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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A perfect pair of Range Rovers, old and new, showcases a commitment to bespoke design
Range Rover put a classic and its 2024 successor side by side — the visual contrast is a masterclass in how a brand can evolve a design language without losing its original logic.
Read on Wallpaper* -
circular roof opening brings sunlight into casa óculo by OHLAB in palma
OHLAB cut a circular oculus into the roof of a Palma residence, and the resulting light well does more for spatial identity than any interior finish could — restraint as a design decision.
Read on Designboom -
Remembering Teruo Kurosaki, a creative entrepreneur who embodied Japan in the 1980s
Teruo Kurosaki built Idée into a cultural force in 1980s Japan by treating retail as editorial — worth understanding if you think brand-building is just a logo and a color palette.
Read on Wallpaper* -
aérosculpture’s kinetic ‘steel grass’ turns the amsterdam breeze into a shifting metallic field
Amsterdam studio Aérosculpture planted kinetic steel blades that move with the wind — proof that public installations can do more atmospheric work than most brand campaigns ever will.
Read on Designboom -
BIGX super sports playground shapes a digital landscape through steel, light, and color
BIGX's sports playground uses structural steel, programmed light, and saturated color to make a brand identity you can physically move through — spatial branding done without apology.
Read on Designboom -
14 logos that defined American graphic design history
Wallpaper traces 14 logos that shaped American graphic design history — a sharp reminder that the marks we call timeless were once someone's risky, argued-over decision.
Read on Wallpaper* -
What could our world look like in an alternate reality? Olalekan Jeyifous has the answer
Olalekan Jeyifous renders alternate-reality cityscapes that feel more plausible than utopian — the kind of speculative visual work that makes you question what 'realistic' branding even means.
Read on Wallpaper* -
in praise of the useless path: how labyrinths turn disorientation into play
A design essay on labyrinths argues that disorientation is a feature, not a bug — worth reading if you've ever had to defend a brand journey that doesn't resolve in a straight line.
Read on Designboom -
Our Legacy’s ‘laboratory-like’ London store: Scandinavian restraint with a rebellious streak
Our Legacy's new London store pairs Scandinavian restraint with deliberate roughness — a retail interior that understands brand tension better than most brand guidelines ever will.
Read on Wallpaper* -
folded yellow volume reorganizes genova apartment’s interiors like a game of tetris
A Genova apartment reorganized around a single folded yellow volume shows what happens when a designer treats interior architecture like a layout problem — constraints become the concept.
Read on Designboom -
39BC Raids Museum Archives For Body Cleanser Brand
39BC raided museum archives to build a body-cleanser brand with genuine historical texture — proof that research is a design tool, not just a brief-filler.
Read on Dieline -
Designing for the edges improves the center
Fast Company makes the case that designing for edge-case users — the stressed, the distracted, the excluded — consistently produces better outcomes for everyone.
Read on Fast Company Design -
Turning Sunscreen Into a Lifestyle Brand: Lessons from Roy Fleeman
Roy Fleeman turned sunscreen — a grudge purchase — into a lifestyle brand, and the lessons on reframing commodity categories are worth stealing.
Read on Adweek -
the luxury of purpose: redefining exclusivity through craft and analog slow-living
Craft and slowness are being repositioned as luxury signals — a useful frame for any Indian brand trying to escape the race-to-the-bottom on price.
Read on Designboom -
How Y2K Brands Turned the Millennial Ache Into Gen Z Gold
Y2K brands are converting Millennial nostalgia into Gen Z revenue — the mechanics of how they did it matter more than the trend itself.
Read on Adweek -
How brands are tapping India's growing men's jewellery market
India's men's jewellery market is growing fast enough that mainstream brands are building dedicated strategies around it — category creation in real time.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Coca-Cola To Jump Into the ‘Healthy’ Soda Wars With Prebiotic Line?
Coca-Cola is reportedly building a prebiotic soda line — a direct move into Olipop and Poppi territory, and a signal that 'healthy' is no longer a niche shelf.
Read on Dieline -
How Brands Prepare to Be Spontaneous
Adweek breaks down how brands pre-build creative assets and approval chains so they can move in hours, not weeks — spontaneity is infrastructure, not instinct.
Read on Adweek -
Anatomy of a logo: Levi’s Two Horse Patch
Wallpaper* dissects the Levi's Two Horse Patch — one of the oldest brand marks still in active use — and what keeps a logo honest across 150 years.
