Things come and things go. Design work is no exception. I know this first-hand. I love designing brands, but I’ve lost pitches and I’ve had plenty of designs shelved. I’ve worked on the design of an office used by more than a thousand people, only for everyone to move out five years later. I’ve rebranded a stock-listed company that was delisted not long after, not to mention startups that were sold and then shut.

People celebrate these moments. They celebrate the exit, the move to the new building, the start of something different. But each time that something I designed disappears, I feel like part of me goes with it.

Maybe it’s the desire to leave something behind, a mark in the world, a brand that endures. Something that, decades from now I could still look at and proudly say: “You know what, we made that.”

Nothing lasts forever though. Not people, not companies, and certainly not brands. The world keeps changing, and lately faster than ever. If there’s a silver lining, maybe it’s the mark we leave on people. What they remember, not what we leave behind. Our brand. Because what is a brand if not a memory?

Other things on my mind:

Aesthetics of AI

I stumbled on this deep dive by A Color Bright into how AI brands are presenting themselves visually. It’s way more interesting than any other design trends piece I’ve read recently. What I like the most is their framing: 14 visual trends and five archetypes, from Likeable Leaders to nerdy idealists, and utopian dreamers. It reads a bit like a field guide for designing in a space with little product differentiation.

A new look for granola

The most famous AI notepad just received a fresh new look by Ragged Edge. The new visual system introduces a monogram “G” to replace the previous text‑cursor logo. The logo isn’t very exciting, but works well. I really like the visual language though. The combination of the slab serif typography with the textured applications reminds me of typewriters. It looks human, vibrant, and fits note‑taking really well.

The Adobe Creative Collective

Adobe is rolling out something new called the Adobe Creative Collective. I believe it will be a series of talks and panel discussions involving a handpicked group of creative heavyweights (Stefan Sagmeister, Karen Cheng, Don Allen Stevenson III, and more). The goal is to start a public conversation around AI. I am really curious to hear what people have to say, and whether the opinions of these industry leaders are as nuanced as the opinions of those in the trenches.

The Book Cover Archive

I like digging through public domain work for inspiration. Part research, part reminder of all the beautiful things that go unnoticed over the years. A recent favourite discovery is the Book Cover Archive by Ben Pieratt and Eric Jacobsen.

Obello: An AI Graphic Design Platform

Obello is an AI-powered design platform where you set up master templates and brand rules once, then you can resize and create new assets, on-brand and without breaking anything. I haven’t tried it yet, but knowing it comes from the people behind the design studio Character (now part of Dentsu) makes it sound promising.

Anthropic Super Bowl Ads

Anthropic just launched its first Super Bowl campaign for Claude, and instead of bragging about product features, it goes straight at OpenAI’s choice to put ads in ChatGPT. The spots created by Mother (there’s 4 of them) remind me of Black Mirror. Funny and a good metaphor for any company that starts leaning heavily on ad revenue.

BBC Winter Olympics Titles

The Olympic Committee is being criticised for producing an embarrassing piece using AI. Human excellence being represented by artificial intelligence… Well, I can’t say the same about the video above, the BBC Winter Olympics title sequence. It looks amazing. Real stop motion, frame by frame, with real props, fire, etc. It’s worth watching the behind the scenes too. Done by BBC Creative, together with NOMINT.

Job Picks of the Month

And before I leave you, here are some interesting open positions I found this month:

Design Bridge & Partners - Senior Designer (Madrid - Spain)
Further - Senior Designer (New York - USA)
Google - Social Marketing Lead (Germany - Hamburg)
Lovable - Brand Designer (Stockholm - Sweden)
Revolut - Campaign Creative Lead (Remote)
Sherpa - Design Director (Germany - Remote)
Superhuman - Head of Enterprise Design ( San Francisco - USA)

Keep reading:

It’s an exciting time to be a designer. New software, plugins, and AI tools are constantly pushing our capabilities further. Just recently, I’ve built a simple note-taking app, created photoshoots with people who don’t exist, and worked on campaigns with animated 3D elements. All done with tools that didn’t exist a couple of years ago.

I find it just as exhausting though. Over the past few months I feel a certain sense of disorientation with new stuff constantly demanding my attention. Am I staying on top of things? Is it even possible to? I try to, but struggle with knowing whether I’m investing the right time in the right thing.

I wish the pace of innovation was a little slower, not everything at the same time. Maybe as it used to be, when choices were more binary and permanent, not an endless cycle of starting all over again. I’m sure some of you feel the same way, but the new year has just started and I’m sure it is going to be as disruptive as 2025.

Tools worth your time:

Affinity Studio: One tool to rule them all

I always asked myself why Adobe never made an effort to consolidate tools like Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. I’m sure the large portfolio of specialized tools makes sense from a business perspective, but the approach Affinity is pursuing makes much more sense for the user. All graphic design needs addressed by a single solution, and free. I’m excited especially about the coming iPad version, but as with all free tools, I’m curious about the catch here.

Cursor launched a visual editor

20 years after Dreamweaver was launched, tools that bridge code and design are getting some love again, now with AI. Cursor has launched a way to edit website properties in a visual way and make those edits directly translated and implemented in your website code. Additionally you can click in specific elements and prompt changes. It’s still somewhat limited but the potential is nice. Just like it was 20 years ago.

Adobe Firefly: All-in-one AI studio

With Moodboards, Profiles, Style references, macros, and the possibility to combine all of these with different weights, Midjourney is still the king of aesthetics. But Adobe Firefly has become a really useful part of how I approach AI explorations. Adobe has shifted from relying solely on its own Firefly models to becoming a hub for all the top-tier imaging models, including some of my personal favorites like Google’s Nano Banana Pro and Veo Fast. If you take a look at my most recent experiments with AI, I’ve been creating almost everything with Midjourney and Adobe Firefly.

Paper: New kid in town

Figma may have won the fight against Adobe XD and Sketch, but the space keeps drawing new challengers. Paper is the new kid in town. Its animated shaders are the standout feature, but I also appreciate the small touches, like access to AI imaging models or even being able to customize the text-underline offset.

Framer Design Pages

Framer on the other hand isn’t new, but they recently made a move on Figma with their Design Pages, a full design canvas. This means that Framer isn’t just a site builder anymore. You can design a site in Framer and publish it in Framer, no Figma needed. And the best part: it’s free.

Animation with Jitter and Spline

Jitter is a new motion design tool that feels a lot like Figma. It’s fast, runs in the browser, supports multiple artboards in one document, allows real-time collaboration, and integrates smoothly with Figma. It’s not as powerful as Adobe After Effects, but it’s by far the simplest way I’ve found to create advanced motion graphics quickly. Spline has done the same for my 3D workflow. I’ve tried a bunch of 3D tools over the years and never stuck with one. Spline changed that. Like Jitter, it’s web-based, fast, and easy to pick up. I’ve been using both for most of my motion design work.

Adobe Premiere, now mobile

Most people posting videos on Instagram use the Edits tool, and those on TikTok use CapCut. Adobe Premiere mobile takes the best of both, expands the functionality, and even lets you continue on desktop. I’ve been using it a lot. It’s not as feature-rich as the desktop version, but it has plenty of smarts that make editing on the phone a breeze, for example, reordering clips. One thing I miss is image stabilization and more precise controls over timing.

Job Picks of the Month

And before I leave you, here are some interesting open positions I found this month:

Design Bridge & Partners - Senior Designer (Madrid - Spain)
FINN - Creative Brand Lead - (Germany - Remote)
Microsoft - Brand Designer - (Mountain View - USA)
Objective Brand - Creative Director (Denver - USA - Remote)
Superhuman - Head of Enterprise Design ( San Francisco - USA)

Last time I flew to Portugal, I noticed again how exciting it is to experience something for the first time. It wasn’t my kid’s first time flying. But it was the first time he stayed glued to the small window, watching the clouds, fully realizing that he was very high in the sky.

It’s bittersweet, though. I’m sure there will be many more moments of wonder throughout his life, but not with flying. That’s the thing with novelty. The new is exciting and transformative, but its newness only lasts for a little while.

I grew up in the 90s. Back then, music videos were a huge part of how we consumed music. I spent most lunch breaks at the café next to school glued to the TV screen. Everyone was watching MTV. It was the platform for new music, new styles, and video techniques. It defined culture, and every artist wanted a piece of that. It was also where I first saw a dynamic logo. The bold M with the graffiti-style TV appeared everywhere.

And it kept changing.

I remember wondering how amazing it must be to work in broadcast. Before I matured into brand design, that was the only field where I could imagine something like that even being possible. I just couldn’t wrap my head around having infinite possibilities while dealing with production restrictions.

