthetics into configurable wall and ceiling compositions — proof that nostalgia works hardest when it's also functional.
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antony gormley fills italy’s galleria continua with bodies built like labyrinth cities
Antony Gormley packed Galleria Continua with human-scale figures built like labyrinthine cities — sculpture that makes you think about density, bodies, and how space holds meaning.
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5, 4… 3, 2, 1? Renault’s central role in the triumphant return of the small European car
Renault is leading the comeback of the small European car — and the design language behind it says more about where consumer culture is heading than most trend reports will.
Read on Wallpaper* -
This tropical Indonesian home is less style and more feeling
This Indonesian home was designed around feeling first, aesthetics second — a useful reminder that the strongest brand environments are experienced before they're photographed.
Read on Wallpaper* -
photo series distorts manhattan’s cityscape through fractured glass reflections
A photo series refracts Manhattan through broken glass — the kind of image-making that reminds brand photographers what a single constraint can do to a familiar subject.
Read on Designboom
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