Read on Wallpaper* -
Beyond the Silo: Building India's Experience Economy
Brand Equity argues India's experience economy is being held back by siloed thinking — worth reading if you're building anything that touches a customer in the real world.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
BWS 2026: Advertising should set trends, not follow them, says R Balki
R Balki at BWS 2026 says advertising should set trends, not chase them — a direct challenge to every brand team that's been A/B testing its way to mediocrity.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Method Turns Its Body Wash Bottles Over to Seven Latine Artists
Method handed its body wash bottles to seven Latine artists — the packaging *is* the campaign, and it's a cleaner brief than most brand collabs manage in a year.
Read on Dieline -
audi ZERØ: one sphere and four tubes redefine the electric car through radical geometry
Audi's ZERØ concept strips an electric car to one sphere and four tubes — radical enough to ask whether car design has been solving the wrong problem for decades.
Read on Designboom -
Marketing Vanguard at Cannes: How Saying No Made Lego Stronger ft. Julia Goldin
Lego's CMO Julia Goldin at Cannes: saying no to brand extensions and licensing deals is what kept the brand worth billions — a case study in restraint as strategy.
Read on Adweek -
Anatomy of a logo: McDonald’s Golden Arches by Jim Schindler
Wallpaper* traces the McDonald's Golden Arches back to Jim Schindler's 1962 sketch — a reminder that the most durable brand marks were engineering decisions first, identity second.
Read on Wallpaper* -
No, People Don’t Want More AI In Their Life
Smashing Magazine's survey data is blunt: most users don't want more AI in their products — a useful reality check before your next feature roadmap meeting.
Read on Smashing Magazine -
People thought this MLB hat had a defect. It’s actually a clever hidden reference
An MLB cap with a stitching 'flaw' that's actually a deliberate hidden reference — proof that the best easter eggs make customers feel like insiders, not just buyers.
Read on Fast Company Design -
Once a Cost-Cutting Move, In-House Agencies Are Now Seen as a Strategic Play
In-house agencies started as a cost play; now brand teams are treating them as a competitive moat — Adweek maps how the shift from vendor to strategic unit actually happened.
Read on Adweek -
Advertising Is Asking The Wrong Questions
Brand Equity argues Indian advertising keeps measuring the wrong things — reach over resonance, impressions over intent — and the brief itself is where the problem starts.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Anatomy of a Logo: Calvin Klein
Wallpaper* dissects the Calvin Klein logo — a masterclass in how negative space and type restraint built one of fashion's most durable visual identities without a single icon.
Read on Wallpaper* -
The 4 Marketing Decisions That Seem Smart, But That Can Weaken Great Brands
Adweek names 4 brand decisions that *feel* strategic — broad targeting, heavy discounting, trend-chasing — but quietly erode the distinctiveness that made a brand worth building.
Read on Adweek -
Fully Loaded: The Brand Strategy Behind Crocs’ Cultural Takeover
Crocs went from punchline to cultural fixture — Adweek breaks down the brand strategy behind collabs, clogs, and a fanbase that now includes Balenciaga and Bad Bunny.
Read on Adweek -
It Took 1,227 Tries to Perfect This Mochi; The Rebrand Got It in One
A mochi brand took 1,227 recipe attempts to get the product right; the rebrand that followed had to carry that obsession — and apparently, it did it in one shot.
Read on Dieline -
realizing the dream: crafting a new design language from a confluence of cultures
Designboom profiles a design language built from cultural confluence — worth reading for any studio working across India's regional identities without flattening them into a single aesthetic.
Read on Designboom -
BWS 2026: Reaching Gen Z with traditional marketing is 16% more expensive
BWS 2026 data puts a hard number on it: reaching Gen Z through traditional marketing costs 16% more than other cohorts — a signal Indian brand teams can't keep ignoring.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Brands deploy AI assistants to solve the choice paradox
Indian brands are deploying AI assistants not to sell more but to reduce decision fatigue — a quiet shift in how brand experience gets designed when choice itself becomes the problem.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
From Rude Olives To Luxury Wedding Invites, Chaittali V Patel Continues to Explore Through Affogato Design
Chaittali V Patel's Affogato Design studio moves from rude olive branding to luxury wedding stationery — a portfolio range that says more about creative range than any case study deck could.