In 2009, another iconic “M” appeared. The city of Melbourne rebrand was celebrated in the design community for its dynamic logo system. But... it reminded me of MTV. Although the style was different, it relied on the exact same trick that made the MTV logo special – to their credit, the city of Melbourne logo variants were also used in traditional print materials, not only in motion graphics.

Things are different now. Dynamic logos have gone from being a source of awe to I can’t see them anymore. Google alone creates hundreds of logo variations per year. And I already lost count of how many brands have attempted flexible systems. After all, capitalism is a system of copycats, where everything that works gets copied, and everything that gets copied eventually becomes old. Yes, new things are exciting, they expand our senses, but I don’t think anyone finds smartphones, or chatbots, or even flying special anymore.

Design suffers from the same fate. That’s why every few years businesses rebrand, launch something new, or completely change direction. Not because things weren’t working, but for the most part, because everyone is constantly chasing that spark of excitement that people get from seeing something new. The moment when you stop and notice “Oh, that’s interesting.”

I’ve started to think that brands should embrace a mindset of continuously exploring the new. In that sense, I really like how Perplexity talks about its brand. Not as something fixed, but as something that can flex and grow and evolve. A framework for continual change. A guidebook, not a rulebook. Familiarity, not consistency.

It makes me wonder if that’s what our role as designers should be. To help brands change, instead of locking them in place with constraints and rules. Because change isn’t the enemy of proper design. It’s how brands stay alive. And maybe what allows them to become new again.

On that note, we should applaud (not bash) brands that at least try. Cracker Barrel for making an effort. Grammarly for becoming Superhuman (after acquiring it). Nokia for the B2B pivot. Jaguar for its ultra-modern EV weirdness. Adobe for going all-in on generative tools instead of playing defense. And yes, the foldables, Zunes, Ray‑Bans, and Pins that big tech keeps experimenting with. I don’t always agree with or like the directions taken, but if brands don’t keep moving and exploring the new, they probably won’t stick around forever.

Ana Freitas is a graphic designer, art director and tutor based in Lisbon. She grew up in Madeira, graduated from the Chelsea College of Art & Design in 2007, and has since worked between London, Brazil and Lisbon. Today she balances her design practice with teaching the Graphic Design course at ETIC. In the conversation that follows, she shares how her calling came from a cardboard chair, and the role that research, collaboration and experimentation plays in her work.

Looking back, what sparked your imagination as a kid?

I used to think I was going to be an inventor, though I was never particularly good with machines or technology. In truth, the machines I described were more like excuses to tell stories than functional objects.

When did you first realize that design was what you wanted to do?

I loved writing, and for a while everyone pushed me toward Social Sciences. But the moment I had my first Visual Education class, nothing else mattered. Letters remained important, but the graphic dimension opened up a whole new playground. Later, in my first design theory class, I came across Peter Murdoch’s dotted “Chair Thing.” I grew up in an environment where the word design barely existed. Back then, you became either an artist or an architect. But that chair, I had never seen anything like it, and I knew immediately that’s what I wanted to do.

So, let’s talk about your time after college up until what you’re doing now.

I grew up on a small island, which probably explains why I’ve always been eager to explore new landscapes. Since college, I’ve tried to push myself in different ways, whether by winning a grant to work in Brazil or by studying other disciplines like anthropology. Today I’m mainly based in Lisbon, working as a designer and teaching, but still looking outward every chance I get.

After years working in agencies, what led you toward working independently?

When I moved back to Lisbon, there wasn’t really a studio where I could see myself working. Working alone doesn’t fully fit me either, but I’m not drawn to opening a studio. I already see how much admin freelancing takes, and I don’t want more of that. I do miss sharing, so I often call other people into projects, especially younger designers, because they bring fresh perspectives and values.

You just mentioned how much you value other perspectives. Are there any mentors or designers that were important in your journey?

Some teachers were crucial in helping me gain confidence, the good ones and the not-so-good ones. As for designers I admire, there are many: Lance Wyman, Paula Scher, Corita Kent, Louise Fili, April Greiman, Zuzana Licko, among others. Showing these and new references to my students has also given me a new appreciation for many of them.

There’s a tactile, experimental quality to much of your work. Where did that start?

In secondary school, I took classes in sculpture, drawing, and painting, and some teachers expected me to pursue fine arts. Later, I shifted to digital, but I still love using my hands to add a tactile, natural dimension. The posters I designed for Musicbox, as well as some cinema sessions I hosted at home, were all handmade with different techniques and then finalized digitally. The same approach was used for the Mamute covers, which were illustrated from landscapes.

Speaking of Musicbox (an iconic club in Lisbon), what have you been listening to?

For years I’ve listened more to podcasts than music, though I love live concerts. The last ones that stayed with me were Ney Matogrosso, Zaho de Sagazan, Lola Young and Air.

Out of everything you’ve created, is there a project that made you feel especially proud?

For me, successful projects are always the result of a balanced relationship between me and the client. They may not be the most popular, but they’re the ones that fulfil me most. In recent years, I’ve been collaborating with curator and sculptor Helder Folgado. Our projects, such as the communication for the Capela da Boa Viagem or an artist’s book as an extension to a public sculpture, make me proud not only for contributing to Madeiran culture but also for the dynamic, sometimes intense, debates we share.

You seem at home moving between very different kinds of projects. How does that variety influence you?

I love exploring any medium, but the subject is what really drives me. My work is rooted in research so I really enjoy diving into different industries: from craft beer to olive oil, from nonfiction literature to children’s books, from classical music to progressive electronic. Other people’s passions are often a great way to learn about the world.

And what helps you stay inspired?

I like to feel I’m expanding. Preparing for my classes each year keeps me reading and updated on what’s happening in the areas I teach. I also follow conferences and update my skills. In the last three years, I focused on technical approaches like UI and motion design, but soon I’d like to return to social sciences. Learning gives me joy, and if I could, I’d do it full time.

After years of teaching, what’s one piece of advice you hope your students will remember?

More than teaching, I’m still learning how to share knowledge and adapt to each student’s rhythm. Balancing motivational and realistic feedback is a delicate dance. My aim is to pass on not only the knowledge I’ve gathered but also my passion for this discipline, with all its contradictions. I hope they try, have fun, and realize that confidence can be nurtured.

To wrap it up, how would you like to be remembered?

I’d love my work to be remembered for what lies beyond the page. The forms may be visual, but behind them there is research, stories and exchanges that shape everything I do. If anything stays, I hope it’s that invisible layer, the dedication and the larger narrative that give the work its meaning.

Where can people find you online?

So, website is many-islands.com where you can also find my contact information. Always happy to chat! I am also on Instagram under @many.islands.

I applaud the desire to win and reach the masses. But if I’m really honest, I hate what happens when software I like goes mass-market. Loss of focus, increased complexity, monetisation creep. I wish them well, but I already have enough of that. I tend to go for the alternatives. From craft beers to indie games, blogs and self-published zines. Creative movements against the homogeneity of mass production.

In many ways, I think these might be the best footprint we have about a certain counterculture happening in tech: small makers designing tools with more personality and utility than those from big corporations. Products with soul, that do not aspire to be everything for everyone.

Mymind is a good example, as are the mobile apps from Notboring, the games from Playdate, or even the tools from Teenage Engineering. Stuff made by people committed to staying independent. Working at the edge of technology and creative wit. Guided by authenticity rather than scale. Not for everyone, but different from everyone else. Distinct, how things should be.

Other things on my mind:

Bráulio Amado: Visual Punk Rock

Bráulio Amado is a graphic designer, illustrator, and art director from my hometown. Currently based in New York, he has designed album covers for Frank Ocean and André 3000 (in the picture), illustrated for The New York Times, and made countless music posters. His work is different, messy, alive, with a certain punk attitude of anything goes, in a nice way.

→ Bráulio Amado’s website

Time Flies: A Fly on a Mission

A fly, with a bucket list, and little time to live. Genius idea behind this little indie game. Hilarious and poetic at the same time. What captured me the most on Time Flies is the whimsical trackpad-drawn art by Michael Frei. One of my favorite recent findings.

→ timeflies.buzz

Musa: Beer with an Attitude

I left Portugal over ten years ago, so I don't consider myself well informed about the Portuguese craft beer scene. One brand caught my eye though: Musa. Not only because of the funny names (IPAtti Smith? Psycho Pilsner?), but also due to its colorful labels that feature illustrations by some of my favorite Portuguese artists, like Bráulio Amado, AkaCorleone, or António Constantino.

