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Placing itself shoulder to shoulder with the competition, Notion's confident ad proves that it stands out against its rivals. Dividing critics with its bold and minimalist billboard design, the ad proves that creative bravery is a priceless tool for standing out in a crowded market.

The billboard in question features a lineup of AI logos including Claude, Perplexity, Grok Bot, ChatGPT and, of course, Notion front and centre. It might seem a little barmy to place yourself among the competition in your own ad, but it's this very confidence that makes Notion's ad shine.

"As much as I hate to admit it, this is a really great ad," a user on X wrote. "No words, just app icons. There’s mystery over who paid for it. There's controversy over why certain apps should be there. It's bold and makes a statement," they added. "Super cool and smart, or super dumb?" another added.

I, for one, am in the "super cool" camp. Given that most AI logos look the same, Notion's simple letterblock logo instantly stands out against the competition. The neutral ground of the logo lineup only helps Notion to emerge among its competitors, suggesting a certain edge against the competition.

While some have criticised the billboard for being too vague, I think that's where its strength emerges. The best adverts often spark conversation, and Notion's bold billboard is not only a symbol of confidence, but a conversation prompt about where the brand belongs in the AI sphere.

So why is Etsy suddenly telling its sellers: "The photo of the product you're selling should actually be the photo of the product you're selling"?

Last week the marketplace for handmade goods made an important-sounding announcement: that every listing must now include at least one unedited photo of the actual item, shot against a real background.

It also specifically banned the use of AI image generators for patterns, recipes and instructions for customers. It's outlawed listings created by bots. And while it's still okay to see AI-generated art on Etsy, you need to be clear about that fact, so buyers know exactly what it is they're buying.

All of which sounds great. But I can't help feeling we never should have got to the place where any of this was necessary.

Who wants to shop for slop?

Admittedly, Etsy had to do something, because the complaints are mounting fast. Full-time creator Kara Lynne summed it up on X, writing: "I can't explain how infuriating it has been to purchase a crochet pattern, only to open the PDF and realise it's fully AI-generated, doesn't make sense, and definitely doesn't match what the finished product should be." Quite.

That's the world that AI is delivering to us. Someone spending their hard-earned money and an evening of their life on instructions that were never going to work. Multiply that by thousands of buyers and you can see how big the problem has become, both for shoppers and the majority of Etsy sellers, who are trying to do everything properly yet end up being tarred with the same brush.

So what Etsy has said does make sense, although it does make you wonder why they haven't acted sooner. Despite its folksy image, this is a company with a market cap of $7.81 billion, after all. You'd think they'd have enough cash to hire a few people to keep an eye on this stuff.

Still, at least Etsy now seems to be pulling in the same direction as much of the creative world. The company now follows Spotify pulling 50 million AI tracks, Snap keeping gen-AI content out of its recommendations and LinkedIn, well, at least adding a button to report it.

Etsy's new rules won't fix everything. But they do acknowledge what should have been obvious: that when people buy something "handmade", they want to know whether a human actually made it. Baby steps, of course, but at least they're steps in the right direction.

If you look at a lot of anything, you tend to get snow blindness after a while. And so it's been with me. Through my tired and cynical eyes, most agency sites look like they've been built by the same person.

Looping showreel? Check? Big, bold type? Check. Meaningless waffle about how the studio is “building brands that matter” (barf). Check. An imposing contact form you sense no one human will ever be bothered to fill out? Check. I could go on, but you get the point.

That's why an email from Denver’s Bound Agency made me smile this morning. Its subject line described their new website, built by Denver studio Wunder Werkz, as "Messy, meaningful and made by humans". And it did not disappoint.

Tumblr feels

The logo is a handwritten scrawl. The navigation icons are wobbly doodles: a slice of cake, an arrow, a signpost, a camera. There are acres of white space (well, soft lilac space to be precise). And scrolling down the tiles feels like I'm flicking through a fanzine.