Read on Dieline -
Roja Doesn’t Have Time For Your Boring Old Ketchup
Roja's ketchup rebrand ditches the red-and-white safety net entirely — bold move for a condiment category where Heinz has made sameness feel like a virtue for 150 years.
Read on Dieline -
Northern Red Turns Frozen Crab Into First Class Mail
Northern Red ships frozen Dungeness crab in packaging designed to feel like first-class mail — proof that cold-chain logistics and premium brand experience aren't mutually exclusive.
Read on Dieline -
century-old japanese cedar unfolds into flat-pack furniture collection, FLAT/FORM
A century-old Japanese cedar gets a second life as FLAT/FORM — flat-pack furniture that treats material provenance as the design brief, not an afterthought.
Read on Designboom -
Coffee shops are the new, improved, daytime bars
India's coffee shop boom isn't just a caffeine story — Brand Equity maps how third-place culture is quietly reshaping where deals get made and brands get built.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Shelf Life 118:Design Agency Economics And The Disappearing Middle
Dieline's Shelf Life 118 gets honest about design agency economics: the mid-size studio is disappearing, and the business models that replaced it aren't necessarily better.
Read on Dieline -
love hultén transforms pink floyd’s prism into a playable synthesizer guitar
Love Hultén rebuilt Pink Floyd's Dark Side prism as a fully playable synthesizer guitar — proof that the strongest brand artifacts are the ones people can actually touch and use.
Read on Designboom -
Anatomy of a logo: MoMA by Ivan Chermayeff
Ivan Chermayeff's MoMA wordmark — dissected by Wallpaper* — is a reminder that the most durable logos are built on a single, unignorable decision made with total conviction.
Read on Wallpaper* -
nicolas nielsen designs self-driving HYVE beehive to pollinate cities
Nicolas Nielsen's HYVE is a self-driving beehive designed to pollinate urban environments — design solving a real ecological problem, not just making a city look considered.
Read on Designboom -
coil kazuteru matumura converts hidden timber outbuildings into shared kitchen in osaka
In Osaka, Coil Kazuteru Matumura converted hidden timber outbuildings into a shared kitchen — a sharp example of how adaptive reuse can create community infrastructure without building anything new.
Read on Designboom -
a mirrored water drop installation reflects the landscape of sayram lake in china
A mirrored water-drop installation at Sayram Lake turns the surrounding landscape into the artwork itself — the kind of site-specific thinking that makes permanent structures feel inevitable rather than imposed.
Read on Designboom -
Anatomy of a logo: behind Hollywoodland, the world’s most famous sign
The Hollywood sign started as a real-estate ad in 1923 — Wallpaper* traces how nine letters became the world's most recognised piece of accidental place branding.
Read on Wallpaper* -
Why Human Stories Will Always Matter - With or Without AI
Brand Equity makes the case that human stories aren't a soft differentiator — they're the only thing AI genuinely cannot manufacture at scale, and smart brands should act accordingly.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Brands and the Empire State love 'storey'
Brand Equity unpacks why the Empire State Building remains a cultural shorthand 90-plus years on — a useful case study in what it actually takes for a brand to earn permanence.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
oorvi sharma believes craftsmanship is key to building resilient futures
Designer Oorvi Sharma argues that craft isn't nostalgia — it's a supply-chain and brand strategy for businesses that want to outlast the next disruption.
Read on Designboom -
Anthropic Confronts the Hard Questions About AI Responsibility
Anthropic is publicly wrestling with AI responsibility in ways most tech companies won't — worth reading if you're building anything that touches real users.
Read on Adweek -
Soulsight Refreshes Miller High Life By Elevating One of the Brand’s Most Iconic Assets
Soulsight's Miller High Life refresh bets everything on one existing asset rather than a full visual overhaul — a disciplined call that most rebrand briefs would have buried under committee feedback.
Read on Dieline -
From Kickoff To First Concept: How To Turn Brand Strategy Into Visual Direction
Smashing Magazine walks through the exact translation layer between brand strategy and first visual concepts — the step most studios skip or fumble, and where client trust is won or lost.
Read on Smashing Magazine -
Anatomy of a logo: the Nike Swoosh
Wallpaper* dissects the Nike Swoosh's origin — $35, a design student, and a brief Phil Knight didn't even love — a useful reminder that the most durable marks are rarely the most celebrated at pitch.