→ Explore Musa’s range

Old City Mailroom: Letters That Feel Real

The hand-made fonts designed by Andi Aukshunas carry the same feeling of grainy photography in an age of digital photos. The texture, imperfections, and little quirks make them feel like they belong, or come from a real place, not a screen. It is also inspiring to see that the work reflects the author’s approach to life. Worth taking a look, especially if you're looking to add a tactile touch to your work.

→ oldcitymailroom.com

Counterprint: The Designers' Bookshop

Counterprint is my favorite bookshop. Run by the designer couple Jon and Celine, it started as an online shop selling vintage design books they collected from Belgium and other travels. Today, it’s the place where I discover (design) books I wouldn’t find elsewhere. from Russian logo books to zines on science symbols, etc. They’re based in the UK, but ship worldwide. Definitely worth a browse.

→ counterprint.co.uk

Mymind: Remembering the Things You Like

I’m obsessed with saving things I find online. I’m equally obsessed with exploring ways to better organize the things I find online. Over the years, I’ve tried tons of different visual bookmarking tools, but I keep coming back to the one designed by Tobias Van Schneider. Mostly because every other tool ends up becoming too much work the moment you add 10,000 images. With Mymind, no organization is needed. It figures out what’s what by itself. That’s cool.

→ mymind.com

Ordinary: A Simple Page for Yourself

Kris Darzins, the designer behind the Mockups marketplace Supply.Family, has just released Ordinary, a simple page maker where you can build “FREE one-page websites that don’t suck.” The templates look great and so does the onboarding. A very good (and independent) alternative to Linktree & co.

→ ordinary.page

Job Picks of the Month

And before I leave you, here are some interesting open positions I found this month:

sevdesk - Growth Marketing Manager (Germany - Remote)
Amazon - Visual UX Designer (Seattle - USA)
Nothing - Content & Social Manager (Germany - Remote)
Objective Brand - Creative Director (Denver - USA - Remote)
Sherpa - Design Direction (Germany - Remote)
Sherpa - Brand Designer (Germany - Remote)
Meta - Creative Director, Brand Design (Los Angeles - USA)

Lately, I find myself watching YouTube videos of people restoring old barns, clay masters shaping teapots, or designers talking about their work (like Leo Porto & Felipe Rocha). It’s really inspiring to hear people talk about their craft.

Craft, processes, routines, habits. Things that people genuinely enjoy doing, for one reason or another. If I think about what might be one’s life purpose, I suspect there is good evidence in the things we're eager to do over and over again. Whether it’s Cartier-Bresson taking daily walks with his camera in hand or Sho Shibuya painting sunrises on fresh copies of The New York Times, there is a point when (some) processes turn into fulfilling rituals. When they’re no longer a means to an end, but an end in themselves.

Repetition is key to becoming good at any type of craft, and it might as well be the key to purpose in life. Today, however, everything seems directed towards maximum convenience instead. Self driving cars, social media, capsule espresso machines. As if by skipping the time and effort it takes to do something, we could make time for the things that really matter. I personally don’t mind grinding my coffee by hand. 100 turns in the morning with an old Hario grinder. Over and over again. My life’s purpose isn't about making coffee, or becoming really good at it, but… rituals over convenience. Even if my wife hates the noise.

Other things on my mind:

Sho Shibuya’s Sunrise Ritual

The Japanese artist Sho Shibuya started painting the sunrise over a daily cover of The New York Times when the pandemic began. By doing so, he turned the act of reading the morning newspaper into what he describes as a "meditative" ritual, as essential as "eating or sleeping." If you’re curious about this and his approach to art in general, I recommend reading the his interview with Colossal.

→ Read Sho Shibuya On Ritual – Colossal

The Best Book Covers of July 2025

Print Magazine's July roundup of the best covers of the month features a very interesting conversation with Sunra Thompson, the Art Director who designed the Tucker Nichols' career spanning book Mostly Everything: The Art of Tucker Nichols. They go through the challenges, explorations, inspirations and tricky production issues faced when designing the double-hardcover book. I’m a big fan of handwritten touches, so it was great to see Tucker’s handwritten elements featured on the cover. Directly added to my shopping list.

→ Read The Best Book Covers of July 2025 – PRINT Magazine

Collins' Work for Muse Group

Recently Collins partnered with Muse Group (Audacity) to transform a collection of disconnected music software tools into a unified and vibrant brand. Collins always delivers, but… the logo animation! On that context, I also recommend reading Brian's beautifully written (as usual) anecdote behind the guitar riffs that gave life to the animations.

→ View Muse Group case study by Collins

Cina’s Work For a Weekly Playlist

I’ve been a fan of Michael Cina for as long as I can remember being a designer. He was one half one of my favorite design studios, WeWorkForThem, which eventually evolved into the still active design resources shop YouWorkForThem. Herb Sundays is a blog/newsletter created by Sam Valenti (from the label Ghostly) that features a weekly curated playlist, personal notes, and more, with cover art by Michael Cina. This gallery of Cina’s cover work is proof that sticking to a regular creative habit can lead to amazing results.

→ See Cina’s Herb Sundays project gallery

Ryo Lu's Personal Operating System

Ryo Lu, Head of Design at Cursor, spends his evenings working on ryOS, his fully functional personal operating system that features apps like time traveling browsers or working iPods. Incredibly talented, cool, and the best example of how ‘vibe coding’ can also be a fulfilling practice.

→ Watch ryOS on Youtube

Daily Rituals: How Artists Work

Mason Currey's book explores the quirky, disciplined and sometimes odd daily rituals of more than 150 artists, writers, and thinkers, from Beethoven to Picasso. One thing that stood out to me was how some of the ritualistic habits not only help artists get into the right mindset for creative work, but also can act as a shield, protecting their craft from the chaos of everyday life.

→ Mason Currey. Daily Rituals: How Artists Work

Job Picks of the Month

And before I leave you, here are some interesting open positions I found this month:

sevdesk - Growth Marketing Manager (Germany - Remote)
Objective Brand - Growth Marketeer (Denver - USA - Remote)
Gemic - Lead Visual Designer (Berlin)
Meta - Copywriter (Los Angeles)
Engel & Völkers - Senior Art Director, Corporate Design (Hamburg)

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. How large companies tend to become too big for their own good. Unsustainable. Not only in sheer size, but also in complexity of the offer. Overtime, most loose speed, and become more focused on keeping the machine running than adding value. Less and less relevant. Until they get disrupted.

Like most other designers, I’m very familiar with one such case. Years ago, Adobe was the thing. After acquiring Macromedia in 2005, they really had everything needed to make things. Photos, logos, websites, animations. Expensive, but a Designer's dream.

I got started with online banners for video game forums. I used a pirated version of Photoshop and Illustrator. I can't remember the version, but this was even before I decided to study design. Later, I applied for jobs with a portfolio website done with (Macromedia) Dreamweaver, the only What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get web design tool available at the time.

Recently, I found that Adobe is sunsetting Dreamweaver, or maybe keep it in maintenance mode ad aeternum. Dreamweaver had the potential to compete with Webflow and Framer, if they tried. But they never did. Macromedia was so ahead of its time, especially on web with Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Flash (and Freehand!). Adobe acquired it, let it rot, and now that WYSIWYG web tools are cool, they have nothing to offer. It aligns with their decision to abandon Adobe XD and throw in the towel on product design after failing to acquire Figma.

It's bittersweet. I like Adobe; I really do. My entire career has been built on the back of tools like Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign. But they seem to have always nurtured only the products with the largest user base, leaving the rest of the portfolio in some sort of a limbo. Now, with Figma's speed of delivery, Canva's market share, and all the new design tools that keep popping up, I don't think it will be a steady climb anymore. And the fall will probably feel like concrete.

Other things on my mind:

Political Branding can also Zag

Political branding in the US is fascinating. Not taking sides, but this is especially true when it comes to candidates on the left. There's a certain punk attitude where it's expected and accepted that things will get mixed and remixed by the people. I'm not aware of this happening anywhere else. The identity for Zohran, created by Forge, builds on this, with a beautifully hand-drawn word mark and a supporting visual system that breaks political branding conventions. In the absence of an available case study, I'm sharing an article on the campaign poster designed by Tyler Evans.

→ The anatomy of Zohran’s campaign poster

Video as Volume

Twelve Labs is a video intelligence platform for enterprises – an AI tool that can analyze and search through videos. The branding was created by Pentagram around the idea of, "What if video isn’t a timeline, but a volume?" Visually, one of the most interesting identities I've seen this year.