A collage of Dolly Parton and Tim Curry pictures, all big blonde hair and glam-rock make-up, overlaid with the words: “Pack your wigs, divas. We’re being called home.” A Juno Calypso photo of a woman in a pink heart-shaped bath, pinned with a paperclip. A Spotify playlist titled The Dregs of Summer. A Victorian paper-doll bust. If you spent any time on Tumblr in the late 2000s, it all feels very familiar.

While it's not a carbon copy of the era, many of the hallmarks are there. Found imagery, ironic captions, mixtapes, and a sense that someone’s personal taste is the whole point. Personally, I’m here for it.

So why take this approach? Bound's founder Lauren “Lolo” Butts notes that in 13 years, their website has never won them a single client. “New business almost always comes from word of mouth,” she explains. “So this revamp wasn’t about lead-gen. It was about building a beautiful, fun place that feels like the person you were already told to talk to.”

I find this super-refreshing. It frees the site from having to do lots of boring jobs. There’s no “About us” page and no list of the services the agency offers. Instead, it’s a playground. You can pull a tarot card. You can rearrange a grid that keeps changing. You can build and share a cake. You can browse an estate sale guide called Let’s Go Hunting!

Handmade, for real

Almost a year ago I wrote about a tactile rebellion against slick, synthetic design, and turns out my article headline, "Messy, meaningful and made by humans", were the very words Bound used in their email to me. Flattery will get you everywhere, as they say; but I do genuinely feel this site lives up to that promise.

Every logo, doodle and arrow on the site is in Lauren's own handwriting. And even the eyeballs subtly signal an agency willing to look clients in the eye.

You can’t prompt your way to this kind of personality in Claude; it can only come from somewhere real. And for potential clients, this site is a handy vibe check. If it holds your attention, you’re probably the kind of client they want. If it doesn’t, you’ve both saved yourselves a meeting.

In short, it's a great example of a classic design maxim: why describe your message, your point of view, when you can just show it?

We caught up with him to learn more about his career and influences. If you need to upgrade your own setup for digital art, see our guides to the best drawing tablets and the best laptops for drawing.

You can see more of Iain's work on his ArtStation profile. .

This article originally appeared in ImagineFX. Subscribe to ImagineFX to never miss an issue. Print and digital subscriptions are available.

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2026 has proven to be a huge year for Apple. With the unprecedented success of the iPhone Duo and MacBook Neo, plus the small matter of the company’s 50th birthday, the last few months have certainly been, er, fruitful for Apple. And just because it can, the company is embarking on a victory lap.

Now that the dust has settled on the new iPhones, all eyes are turning to the Mac and iPad line ups. Apple has announced that it has a bunch of new products to reveal this week, all under the umbrella of an event named Pro and Tell.

We’re on our way to Los Angeles to find out exactly what Apple has in the oven for us, but in the meantime, Apple has already made one minor announcement. The new iPad mini is here, complete with OLED display and a new, thinner design. Oh, and a price hike – it now starts at $699.

We’ll be keeping this page updated with every announcement as it happens, as well as details about all the rumours.

What has Apple announced?

• The new iPad mini, with a thinner and lighter design, OLED display and the A20 Pro chip.

What else to expect

We're predicting (based on leaks) to see:

• A new OLED MacBook Pro, possibly with, for the first time ever a touchscreen display
• A new iMac, featuring the updated M6 chip

Apple deals this week

The XPPen Magic Pro 13 is an Android 16 tablet going on sale today at an early-bird price of $899 / £899, with digital art-focused specs that compete with both Wacom and iPad.

The original XPPen Magic Drawing Pad opened my eyes and made me question whether an iPad really was the only sensible choice for mobile digital art. It had a drawing-focused screen and a stylus built for artists, without the glossy glass that makes an iPad feel like sketching on a glass table. I use an iPad Pro but a Rock Paper Pencil screen protector to get that toothy drawing-tablet feel.

Since XPPen's first Android tablet, Wacom has launched the high-spec OLED MovinkPad Pro 14, and Huion has gone for a budget spec with the Kamvas Pad 12. But the new XPPen Magic Pro 13 sits at the higher end, alongside Wacom and Apple. I've been using the Magic Pro 13 for about three weeks, and it's an impressive tablet for artists looking for a strong iPad alternative.