Read on Wallpaper* -
‘heritage is not a static archive’: GUNIA on reinventing ukraine’s craft and material traditions
GUNIA's work on Ukrainian craft traditions argues that heritage brands must be rebuilt from material logic, not nostalgia — a sharp brief for any Indian studio working with legacy categories.
Read on Designboom -
‘design is no longer hostage to the tool’: STILFOLD creates industrial origami from flat metal
STILFOLD's industrial origami process folds flat metal into structural forms without welding or waste — the 'design is no longer hostage to the tool' line alone is worth the click.
Read on Designboom -
Dark patterns and drip pricing: The legal and regulatory framework
Brand Equity breaks down India's dark patterns and drip pricing regulations — the legal framework is tightening, and brand teams building e-commerce flows need to read this now, not after a notice.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Anatomy of a logo: IBM by Paul Rand
Wallpaper* dissects Paul Rand's IBM logo — a masterclass in how eight horizontal stripes turned a computing giant into a cultural shorthand that still holds 60 years later.
Read on Wallpaper* -
Designing For Distressed Users: Why Mental Health Apps Shouldn’t Follow Every UI Fashion
Smashing Magazine argues that mental health apps blindly chasing UI trends — dark modes, micro-animations, gamification — actively harm users in crisis; the case for designing against the grain.
Read on Smashing Magazine -
Covalent Centers Its Identity On Scientific Precision
Covalent built its entire brand identity around scientific precision — a rare case of a B2B company letting its actual methodology drive the visual language rather than softening it for mass appeal.
Read on Dieline -
the indo-global dialogue: dropping western templates to give regional craft a voice
Designboom spotlights the Indo-global design dialogue: why regional craft vocabularies are finally being treated as a starting point, not a decorative afterthought to Western frameworks.
Read on Designboom -
ceramic wall inspired by termite mounds cools interiors without air conditioning
A ceramic wall modelled on termite mound geometry cools interiors passively — no compressor, no refrigerant — and it's a sharper brief for material innovation than most funded climate startups manage.
Read on Designboom -
Presence is the new performance in today's AI world: Yuvrraj Agarwal
Brand Equity's Yuvrraj Agarwal makes a pointed argument: in an AI-saturated feed, consistent presence — not campaign performance — is the metric that compounds into brand equity.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Once Unimaginable, Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search
Publishers are quietly building opt-out infrastructure for Google Search — a structural shift that would redraw how content, SEO budgets, and discovery funnels work for every brand with a blog.
Read on Adweek -
lara tabet works with bacteria to produce living images at BMW’s arles exhibition
Lara Tabet grew living bacterial images for BMW's Arles show — when the medium *is* the message this literally, it's worth asking what your brand's material choices are saying.
Read on Designboom -
Why the Bot-Majority Internet Demands a Marketing Reset
Bots now outnumber humans online — and if your media strategy still assumes a human on the other end of every impression, you're buying reach that doesn't exist.
Read on Adweek -
Anatomy of a logo: Chateau Marmont
Chateau Marmont's logo gets the anatomy treatment — a useful reminder that the most durable marks in hospitality are built on restraint, not reinvention.
Read on Wallpaper* -
Tour de Type: Mamdani and Wendy’s Get the Bespoke Font Treatment, Plus a Street Tour of Valencia Signage
NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani and Wendy's both commissioned bespoke typefaces recently — custom type is no longer a luxury signal, it's becoming a baseline brand decision.
Read on Dieline -
rethinking the glass tower through a living skin that grows, shades, and generates energy
A glass tower concept with a living facade that shades, grows, and generates energy — architecture catching up to the idea that a building's skin can do real work.
Read on Designboom -
How to Build the Fastest-Growing Brand in the World
India's fragrance market is accelerating fast, with homegrown D2C labels eating into legacy players — worth reading if you're building or advising a consumer brand right now.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Can Kohli Break the Jinx of India’s Celebrity Brands?
Kohli, Deepika, Dhoni — India's biggest celebrity brands keep underperforming, and this piece asks the uncomfortable question: does fame actually sell, or just feel like it does?
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Is This the End of Tech-Spec Marketing? ft. Hisense CMO Sarah Larsen
Hisense's CMO argues that leading with specs is a dead end — a useful provocation for any brand team still hiding behind feature lists instead of building a point of view.
Read on Adweek -
how antoni gaudí’s architecture found its way into schiaparelli haute couture
Schiaparelli's latest haute couture pulled directly from Gaudí's structural logic — a case study in how referencing architecture, not trend, gives a collection a reason to exist.