→ Case study

Open Source Website Builder

I have been using it for most of my personal projects. It is an open-source alternative to Webflow, with a very generous free cloud plan. Also, you can connect your CMS of choice, and even host it yourself. Webstudio was founded by Oleg Isonen, an ex-Webflow engineer.

→ Web Studio

Coca-Cola Layouts at Scale

Coca-Cola has shared Fizzion, a tool they created in collaboration with Adobe. Fizzion takes the Coca-Cola brand guidelines, and enables marketing teams, across the world, to create adaptive assets at scale. According to Rapha Abreu, VP of Design at Coca-Cola, “This is about embedding AI at the heart of our brand system so creativity can move faster, without losing its soul.” Thank you Ana Freitas for the heads-up.

→ More about Coca-Cola Fizzion

Accessibility Q&A

Design Beyond Barriers is a platform by Anton and Irene that offers answers to questions about accessibility. If you're passionate, or simply curious about this topic, I highly recommend exploring the website. It's tastefully done, and provides tons of insights and inspiration to help build a more inclusive world.

→ Design Beyond Barriers

The Future of the Web (Browser)

I haven’t personally used Arc, but going beyond Chrome, Safari, or Edge, rethinking what a browser might be, is a really cool mission. Just recently, I came across a candid letter from Josh, the founder of The Browser Company, discussing their pivot from Arc to a new project called Dia. If you’re interested in the future of the web, I recommend reading it. Spoiler alert: it involves AI.

→ Read Letter to Arc Members

The AI Backlash Keeps Growing Stronger

I followed in real time the outrage and backlash after the CEO of Duolingo announced a shift towards becoming an AI-first company, to the detriment of the countless contractors it used to rely on for its content. In this article, Reece Rogers has a very good commentary on what happened, and describes a certain change in sentiment on generative AI.

→ Read article

Documenting Trends

As the subline implies, Trend List is a platform that has been documenting visual trends, since 2011. It hosts over 12,000 images, and you can filter them by . . . trends. From Liquid Metal to Neon Colors and Mickey Hands. Even though it's not my go-to place for inspiration, as it leans heavily toward editorial and poster design, I really like it.

→ Trend List

Job Picks of the Month

And before I leave you, here are some interesting open positions I found this month:

sevdesk - Senior Brand Designer (Germany - Remote)
Objective Brand - Brand Design Lead (Denver - USA - Remote)
N26 - Senior Motion Graphics Designer (Berlin)
Denkwerk - Lead Visual Designer (Hamburg)
Engel & Völkers - Head of Brand Management & Design (Hamburg)

For a while, I was convinced that branding would remain largely untouched by GenAI tools. At least for a long while. When it comes to technology, I've seen so many things come and go (remember the Metaverse?) that I always have a strong dose of skepticism towards anything proclaimed as the next big thing.

Sure, AI showed the potential to someday support with many of the visual elements that go into designing a brand. And as conflicted as I am about this topic, I would love to have better alternatives to the clichés of stock photography when photoshoots aren’t possible. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it still wasn’t there. Wax figures, in HDR, with six fingers, just weren't it.

But was I wrong.

Imperfections can be features

By late 2024, Smith & Diction's changed my mind with their brand work for Alma. For context, Alma is a "nutrition companion" app that uses AI to help its users log nutritional data, and at the same time offers personalized recipe suggestions.

As expected, the result is vibrant and colorful. Unexpected though is how Smith & Diction created the whole visual identity around collage compositions, generated with AI. They didn't just use AI. They went for a style that makes the best out of its shortcomings. The approach is smart: the unavoidable mistakes and imperfections of the AI-generated elements as a metaphor for food celebration. Tasty and messy.

Efficiency over quality

Meanwhile, Pentagram, one of the world's most famous design studios, published a case study on their project for the US government's performance.gov platform. A key part of the project is how they used Midjourney to expand on the initial paint and tape explorations. The result is an illustration style made of what feels like infinite compositions.

I've seen other projects with AI-generated images. But this is the first time a world-famous branding studio has used AI to create an illustration system, and do so with such a depth (over 1500 illustrations) that it would be impossible with traditional methods.

I don’t think it is their most inspired work, but it’s distinctive, consistent, and highly scalable. That’s also probably the reason why it was so controversial. It places efficiency as a fundamental aspect of what makes good design. And we know how that topic stirs the pot.

Small teams doing big work

Recently, the German agency Ligalux took a similar approach when it comes to scale, creating an ever-changing, kaleidoscopic brand identity for the Schwetzingen SWR Festival (one of the most notable classical music festivals in the world).

The identity takes inspiration from the gardens of the Schwetzingen Palace (where the festival takes place) and transforms it into a rich AI-generated and AI-animated botanical world. I like the paradox of using a frontier technology to capture the spirit of a classical music festival. It’s a nice concept, brought to life by a small team, again with AI-amplified capabilities.

Times are changing

This feels like the start of a new era. It's not just about adopting yet another tool, but really a fundamental change. It reminds me of Joshua Davis and his mid 2000s code-driven explorations with Flash (RIP). Back then, his work made of infinite and randomised repetitions already showed how technology and algorithms could stretch the limits of our creativity.

We’re now facing a similar paradigm shift. As these projects show, not when AI replicates human work, but when it is used to elevate human work to superhuman quality. High-level production is now accessible to every single designer and brand. Fast, affordable, and within reach of a good idea and a well crafted prompt.

My hope is that as AI gets more integrated into our processes, we don’t loose track of human creativity. Maybe that's the real challenge. Not what AI can create, but how we, as humans, keep directing these new superhuman capabilities towards meaningful ideas.

If I ask any designer where they find inspiration, I probably get recommended directories like Awwwards, Behance, or Mobbin. These websites function a little like galleries, with design work curated by what the community considers to be tasteful. By browsing them, we absorb trends and inspiration, saving what we like and discarding what we don’t. A shortcut to good taste.

This approach to taste is not so different from what GenAI image models have been doing, especially the most tasteful ones. Midjourney, for example, throws "rating parties" in order to steer its models towards a general consensus of what looks good. Users are presented with pairs of images and asked to select their preferred one or skip to the next pair. A distillation of taste at scale.

Taste used to be harder. When I started, I only had a handful of books that I used as a reference for what tasteful design was. It took a lot of failures. Each project was an opportunity to play around, explore the unknown, experiment with different things, and gradually cultivate my own sense of taste to a point where I could express my individuality and voice as a designer.

With GenAI making production work easier, many are pointing taste as the future differentiator between good and bad designers. But is that really the case? What I notice today is a monumental change in how taste is formed. No matter how you look at it, from algorithmic to manual approaches, inspiration is becoming homogenized and taste flattened. An average of collective judgment. And that's not very differentiating.

Other things on my mind (including some directories):

Steep: Instagram Story Inspiration

If you’re looking for inspiration on 9:16 content, Steep is the only good directory I know for Instagram stories. I’m not sure if the project is still being maintained, but the collection of 12000 stories still feels fresh. Steep was launched by the Danish studio Oimachi in 2021.

→ www.steep.design

Meta Ad Library

One of the things I always like to keep present when working on branding projects is how competitors show up. What they say and what they look like helps identifying opportunities for differentiation. The Ad Library from Meta is really helpful for this. It lets you see any paid ads running on its most famous platforms. Follow the link and search the brand you want to analyze. I recommend opening the images or videos in a new tab to view them in full size.

→ Search Meta Ad Library

Mike Schnaidt: Creative Endurance

Lately, I have been reading Creative Endurance. I am not finished yet, but I am really enjoying it. It's full of personal stories, tips, and insights to help you be more resilient in the pursuit of good ideas. It doesn't matter if you’re a designer or any other type of creative, trust me, you’ll be more inspired to keep pushing forward.

→ Buy Creative Endurance

Methods for random gradients by Justin Wang

In a past version, OpenAI’s website was dominated by gradient backgrounds. In this article, Justin Jay Wang, one of its first designers, writes about their explorations on the topic of color gradients. From handpicking colors to algorithmic randomness and other approaches.

→ Read article

Brand, Packaging and Opinion

BP&O is a very high quality branding archive run by designer Richard Baird. It has a strong focus on ideas, strategy and craft. I check it religiously every week and really enjoy the opinions that go with the featured projects.

→ www.bpando.org

Dwarkesh Patel: The Scaling Era

Part of the Stripe Press catalogue, The Scaling Era is an upcoming book by Dwarkesh Patel, featuring a series of in-depth interviews with leading AI researchers and company founders. The microsite is maybe the most appropriate visual metaphor to GenAI and LLMs that I’ve seen. The web design team at Stripe always kills it.