XPPen Magic Pro 13 Drawing Display Mode: use it as a pen display

The big idea is Drawing Display Mode: you can connect the Magic Pro 13 to a compatible PC with a single full-featured USB-C cable, and it becomes a pen display running at up to 3K at 120Hz. The stylus keeps its 16K pressure levels, tilt detection, hover preview and customisable barrel buttons, and XPPen promises ultra-low-latency input.

XPPen's pitch is that it makes this connectivity easier. In practice, that means you can sketch on the sofa or the train in your favourite Android apps, then plug in at your desk to keep going and use the tablet like a standard drawing tablet. It could save you buying a standalone tablet and a separate pen display.

XPPen’s Brian Huang, Marketing Director, says the Magic Pro 13 is “an industry-first 2-in-1 device” that works as a standalone drawing pad and a professional drawing display. “Artists need creative tools that can adapt to the way they work, wherever they create,” he adds.

Wacom's MovinkPad Pro 14 can do something similar, but it's not as simple as plug-and-play; you need to enable Developer Mode and USB Debugging in the Android settings (though it also offers WiFi connectivity).

Magic Pro 13 screen and X4 stylus: 3K, 120Hz and 16K pressure

The Magic Pro 13's sleek, tactile 3K display lets you choose 60Hz, 90Hz, or 120Hz, and its nano-etched AG+AF glass feels papery and more natural than drawing on an iPad. The display offers a bright 650 nits peak brightness, higher than the iPad and iPad Air but below the OLEDs of the MovinkPad Pro 14 and iPad Pro, plus 100% sRGB and 96% DCI-P3 coverage, with system-level switching between sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3. There’s also TÜV SÜD Low Blue Light certification.

The new X4 Smart Chip Stylus has a bullet-shaped nib, 16K pressure levels, 60-degree tilt and a claimed 2g activation force. In use, I've found the low threshold helps with light marks and delicate shading and is a huge step up from the original Magic Drawing Pad. Slow diagonals and gradual line-weight changes tell me more than the pressure count alone, especially against Wacom’s Pro Pen 3 and Huion’s PenTech 4.0, and the XPPen feels good (my full review is coming).

Magic Pro 13 design, battery and software

The Magic Pro 13 is 6.65mm thick and weighs 655g, with a 10,200mAh battery and 45W PD fast charging on both USB-C ports. It has an 8MP front camera and a 13MP rear camera for capturing references and textures on the go.

XPPen has added its own software, a must and a sign the brand is finally catching up with Wacom in software and driver support. The Shelf app lets you tag, annotate, and search reference images, and Canvas lets you make quick sketches. You also get Quick Draw with Screen Off, Freeform Windowing and Screenshot Doodle.

XPPen Magic Pro 13 price: is it worth $899?

That’s a lot for an Android drawing tablet, and Huion’s Kamvas Pad 12 is the cheaper option at $499, but it has a less powerful processor and a lower-spec display. With XPPen's new Magic Pro 13, you’re paying for the higher-end tech you expect from Wacom and Apple: a high-refresh 3K screen, 120Hz, the MediaTek Dimensity 8300 processor to handle 3D as well as standard apps, and an easy-to-use PC drawing mode. Whether the pen and the desktop connection justify the money is something I explore further in my full review.

You can find the Magic Pro 13 on XPPen’s website.

While the best adverts often spark conversation, TFL's controversial ad has ignited the wrong kind of public engagement. With its unintentionally ambiguous design, the ad demonstrates why the Corporate Memphis art style might not be the best choice for PSA ads.

The design in question is supposed to feature a man looking over his shoulder, but thanks to the featureless style of Corporate Memphis, some commuters saw otherwise. "Disgusting insinuation in this campaign. Absolutely appalling," one X user wrote. "Suspicion, paranoia and ethnically ambiguous abstract art - 1984 is here in full force," another added, while another joked, "This is a wonderful Rorschach test."