Read on Designboom -
These Creators Are Hacking ChatGPT To Rake In Brand Deals
Creators are feeding brand briefs into ChatGPT to reverse-engineer pitches that win deals — a small shift in workflow that is quietly changing who gets hired and why.
Read on Adweek -
Bright Side: The Supergoop! Playbook for Turning Sun Care Into a Cultural Movement
Supergoop! turned SPF — a category most brands treat as functional and forgettable — into a cultural identity, and Adweek breaks down exactly how the positioning was built.
Read on Adweek -
Anatomy of a logo: Tiffany & Co by Paula Scher
Paula Scher's Tiffany & Co. logo gets the anatomy treatment — a rare, specific look at how one of the world's most recognisable marks was actually constructed and why it still holds.
Read on Wallpaper* -
What are brands doing on your Instagram comments?
Indian brands are showing up in Instagram comment sections as a deliberate strategy — worth understanding before your competitors figure out the playbook first.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
teresa van dongen rethinks design through living systems
Teresa van Dongen is designing with living systems — bacteria, bioluminescence, biological cycles — a genuinely different frame for what materials and process can mean in 2026.
Read on Designboom -
Anatomy of a logo: Snoopy by Charles Shulz
Wallpaper* dissects Snoopy's logo history — a single character held consistent for 70 years, which is a longer brand coherence record than most Fortune 500 companies can claim.
Read on Wallpaper* -
Espina Studio Elevates a Beloved Mexican Snack With Charming New Identity For Danchos
Espina Studio rebranded Danchos, a Mexican snack staple, with an identity so charming it makes you wonder why more food brands still treat packaging as an afterthought.
Read on Dieline -
Otra Cosecha Takes Pisco Out of the Past and Into the Now
Otra Cosecha's rebrand repositions Pisco for a younger, global audience without erasing its Peruvian roots — the kind of cultural tension most brand teams get badly wrong.
Read on Dieline -
the new global nomad: are we replacing local identity for a universal architecture style?
A sharp question for any studio building brands across markets: are we designing for real places, or just shipping the same global aesthetic with a local flag pinned to it?
Read on Designboom -
kodak’s viral keychain camera gets a Y2K makeover with new millennium edition
Kodak's viral keychain camera gets a Y2K Millennium Edition — proof that nostalgia still sells, especially when the original product already has a cult following doing the work.
Read on Designboom -
Why Star Plus is betting on non-fiction again
Star Plus is doubling down on non-fiction at a moment when most broadcasters are retreating — worth watching if you're building anything for India's mass-market attention economy.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
yellow steel, concrete, and circular openings revive corner building in spain as apart-hotel
A corner building in Spain gets a second life as an apart-hotel through yellow steel, raw concrete, and circular cutouts — proof that a strong material palette can carry an entire identity.
Read on Designboom -
Hyundai Upgrades World Cup Stunts With First Robot-Powered Halftime Activation
Hyundai deployed actual robots at a World Cup halftime show — a brand activation that earns attention rather than buys it, and sets a new bar for live sports sponsorship.
Read on Adweek -
‘beauty can help save us’: jacques monneraud on turning cardboard into lasting ceramics
Jacques Monneraud fires discarded cardboard at extreme temperatures to produce ceramics — a process that turns waste material into something durable enough to outlast the brand that made it.
Read on Designboom -
How Thom Browne created fashion’s most distinctive uniform
Thom Browne built one of fashion's most recognisable brands on a single silhouette — the grey suit — and this piece unpacks exactly how constraint became competitive advantage.
Read on Wallpaper* -
a bookstore inside cobe copenhagen: a material library of architecture, cities, and ideas
COBE's Copenhagen office houses a bookstore stocked with architecture and city-planning titles — a quiet reminder that the best studios treat their physical space as a brand statement.
Read on Designboom -
copper shingles wrap curving concert hall ‘la source vive’ in évian, france
Copper shingles wrap the curving concert hall La Source Vive in Évian — a material choice that will oxidise publicly over decades, making time itself part of the brand.
Read on Designboom -
Anatomy of a logo: Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup can
Wallpaper* dissects Warhol's Campbell's soup can logo — a reminder that the most durable brand marks are often the ones that borrow shamelessly from the mundane.