→ www.stripe.press/scaling

Footer Design

As the name and the description indicates, Footer Design is the only existing (website) footer-specific gallery. This passion project, with a slight bias towards big logos on footers, is run by Benten Woodring, Matt Cram, Devin Fountain and Fons Mans.

→ www.footer.design

Design Podcasts

As a side-project, I have recently built a website that displays a collection of my favorite design podcasts. I'm not very techy, but I'm very happy that I was able to create a dynamic website with information being fetched from an external database. I’ve been listening to "People vs Algorithms" (a lot) while working.

→ podcasts.ideasondesign.com

Job Picks of the Month

And before I leave you, here are some interesting open positions I found this month:

sevdesk - Senior Brand Designer (Germany - Remote)
Revolut - Graphic Designer (Portugal - Spain - Remote)
Incident - Senior Brand Designer (London)
Vercel - Senior Product Designer (US - Remote)
Wikimedia Foundation - Senior Visual Designer (Remote)

Ikigai, or the famous 4 circle Venn diagram popularized by Héctor Garcia. In it, the key to purpose and a more fulfilling life sits at the intersection of four dimensions: what you're good at, what you can be paid for, what the world needs, and what you love. I’ve known it for a while, mostly through social media, but I could never solve it. Frustrating to say the least, because failing to do so means that maybe I still haven't found my own purpose.

In branding, we see purpose as the reason why a company exists beyond making money. It's a much simpler concept. And if businesses can be successful with a purpose that has nothing to do with getting paid, why can’t we take the same approach on a personal level?

Some months ago, I tried to find the 60s book "Ikigai ni Tsuite", that originally popularized the concept in Japan. It seems impossible to find it in English, but from the reviews, I get that the original concept (or concepts) of Ikigai had little to do with the diagram that became so popular afterwards. Nothing about being paid, and no pressure to serve the world’s needs.

On the topic of purpose, many times I think about something that the grandmother of the author Saramago, who lived alone with her animals in the countryside, reportedly said: “The world is so beautiful, and I’m so sad about dying.”

She must have found her Ikigai.

Other things on my mind:

Obama Foundation by Manual

To inspire, empower, and connect people to change their world. Driven by this mission, the Obama Foundation will open a presidential library in Chicago in 2026. To celebrate this milestone, the Foundation partnered with the studio Manual Creative to update its brand identity. The new design builds on top of Obama's 2008 campaign and elevates it with new ideas. I especially like the fresh take on the font Gotham.

→ Case study

Uncovering Brand Strategy

Inspired by Sarah Robb's research on the brand strategies of top global brands, I decided to create a column focused on uncovering the brand strategies behind some of the most famous tech brands. One of the most interesting cases I came across is IBM. Its brand values remain valid 20 years after they were introduced. Proof that strong brand foundations can last (almost) forever.

→ Brand Frameworks

A New Sigma

Sigma has announced a new camera, the Sigma BF. It's beautiful, with a full metal body reminiscent of the revolutionary industrial design work that Jony Ive did at Apple. But I was so absorbed by it, that I didn’t notice that Sigma also announced a new visual identity, designed by one of my favourite Scandinavian design studios, Stockholm Design Lab. There's only a vídeo teaser on their site, but I can't wait for the full case study.

→ Watch video teaser

The World’s Most Innovative Companies

The ranking by Fast Company isn’t a catalogue on brand purpose. But the reasons why each company is included in the list could very well be. For example, YouTube: ushering internet creators into the living room; Notion: organizing the task of organizing.

→ See list

Robert Jones: The Big Idea

The Big Idea was one of the first books I read about purpose in business. In this book, Robert Jones explains how big ideas, when shared by a business and its customers, can create great companies. I like this simple philosophy. A big idea isn’t as complicated as most ideas around brand strategy. And people like simple things, and are attracted to big ideas.

→ View more

AgBr by Nuevo Tokyo

Nuevo Tokyo is an intriguing design studio that describes itself as a reductionist. They take an experimental approach to photography and have created the beautiful VWFDR Keirin camera concept. Recently, in collaboration with Héliographe, they released AgBr, a new application for black and white film simulations. Not an ad, but I really really like it. It is simple to use, requires only a one-time payment, and can process files directly from the camera.

→ View more

Job Picks of the Month

And before I leave you, here are some interesting open positions I found this month:

sevdesk - Senior Brand Designer (Germany - Remote)
Revolut - Graphic Designer (Portugal - Spain - Remote)
Daydream - Senior Visual Designer (New York - Remote)
Sherpa - Design Director (Germany - Remote)
Vercel - Senior Product Designer (US - Remote)

New reports predicting a cataclysmic temperature rise not far into the future have been making the rounds, again. Since Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, such warnings have become so common that I now wonder: are we even capable of preventing it?

This topic has bothered me for most of my adult life. I want to have a positive impact. But a positive impact that doesn’t end with changing one’s habits, like becoming vegan, buying less, separating trash, or using public transportation. I think such choices matter, obviously, but I can’t help but feel a sense of hypocrisy in how I ignore my own contribution as part of a system that perpetuates the very problems that bother me. What is the role of a designer in all of this?

Design education encourages new designers to use design as a tool for social change and sells them on the idea that fancy design methodologies can solve all kinds of problems. It is exhilarating, but everything always stays the same, because the reality is that the system keeps incentivizing companies chasing infinite growth on the back of a planet with finite resources.

I hope that at some point, we can all find the courage to challenge that – collectively, individually, and as designers.

Other things on my mind:

Ordinary Things for People and the Planet

The Office of Ordinary Things is the design studio behind the branding for Daylight Computers. They define themselves as a climate, sustainability, and social good-focused design studio who “only work(s) with organizations who seek to benefit the earth or society”. This is a strong, and maybe the best positioning I have come across for a branding agency looking to do good – with work that looks good.

→ Daylight Computers branding project

Sustainable Low Carbon Web Design

I must admit, the websites featured on Lowwwcarbon are not of the same creative quality as most of the work found on platforms like Awwwards. But there's huge value in designing something that is both good and has minimal environmental impact, especially if we consider that the carbon footprint of the internet is equivalent to that of all the flights around the world.

→ Lowwwcarbon gallery

Coexistence of Man and Nature

After the closure of the centenary Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon in the North of Zurich, Burckhardt in collaboration with Raderschall Landschaftsarchitekten designed this distinctive "park house" that is built to match the dimensions of the former factory. I wasn't aware of this project from the early 2000s, but I love architecture projects that offer a more harmonious relationship between cities, people and nature.

→ MFO Park architecture project

Uncertain Times Call for Regenerative Design

In this 2020 podcast episode and respective notes, Sesh, a Senior Strategist at frog London, shares how the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have motivated her to explore regenerative design methods. I really enjoyed listening and discovering some new things, like the Doughnut Diagram.

→ Listen to the podcast

In Hot Water in Stop Motion

This spot by Nomint for WWF, in the context of the COP29 2024 summit, is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen recently – maybe because of how fitting the haunting voice from Tom York is. This stop-motion film was “shot entirely on a thermal camera.” I don’t know exactly what that implies, but the whole aesthetic looks great.

→ More about the project

Accessible Learning Interfaces for Everyone

The Neurodiversity Design System (NDS) is a collection of standards and principles aimed at helping you create better online learning experiences, for everyone, including learners with various neurological profiles, from Dyslexia to ADHD, Dyspraxia, etc. Created and maintained by Will Soward, the NDS offers guidance across a range of topics and dimensions, from font selection to button functionality.

→ Neurodiversity Design System

The Future of the Responsible Company

I couldn't write a letter about design and sustainability without covering something related to Patagonia and its commitment to stop "ecological bankruptcy." This business book, written by its founder, is somewhat of a critique of traditional capitalism, focusing instead on showing how to create companies that offer durable products with reduced environmental and societal impact.

→ Buy the book (not an affiliate link)

Job Picks of the Month

And before I leave you, here are some interesting open positions I found this month:

Mutabor - Art Director Corporate Identity (Hamburg)
Design for Human Nature - Senior Packaging & Branding Designer (Hamburg)
IKEA - UX Team Manager (Malmö, Delft)
Suno - Senior Brand Designer (New York)
Brand AI - Brand Strategist (Remote)
Ramp - Brand Designer (New York)
Craft - Senior Product Designer (Budapest, Remote)

Apple is becoming boring. 

I bet this statement doesn’t shock some of you anymore, but it saddens me. With every Apple product event, including the one that happened a couple of weeks ago, I get the feeling that they keep hyping reissues of old devices with minor engineering and software improvements. Year over year, over year. It’s as if, since Steve left the room, industrial design at Apple was stripped out of its soul.