Since the ad was clearly misinterpreted by many, TFL was forced to respond, informing the OP that the poster was being investigated. It later claimed the poster had been "installed without TFL's permission."

"Our media partner, our teams and contractors have been instructed to inspect trains and remove any unauthorised posters that are found on our network. The incident has been reported to [British Transport Police] as flyposting is an illegal activity," TFL explained in a now deleted X post.

While the origin of the ad remains unclear, the controversy points to a wider issue with ad campaigns. Creating the right language and visual tone is key to a successful campaign, and this ad (whether fake or not) completely missed the mark. Paranoia-inducing copy and ambiguous design created a recipe for disaster, and now TFL have to deal with the fallout.

For more ad controversy, take a look at why 2026 is the year of the cancelled ad, or check out why Sydney Sweeney's racy ad sparked a Gen Z culture war.

On Friday, Laika’s Wildwood, the studio’s sixth feature, opened in cinemas worldwide. I've already written about how its focus on stop-motion is what we all need in the AI era. So it's fantastic news that the movie seems to be doing well at the box office so far.

Shortly after that, we got The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror XXXVII opener: a stop-motion homage to The Nightmare Before Christmas. Bart is Jack Skellington, Marge is Sally, Homer is the two-faced Mayor, Santa’s Little Helper is Zero, and Ned Flanders is a bug-stuffed Oogie Boogie. Together, they belt out a parody version of This Is Halloween, replaced by the words "Simpsons Halloween".

The Simpson's Halloween specials have impressed since 1990

Since 1990, the Halloween specials have sat deliciously outside the show’s continuity. Characters die gruesome deaths, Springfield gets destroyed, but the following week everything's back to normal. In the new opener, Lisa (dressed as a witch) even spells it out in song: "Halloween episodes are not canon". And brilliantly, that freedom extends to the animation style itself.

Thematically, this sequence and Laika's Wildwood have almost nothing in common. But what matters is that both were made the slow, handmade way: with puppets, physical sets, and people moving them frame by frame. That's truly a lovely thing to see.

Stoopid Buddy Stoodios' stop-motion animation approach

The Simpsons sequence came from Burbank’s Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, best known for Robot Chicken, which uses retro toys, action figures and dolls in stop-motion animation to deliver pop-culture parodies.

The studio could have used 3D printing. It chose not to. Co-founder John Harvatine IV told Animation World Network. “We kind of just did old school the whole way, from sculpting by hand." Similarly, sculptor Jim McKenzie told Entertainment Weekly: “I think in a time of AI, to be involved with something that’s truly handmade, it’s very special these days." Hear, hear.

It’s fitting that The Simpsons chose Nightmare Before Christmas as its Halloween tribute. When director Henry Selick’s chaotic classic arrived in 1993, it proved that a stop-motion feature could be a mainstream hit, and set him on the path to Coraline, the film that launched Laika.

Back then, stop-motion was seen as very old hat, a thing of the past. Three decades later, it feels like a refreshing antidote to AI and overly slick CG, and this Simpsons opener plays right into that idea.

These gruesome puppet caricatures might only be on screen for half a minute, but they’re part of a much bigger fightback for handmade animation and creativity in general. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

As part of Regal Movies' new popcorn bucket promo, you can now 3D-print your own Wicker husband (well, at least a part of him). Is it a bit cheeky getting moviegoers to print their own popcorn buckets? Yes. Is it a bit stingy that the deal only got you a small popcorn? Absolutely. Do I still want a 3D-printed version of Alexander Skarsgård's rippling Wicker bod? Definitely.

Straight from Regal's Prop Shop, the 3D-printed Wicker popcorn bucket was created using 3D scans of Skarsgård's costume (note the design is just the torso, so get your mind out of the gutter). Those brave enough to bring their freshly printed Wicker husband to the movie theatre received a free small popcorn for their efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the design is wonderfully detailed and, popcorn novelty aside, a playful prop for fans. The print files are entirely free, so your Wicker man is well within reach, provided you have your own setup (or a kind, unquestioning friend who will print it for you).