Read on Wallpaper* -
‘the intelligent hand moves everything’: alberto cavalli on homo faber and the future of craft
Alberto Cavalli argues that craft and industrial scale aren't opposites — Homo Faber's curator makes the case for the skilled hand as a competitive edge, not a luxury footnote.
Read on Designboom -
scaffolding pipes turn into street furniture activating a future development site in osaka
In Osaka, scaffolding pipes became street furniture on a vacant development site — a zero-budget activation that made a dead block useful before a single foundation was poured.
Read on Designboom -
this soft robot wants to fold laundry without pretending to be human
This soft robot folds laundry without mimicking human form — a small design decision that signals a smarter approach to what machines should look like when they live with us.
Read on Designboom -
suspended glacier forms translate climate change into an interactive installation in shanghai
A Shanghai installation turns glacier melt data into something you can touch — proof that climate communication lands harder when designers stop making infographics and start making experiences.
Read on Designboom -
snøhetta’s prairie-roofed roosevelt library honors the landscapes america chose to protect
Snøhetta's Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library uses a prairie-grass roofline to dissolve into the Badlands — architecture that earns its metaphor instead of announcing it.
Read on Designboom -
‘it’s not about hair’: sanne visser on redesigning the systems behind materials
Designer Sanne Visser isn't making better hair products — she's redesigning the material systems behind them, a useful reminder that the most interesting briefs start one level upstream of the obvious one.
Read on Designboom -
lacoste reimagines alpine’s A290 rallye through its iconic crocodile motif
Lacoste put its crocodile motif directly onto Alpine's A290 Rallye — not a wrap, not a collab sticker, but a full design language transfer that makes both brands look sharper for it.
Read on Designboom -
Anatomy of a logo: Milton Glaser’s I ❤️ NY
Wallpaper* breaks down Milton Glaser's I ❤️ NY — still the most copied city logo on earth — and why its power comes from what it leaves out, not what it says.
Read on Wallpaper* -
Amit Syngle: We don't believe in product marketing, we believe in emotional marketing
Asian Paints' Amit Syngle makes the case that emotional marketing — not product specs — is what's driven the brand to ₹35,000 Cr revenue; worth reading if you sell anything considered 'functional.'
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
what kind of afterlife can salvaged stained-glass give a burned-out porsche?
A burned-out Porsche gets salvaged stained-glass panels as its second life — a small project, but the question it asks about material memory and object identity is one more brand studios should be sitting with.
Read on Designboom -
For America250, Patriotic Marketing Has to Look Beyond the Cliches
America250's patriotic marketing moment is forcing agencies to move past flags and fireworks — a useful case study in how national briefs go wrong when they play it safe.
Read on Adweek -
bugatti hand-paints digital linework across W16 mistral ‘blanc éternel’
Bugatti hand-painted digital linework across the W16 Mistral 'Blanc Éternel' — a deliberate collision of craft and code that most luxury brands only talk about doing.
Read on Designboom -
Marketing Vanguard at Cannes: Human Ingenuity Still Runs the Game ft. Dara Treseder
Dara Treseder at Cannes is direct: human creative judgment still sets the ceiling, and AI is only as useful as the brief it's handed — worth 10 minutes of your time.
Read on Adweek -
kengo kuma on why craftsmanship remains architecture’s connection to place
Kengo Kuma argues that craftsmanship is not nostalgia — it's the only thing that ties a building to its place, a position that holds just as well for brand work as it does for architecture.
Read on Designboom -
Matching AI Modality To User Intent: Designing The Right Interface
Smashing Magazine breaks down how to match AI interface modality to user intent — the design problem most product teams are getting wrong right now, with specific patterns to fix it.
Read on Smashing Magazine -
designing for the senses: moving beyond the picture-perfect obsession to activate emotion
Designboom makes the case for sensory-first design thinking — moving past the picture-perfect render toward work that actually triggers an emotional response in real people.
Read on Designboom -
Why WhatsApp's new usernames have brands and the government on alert
WhatsApp's new username feature is quietly reshaping how brands own identity on the platform — and India's regulators are already asking who controls the namespace.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
craft x tech combines japan’s legacy of artisanal craftsmanship with contemporary art and design
Craft x Tech in Japan pairs artisanal makers with contemporary designers, and the results reframe what 'handmade' can mean when the brief isn't nostalgia but genuine formal problem-solving.
Read on Designboom -
Chris Paul: Brands Miss Out When They Just Hand Athletes a Script
Chris Paul argues brands waste athlete equity by handing them scripts — the ones that actually convert let the athlete bring the story, not just the face.