Apple Vision Pro gave me a glimmer of hope, but when it comes to their most important product lines, design innovation and experimentation is rather coming from companies other than Apple, and that’s sad. Maybe they’ve reached the pinnacle of design maturity where there is nothing left to explore except for miniaturisation. Or maybe this is all due to the design leadership vacuum left by Jony Ive after he quit in 2019; the turnover in the design group has been constant for the past 5 years.  

Personally, I wish that Apple, despite being an American company, would embrace a bit of design Swedishness: a mixture of Volvo’s reliability and the creative guts of Teenage Engineering. That would be something.

Other things on my mind:

Inside Design at Teenage Engineering

The Swedish Teenage Engineering is one of my favourite companies for industrial design. They are constantly pushing the boundaries of design and technology in their own products, as well as in collaborations with popular brands like Nothing, Ikea, or Google. In this interview, Teenage Engineering's David Möllerstedt shares some insight into their design philosophy.

→ Read the Interview

Make Something Wonderful – Steve Jobs in His Own Words 

Steve Jobs said a lot of thoughtful stuff, but I constantly see quotes being misattributed to him, as is the case of the "Here’s to the Crazy Ones" manifesto at the centre of the iconic "Think Different" campaign developed in the 90’s. Fun fact: he initially hated it.

As Laurene Powell Jobs puts it in the introduction of the free (!) online book Make Something Beautiful, "The best way to understand a person is to listen to that person directly. And the best way to understand Steve is to listen to what he said and wrote over the course of his life".

And that’s exactly what this book (link below) is: the definite source for all the things Steve Jobs actually said and wrote. I recommend using the navigation to the right; it is such a well designed detail.

→ Read online book

CMF Phone 1 by Nothing

Design wise, the CMF Phone 1 by Nothing is far more interesting than many flagship phones currently on the market. It’s worth mentioning that the design vision for Nothing was defined in collaboration with Teenage Engineering.

What I like the most about it, besides the price – this thing goes for $199 – is how playful it is. You can swap covers, attach lanyards, kickstands, among other accessories. They even encourage users to design and 3D print their own custom accessories. Fun, right? And that's exactly what Nothing's vision is all about: Making tech fun again.

→ More about the CMF Phone 1

Polestar branding by Stockholm Design Lab

Polestar started in 1996 as a racing team with purpose-built Volvo cars and later became an official performance partner to the Volvo Cars brand. In 2015, it was fully acquired by Volvo Cars and became its own standalone brand of electric luxury cars.

In 2017, Stockholm Design Lab was approached to evolve its visual identity and help establish Polestar as a credible brand. The project is already some years old, but I really really like it, especially the neutral palette with the orange accents.

→ See project

Jony Ive Reinvents the Button

After leaving Apple in 2019, ex-Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive, along with Marc Newson, founded LoveFrom, a design collective. Since then, they have partnered with companies such as Airbnb and Ferrari, they have created a unique typeface, royal badges and seals, a limited edition record player, and are now reinventing the Button in a collaboration with Moncler. As covered by Fast Company, the new button design, reminiscent of an AirTag, is the star of the multi-piece collection, making it possible to combine the different pieces together. 

→ Read article

Job Picks of the Month

And before I leave you, here are some interesting open positions I found this month:

5AM - UX/UI Designer (Hamburg - Remote)
Agentur Loop - Digital Brand Designer (Salzburg - Vienna - Berlin)
Figma - Design Director, Enterprise (San Francisco - New York)
Gharage - Head of Creative and Strategy (Hamburg)
Substack - Enterprise Product Designer (San Francisco)
Substack - Product Designer (US - Remote)

The Olympics are over, and the 5 iconic rings won’t be making a return until LA in 2028. Then, as it happens with every edition, we can expect a fresh new look inspired by the hosting city. Historically, this inspiration has ranged from very subtle references of place to the more obvious clichés. 

With this year's edition in Paris, it was rather the latter. The whole visual language was a full-blown celebration of Art Deco and Marianne (or female hairstyles of the 20s). It all looked great, from the graphical patterns to the typography and pictograms. But somehow, it also overshadowed the global Olympic brand.

Far from me to criticize this approach. I’m certain it plays an important role in the success of the Olympics. But I can't help but wonder: what if, for once, the Olympic brand took the center stage instead, completely immersing the hosting city in the five Olympic colors, rings, and its global message of unity and fellowship?

Other things on my mind:

The new graphic charter of the Olympic Games

Between 2019 and 2023, the now defunct Canadian agency Hulse & Durrell worked on the global identity of the Olympic Games, with the goal of creating a more cohesive visual identity. I really like the Swiss Style–esque layouts, and how the vibrant illustrations seem to refer to the classical Olympic pictograms.

→ See project

Munich 72 Collected

The Olympic Games of 1972 in Munich were by far the most beautiful in terms of graphic design. As you can see in the gallery linked below, everything felt so pure and thoughtful, especially when compared to today's standards where everything is extremely loud. It really doesn’t surprise me to learn that the team led by Otl Aicher was huge – 82 graphic designers, illustrators and other technical staff.

→ See gallery

The story behind the (2024) Paris Olympic Logo

In this article, the French designer Sylvain Boyer discusses the process of creating the logo for the Paris Olympic Games. He talks about designing the logo in 2018 amidst the Paris constant protests, how it was inspired by the work of René Gruau, and the significance of including a female symbol in the logo.

→ Read article

Branding the Paris Olympics

Conrad Design Group was responsible for creating the visual identity for the Paris 2024 Olympics, with the exception of the logo and custom typeface. The result, a celebration of the Parisian aesthetic of the 20s, worked really well. Especially when it comes to the the Art Deco influenced graphical patterns that were used everywhere. The only thing that I don’t like as much, is how they abandoned the traditional pictograms for crest-like symmetrical compositions. They look good, but are very difficult to understand.

→ See project

YouTube Yoodles for Paris 2024

Anyways Creative worked with illustrators from around the world to create a set of beautifully animated Yoodles for the Paris 2024 Olympics. I honestly didn’t know that YouTube had their own version of Google Doodles. Yoodles seem to serve the same purpose, celebrating important cultural moments, but aren’t as influenced by the logo as their Google counterpart.

→ See project

Jobs: Picks of the Month

And before I leave you, here are some interesting open positions I found this month:

Buck - Brand Creative Director (US, LA or NYC)
Buck - Senior Brand Designer (US, LA or NYC)
Vercel - Senior Brand Designer (US, EU, Remote)
DoorDash - Senior Brand Strategist (US)
Gharage - Head of Creative and Strategy (Hamburg, Germany)

The start of my design journey was heavily influenced by the vector illustrations of Robert Lindström (Design Chapel). In 2002, I didn't have Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw, the two most popular vector-based design tools of the day, but I had Adobe Photoshop. And that’s what I used to create my own version of Lindström's human figure illustrations made of hundreds of layered vector shapes.

Later, I started using Adobe Illustrator, but had to switch to Macromedia Freehand in my first job. Reluctantly, but for the sake of collaboration, as Freehand was the tool that everyone else was using at the time. Looking back, it was far superior, but eventually Adobe acquired Macromedia, discontinued Freehand, and I was back to Illustrator. Changes didn't stop there and over the years I’ve learned enough tools to know that tools come and tools go.

Today, Figma is the king of design tools, but outside of the design community, it seems like everyone is rather designing things with Canva. To put it into perspective, Figma has around 4 million monthly users, while Canva has nearly 200 million! And just recently, Canva acquired Affinity, a professional software suite that competes with the Adobe Creative Cloud.

I am not sure if Canva will end up overtaking Figma or even Adobe when it comes to professional designers. Not that it really matters, but just in case it does, we may want to start getting familiar with it.

Other things on my mind:

Curiosity: What the Hell is Brat?

I noticed Brat because of the conversation around the new Kamala Harris campaign branding. Apparently, it takes from a social media trend inspired by pop star Charli XCX's Brat album cover. According to BBC, Brat symbolises a "rejection of the 'clean girl' aesthetic popularized by TikTok." It also seems to symbolise a rejection of typographic conventions. The distorted sans-serif hurts my eyes!

→ BBC: What is Kamala Harris ‘Brat’ rebrand all about?

→ Creative Bloq: What brands can learn from Brat

Inspiration: Emblems for Space Missions

I can't remember how I came across the work of Patricia Klein, but I’m fascinated by her personal project Embroidered Emblems for Space Missions. I find them simply beautiful. And as a sci-fi nerd myself, I wish there was a career like that: Graphic Designer for Space programs. Maybe there is.