Read on Adweek -
alaïa clads first miami boutique in pink mosaic tiles, from interior to facade
Alaïa's first Miami boutique wraps every surface — interior walls to street facade — in pink mosaic tile, making the store itself the brand statement rather than what's inside it.
Read on Designboom -
Where Did the Kids Go?
Brand Equity asks where India's youth audience went — and the answer matters to every founder building a consumer brand that assumed Gen Z would just show up.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Pack of the Month: Dukes Coffee Gets a Timeless Refresh Courtesy of SODAA
Dukes Coffee's rebrand by SODAA trades trend-chasing for restraint — a useful case study in how a small coffee brand builds shelf presence that doesn't age out in two years.
Read on Dieline -
hoshino hotel opens within the historic, radiating structure of japan’s former nara prison
Hoshino Hotels converted Japan's former Nara Prison — a radiating 1908 Meiji-era structure — into a working hotel, proving adaptive reuse is most powerful when the history stays legible.
Read on Designboom -
EXCLUSIVE: Omnicom to Win Adidas’ $512M Global Media Account
Omnicom is set to win Adidas' $512M global media account — a signal of where holding-group consolidation is heading as brands cut vendor lists and demand integrated bets.
Read on Adweek -
The $1 Trillion Question: Why Are Brands Still Underinvesting in Women’s Sports?
Women's sports draws a trillion-dollar audience and still gets a fraction of brand budgets — the gap is no longer a blind spot, it's a decision brands are actively making.
Read on Adweek -
Brands May Be Bankrolling the AI Misinformation Spreading About Them
Programmatic ad spend is funding AI sites that spread misinformation about the very brands buying the inventory — a structural problem no brand safety checklist has actually solved.
Read on Adweek -
acne studios’ pink library in tokyo celebrates three decades of fashion, art, and publishing
Acne Studios opened a pink library in Tokyo to mark 30 years — a retail move that bets on cultural weight over product display, and it's hard to argue with the logic.
Read on Designboom -
Unbridled Spirit’s Bourbon Challenges Expectations At Every Touchpoint
Unbridled Spirit's bourbon packaging rejects category clichés at every touchpoint — the bottle, the label, the unboxing — a reminder that challenger brands win on coherence, not just a logo.
Read on Dieline -
Zero-click shopping could be commerce's next big disruption
Zero-click shopping, where AI agents complete purchases without a human touching a screen, could make the entire conversion funnel brands obsess over functionally irrelevant.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Marketing Matters: How Swiggy delivered real-time relevance
Swiggy's real-time marketing playbook — reacting to live cultural moments inside a 2-hour delivery window — is a sharper brief for relevance than most annual brand strategies.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
Hermès beijing flagship wrapped in a rose-pink ceramic veil by mamou-mani
Mamou-Mani wrapped Hermès's Beijing flagship in rose-pink ceramic — a building that reads as packaging, and packaging that reads as architecture.
Read on Designboom -
When AI Becomes the Gatekeeper of Brand Visibility
When AI decides which brands surface in a search answer, SEO as you knew it is over — Adweek maps what brand visibility actually means when the gatekeeper is a model.
Read on Adweek -
OXMAN explores growing color through bacterial pigmentation instead of synthetic dyes
OXMAN is growing color using bacterial pigmentation — if it scales, synthetic dyes become a legacy problem, and every brand with a Pantone dependency should pay attention.
Read on Designboom -
2147: a voice from the future transforms a reclaimed payphone into an AI interface
A reclaimed New York payphone now speaks as an AI voice from 2147 — a small installation that asks a sharper question about what public interfaces are actually for.
Read on Designboom -
Atari’s Art and Design Told Video Game Stories That 8 Bits Could Never Do
Atari's visual language did what the hardware couldn't — Dieline traces how its art direction built a mythology that 8-bit graphics alone never could have carried.
Read on Dieline -
7UP Turned Four Guatemalan Destinations Into Cans Worth Collecting
7UP Guatemala turned four regional destinations into limited collector cans — proof that place-based storytelling still works best when it fits in someone's hand.
Read on Dieline -
Fernando Machado warns generative AI will homogenise marketing: Cannes Lions
Fernando Machado said the quiet part loud at Cannes: generative AI is already flattening marketing into sameness, and most brand teams are accelerating into it.
Read on Brand Equity (Economic Times) -
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)
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