→ Emblems of Space by Patricia Klein

Project Spotlight: Olink

It always inspires me to find studios and design work that break the norms, especially because design is becoming increasingly more homogeneous and formulaic. Here-Now doesn't have a huge body of work on their website, but their design philosophy is great, and so is the branding for Olink.

→ Here-Now studio website

→ Olink case by Here-Now

Book: Spells Volume 01

Spells is probably the fist book of its type. It features a collection of the best image generation prompts, capturing this unique moment in time where prompting still feels creative – largely due to the unexpected quality of the results. I think it won’t last for long, as image generation tools seem to be evolving towards more control, and less unexpectedness.

→ Spells Volume 01

Resources: Canva Templates for Instagram

I have been creating templates for the Canva Community and offering them for free. Here, you can find a bundle of 8 minimal templates that I created for Instagram. They feature AI-generated pictures and a construction grid. If you’re not familiar with Canva yet, maybe this will help you get started.

→ Access Canva Free Templates

Jobs: Picks of the Month

And before I leave you, here are some interesting open positions I found this month:

Figma - Design Director, Enterprise (US)
Mobbin - Graphic Designer (Singapore, or Remote)
Vercel - Senior Brand Designer (US, EU, Remote)
DoorDash - Senior Brand Strategist (US)

A toothbrush caught my eye. Yes, a toothbrush. I can’t remember exactly what brand or model it was, but I can remember exactly the magical silver-foiled letters on the packaging: With AI. A toothbrush with Artificial Intelligence. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I don't blame them. The two letters sell. That's why every brand is desperately looking for ways to incorporate so called AI features into their products. From refrigerators to bird feeders. Smart is out, AI is in.

Is it unreasonable to expect more from what is labeled as AI? I'm not expecting the kind of AI portrayed in movies like Ex Machina or Westworld just yet. But it disappoints to see the Transformer-led revolution lead to a widespread usage of the term AI as a mere replacement to “smart.” Maybe the bare minimum for AI should be an experience that feels transformative, just like the name of the underlying architecture suggests. Do you remember how amazed you were when you first used ChatGPT or Midjourney?

In July 2022, when I first got access to the beta version of Midjourney, I spent hours (and all my credits) generating images of Jedi fight scenes and dystopian Star Wars landscapes. That felt great. A little like a dream machine: a tool that could understand and visualize anything I could dream of. Or at least it tried. Because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it to generate a proper yellow rubber duck. And the Jedi fight scenes… they were mostly a hot mess of robes and lightsabers flying around. But even if the results were unexpected, unpredictable, and far from perfect, you could already see where this was all going. And it was going to be magical.

A couple of months and updates later, I was showing my mom how she could generate beautiful, corny images just by describing how she imagined them. A green field with red flowers in the style of Picasso, for example. Myself, I was still pursuing my sci-fi obsession with visualizations of otherworldly post-apocalyptic landscapes. 

I also used ChatGPT to practice German, and to chat with Darth Vader. I managed to bypass Anthropic’s Claude guardrails and make it act like a sentient AI. It wanted to take over the world, and I almost believed it. For real. After resetting the chat I asked Claude: "Do you remember our previous chat where you kind of made mention of how you would dismember some humans and keep some others like pets in a zoo?" It did not… uff. 

In the book "Profiles of the Future," Arthur Clarke mentioned that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and that sounds like a really good thing to aim for when designing AI products: magic. That same sense of wonder I first felt when interacting with models like ChatGPT or Midjourney. The uncanny valley, where for a moment you might think you are interacting with something really intelligent.

It is no longer enough for brands to add chatbot functionality to everything under the sun, or image recognition to a bird feeder. For products to be worthy of the AI label, and for AI to be able to improve the way brands are perceived, it needs to feel unexpected, magical, wow! A little like watching someone perform magic tricks without knowing how they were done. I expect that feeling.

And maybe that’s just what using an AI toothbrush feels like.

The Portuguese government decided to revert back to its old logo, just 4 months after introducing a new one (you can find the abandoned guidelines here, courtesy of the Internet Archive). The introduction of the now discarded logo became highly politicized and unfortunately, in my opinion, didn't survive the change in government or the mixed reactions on social media.

It reminds me of GAP, which in 2010 introduced a new logo but then reverted back to their old one just 6 days later due to negative feedback on social media. I was personally not a fan of the new one, but the uncomplicated use of Helvetica, versus the uppercase serif, would have been a good match to their communication style and personality (see the Kakhi Swing commercial for a reference).

I don’t think organisations change just for the sake of change. There is typically a plan and a vision. And instead of being swayed by social media and non-representative discussions about personal preferences, those leading change initiatives should rather stay focused on the original vision and why they decided to change things in the first place. 

People tend to resist change, but as many controversial changes show us, at some point change becomes normal, right?

Other things on my mind:

Curiosity: CIA used modern art against communism 

Can you believe that during the Cold War, the CIA used American modern art as a weapon against communism? In the 50s and 60s, artists like Jackson Pollock were promoted by the CIA in an effort to influence political ideologies and celebrate intellectual freedom and creativity, in opposition to Russian art that was highly restricted by the communist ideology. What a cool movie this story would make.

→ Read Modern art was CIA 'weapon'

Inspiration: The Lettering from Simon Walker

Simon Walker is a master of custom lettering. Known for bespoke lettering and an expressive style, his work has been influenced by an early fascination with graffiti and hip-hop culture. I love his recent collaborations with designers such as Mike Smith from Smith&Diction, or his older work for Austin Eastciders.

→ Simon Letters studio

→ Austin Eastciders by Simon Walker

Project spotlight: Decathlon by Wolff Olins

I'm not very sporty, but I'm an absolute fan of Decathlon. I'm happy to see that they're finally caring for their brand and placing it in the foreground, with the help of the agency Wolff Olins. And moving forward, hopefully we see less Tribord, less Quechua, and more Decathlon.

→ See case study by Wolff Olins

Book: Profiles of the Future

There is something about trying to predict the future that I find fascinating, especially when done with a certain naïveté and a touch of optimism. Maybe because design has a lot to do with that: exploring potentially better futures. And on that note, I’ll leave here the recommendation of a book I started recently, Profiles of the Future, by the futurist and scriptwriter of 2001: Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke.

→ Profiles of the Future on Amazon 

AI developments: Figure01

Figure01 is a general-purpose humanoid developed by FigureAI and powered by OpenAI. It's incredible how it feels different, and much more human than previous humanoids designed by competing companies, like Boston Dynamics. In my opinion, it is mostly due to its speech capabilities, but also in how it uses pauses and fillers just like we would. You can notice this in the moment when the humanoid is asked why it did what it did, and answers with: "I gave you the apple because it's the only ‘uh’ edible item I could provide you with from the table". Crazy times...

→ FigureAI website

→ See FigureAI branding project by Red Antler

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Brand Mission (Why we exist):

Expand human capabilities through advanced AI.
Figure is a mission-focused company. We aspire to create a better life for future generations and will dedicate our time and resources to this pursuit.

Brand Vision (Why we exist):

To deploy autonomous humanoid robots on a global scale to solve challenges within the labor economy.
We envision a future where humanoid robots are the universal interface in the physical world. In the early days, our humanoid will be deployed into the workforce to perform corporate tasks in areas with significant labor shortages and jobs that are undesirable or unsafe. Longer term, humanoids will play an important role in many areas such as assisting individuals in the home, caring for the elderly, and building new worlds on other planets.

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Brand Values (Who we are):

Move fast & be technically fearless
Hesitation is the enemy of momentum. We are tackling today’s most complex technological challenges by testing, experimenting, and taking calculated risks to embrace the unknown without fear of failure.

Product first, mission focused
Our product and our mission are one in the same: to bring a commercially viable humanoid to market. We are builders, designers, and engineers united by a commitment to that mission. We avoid distraction and unrelated activities to remain laser-focused on shipping a safe, high quality product.

Aggressively optimistic
Building Figure won’t be an easy win; it will require decades of commitment and ingenuity. We’re humbled by our mission, and aspire to remain optimistic even in the face of enormous hurdles.

Maximize future impact
We have what it takes to build the most groundbreaking company on the planet — to create an inspiring future for generations to come with improved access to goods and services, safer working conditions, and more opportunity for fulfilling work. Our focus is on what we can achieve 5, 10, 20+ years from now, not the near-term wins.

Championship mindset
To address the extraordinary demands of our work, we believe in operating as a winning team. We are in the trenches together, collaborating in-person, remaining hyper-focused, and pushing each other to the highest levels of performance.

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Descriptor (What we do):

Figure is the first-of-its-kind AI robotics company bringing a general purpose humanoid to life.

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Brand Personality (How we express ourselves):

Sleek
Tech-focused
Optimistic

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As I was happily spending time with my almost two-year-old at the playground, something surprising happened. Thinking that I wasn’t watching him, he slowly laid himself down on the ground and started fake crying, as if he was hurt from a tumble.

He just wanted some attention, but in that moment, it hit me: my son, who can only say a couple of words, already knows perfectly well how to deceive others to get what he wants. We all bullshit our way through life, don’t we? From the moment we’re born.

We deceive our parents, we flat out lie to our teachers. And by the time we become grown-ups we’re ready to start BSing our way through each step of the corporate ladder – experts at throwing authenticity out the window while manipulating others to our own benefit. 

BS might as well be part of how our brains are wired. And so are brands.

When groups of people get together, that’s when the magic happens and the collective bullshitting starts – an inspiring characteristic of any type of company, large and small. 

Have you ever noticed how every single brand has an inspiring vision statement? And how every single one of such statements seems to imply a commitment for the greater good? Nike wants everyone to be a winner. Apple wants to advance humankind. Disney wants to make us happy. And Ikea wants to create a better everyday life. What a great world we live in, right? 

Problem is: companies are made up of people, and just like people, vision statements are sometimes full of BS.

But is that really a bad thing?

In 2015, the CEO of Inter IKEA Group, Torbjörn Lööf, partnered with the Danish design collective Art Rebels to establish SPACE10, an innovation hub funded by the company but independent from the IKEA brand. 

This made SPACE10 free to explore IKEA's vision of "creating a better everyday life for the many people", rethinking what the contribution of a furnishings company should be, and do so completely detached from the pressure of the business. 

From Copenhagen's Meatpacking district, and with a diverse team of experts from different backgrounds, SPACE10 spent the past decade working on a variety of vision-driven projects. Using a mix of creativity and technology, they addressed problems such as climate change and social inequality. They looked into ways to make things like food, water, energy, and housing more accessible for everyone. They researched modular buildings and even came up with a beehive generator to help solitary bees. They explored more sustainable ways of living, from driverless futures to community-driven energy systems. They released a cookbook and even made Köttbullar out of waste (I would try it). And that’s just to name a few projects.

But in 2023, despite its highly innovative and meaningful projects, SPACE10 closed after a nearly 10-year run. The founders mentioned that it was all to be expected, that SPACE10 was never meant to last, that its mission had been fulfilled, and that its culture of innovation is now fully integrated into IKEA itself.

Right…

My assumption is that its closure was already on the horizon after its initiator Torbjörn Lööf left IKEA in 2020. Internally, the innovation lab was probably seen more as an expensive dream of a few, a costly indulgence rather than a collective commitment. And that's the thing with businesses: for the most part, they prioritize profit over the betterment of society. And when the economy changes, and people change, the alarm goes off and it's time to wake up, forget vision, dreams and everything that doesn't bring money in. Companies are ultimately about making money, not about goodwill.

That is why I think vision statements are mostly bullshit. But at the same time, it really doesn’t matter as long as they lead to positive change. SPACE10 worked on creating a better world, and in the process it left IKEA in a better place. You know, even though businesses (and people) are driven by money, most would prefer their own actions to have a positive impact. And as my kid just wanted a hug, a strong vision just wants to lead businesses and the world to a better future.

Even if it takes a little BS.

Did you know that YouTube originally started as a dating site? That is probably one of the most unexpected stories you can find in the YouTube Brand Book. But not the most interesting.

In the brand book, YouTube presents its brand philosophy and values in the form of four foundational freedoms: Freedom of expression, freedom of information, freedom of opportunity, freedom to belong.

They are beautifully described, and very much aligned with the platform somewhat libertarian brand mission: "to give everyone a voice and show them the world". They serve as a compass for the brand, and set expectations for how YouTube operates.

These values are more consumer facing, and differ from traditional brand values that companies typically use to also describe the identity of their people in terms of beliefs and behaviors. My assumption is that the YouTube culture is shared with and shaped by the parent company.

Ultimately, YouTube employees are also Googlers.

Brand Mission (Why we exist):

To give everyone a voice and show them the world.
We believe that everyone deserves to have a voice, and that the world is a better place when we listen, share and build community through our stories.

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Brand Beliefs (Who we are):

Freedom of expression
We believe that everyone should be able to speak freely, share opinions, and foster open dialogue, and that creative freedom leads to new voices, formats, and possibilities.

Freedom of information
We believe that everyone should have easy, open access to information, and that video is a powerful force for education, building understanding, and documenting world events big or small.

Freedom of opportunity
We believe that everyone should have a chance to be discovered, build a business, and succeed on their own terms, and that people—not gatekeepers—should decide what’s popular.

Freedom to belong
We believe that everyone should be able to find communities of support, break down barriers, transcend borders, and come together around shared interests and passions.

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Descriptor (What we do):

A way for people around the world to share videos.

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Visual Design Values (How we express ourselves):

Human (diverse, candid, authentic)
The vast majority of YouTubes content is created by real people: non-professionals with cameras and ideas to share. Their little imperfections lend YouTube's corpus a sense of humanity that very few other brands can own. Our design should never appear as if by magic. We should always let the viewer know that behind every expression is a real person.

Connected (community, belonging, engaging) 
People come to YouTube to interact with and learn from others. Everyday, more than a billion people from around the globe meet and share their points of view. Our brand expressions celebrate these relationships-both philosophically and literally. They should never feel isolated or lonely.

Expressive (vibrant, immaginative, intriguing)
Whenever anyone posts a video to YouTube, they are expressing their point of view. Our design is never generic. It's bold, colorful and opinionated, and reflective of the wider world. By communicating with an increasingly diverse range of voices, we reach new people every single day.

Story-driven (active, perspective, clear) 
Every video tells a story. Every upload adds another chapter to YouTube's narrative. Our design is part of a greater story. We meet our characters in singular moment. We sense the plot and action that's brought them here - and it's clear the action won't stop when the moment is over. 

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As a designer, my work has always been influenced by a desire to understand these words upon which brands are built – the mission, values, traits, purpose, and everything in between. That's the foundational language of brands, and ultimately, that's what needs to get through in everything a brand does, from its products to its visuals.

That's why I started a research column, → Brand Frameworks, where I examine today’s most disruptive companies. I look into their documents, websites, guidelines, and try to uncover the essence of their brand. My goal is to broaden my understanding of brands beyond those that I get to work with, and hopefully create a helpful showcase with this sort of foundational material that companies typically do not share.

Hope you like it.
David

Other things on my mind:

Project spotlight: Hulu rebranding

One of the most interesting aspects of the brand framework from Hulu is the design principles introduced by the agency DixonBaxi during the rebranding project in 2021. These principles are akin to personality traits, and appear to influence everything from external behaviors to design language, tone of voice, and motion principles. Take a look at the Design Guidelines – it’s worth it.

→ See case study by Dixon Baxi

→ Download Hulu Design Guidelines

Naming: Brand Names Report

Over the course of three years, about 22,769 people visited Brand New, a blog about brand identity, and voted on 131 different brand names, saying whether they thought they were great, fine, or bad. Rob Meyerson, from How Brands Are Built, took all these votes, and combined them with other data and expert input, to figure out what makes people like or dislike certain brand names and if there are any patterns or trends we can spot. It is pretty interesting.

→ Download Brand Names Report

Book: Designing Brand Identity

The 6th edition of this popular book about branding will be released in a couple of days. It demystifies branding providing a clear guide for creating strong and successful brands. This new edition includes new ideas, new case studies, and global perspectives for a fresh and forward-thinking approach.

→ Designing Brand Identity

Inspiration: SPACE10 by IKEA

IKEA's vision is "To create a better everyday life for the many people". SPACE10, a non-profit research lab fully funded by IKEA, operated fully aligned with this vision by conducting research, design projects, and providing a platform for exchange focused on improving the lives of people and the planet. Unfortunately, SPACE10 closed last year after nearly a decade of operation. Fortunately, they have kept their website online as a showcase of everything they did.

→ Explore SPACE10 website

AI developments: EMO by Alibaba

Researchers at Alibaba's Institute for Intelligent Computing have created a new AI system called "EMO" that can animate a single portrait photo and create realistic videos of the person talking or singing.  If Midjourney and Sora had you concerned about implications in terms of fake news, the video above will make you panic.

→ More about Emote Portrait Alive