For more creative inspiration, check out these 3D printing essentials or take a look at our guide to the fastest way to get comfortable with 3D software

One of the more curious issues facing some iPhone Duo units is the screen cracking in one very specific location. This involves a thin crack down the centre hinge, and a line of stuck bright white pixels across the right side of the display. The result has aready led to some amusing wallpaper designs making light of the issue.

But why are multiple Duo models breaking in the same way? Well, now that teardowns of the device have begun, we might have an answer. iFixit has revealed an area of concentrated components around the hinge, with a different shape to the rest of the hinge, which could be causing excess stress on the screen.

"To see where the stresses build up from folding, we built a 3D hinge model from teardown footage, patents, and CT scans, then compared it with the reported damage locations," reports iFixit. "The breaks cluster near the transition from the gap for the crossing flex cable to the central hinge support. The damage we’re seeing in photos isn’t right where the display cable passes through the hinge, but slightly lower, at a point where several edges meet and change how the thin display is supported as it bends... The screen’s curved fold comes down onto it, creating a small stress hotspot near the reported break location."

While it's too early to tell the scale of the problem, it seems at least a few units from this early batch of iPhone Duos might feature a subtle design flaw. Right now, early adopters are likely stress testing the product more than the average user, and the fault could be limited to a handful of units, leading to an outsized impression of the issue. If anything, it shows just how much more intricate the design of these foldable needs to be – and that not even Apple is necessarily immune to the difficulties of creating a durable device that can happily fold in half.

Once I got the design requirements, I started planning the overall layout right away. I depicted the main dragon in a vivid dynamic stance, dashing forward from a distance in the frame, straight towards audiences with its mouth wide open in a fierce roar.

Floating clouds and sailing fleets spread across the sea in the lower part of the picture. The huge dragon and the tiny distant ships form a sharp contrast, building remarkable spatial depth. The whole scene is set against a glowing backlit sunset sky, and striking light rays enrich the visual layers.

For the back cover, I drew the other two dragons from the novel locked in an intense battle. I arranged the three dragons with clear visual hierarchy, and concentrated the finest details on the main dragon’s head on the front cover to highlight the core character.

If you want to follow a similar process, you'll need digital art software, and you might want one of the best drawing tablets to work on.

Artist's tips

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This article originally appeared in ImagineFX. Subscribe to ImagineFX to never miss an issue. Print and digital subscriptions are available.

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Phantom Blade Zero wants you to feel like a kung fu master from the opening moments, and you should, since you play as Soul, an elite assassin for the Order. Even after a fateful duel leaves him with 66 days to live, there’s no cheap Metroid-style reset, and his martial arts prowess keeps growing.

Whether taking on another fearsome warrior one-on-one or a group of enemies, there’s a fluid confidence to his moveset that captures the spirit of the classic martial arts films that have inspired studio S-Game's ambitious debut, itself based on the indie RPG Rainblood: Town of Death that director Soulframe Liang made more than 15 years ago.

While China’s first AAA hits like Black Myth: Wukong and Wuchang: Fallen Feathers have leveraged both Unreal Engine 5 and the overwhelming influence of Soulslikes, S-Game tries to carve out its own identity, which it has coined as ‘kungfupunk’. Aesthetically, that means a curious blend of traditional Chinese culture with the modern: steel-factory architecture clashing with bamboo forests and temples from a more classic wuxia setting, and music where elegant pipa strings give way to electric-guitar rock riffs. More literally, it’s about how Sha-Chi, the energy that powers your kung fu (in-game, it’s basically your stamina gauge used for heavy combos and guarding attacks), also powers other technologies.

Phantom Blade Zero combat: martial-arts mocap and 50+ weapons

But it's definitely the kung fu that's centre-stage here, with all of the fighting styles and movements in-game captured by real martial artists, notably with the involvement of Hong Kong martial arts legend Donnie Yen (he also plays a character, albeit one you don't strictly encounter on the main story path, while spending most of it behind a mask) and his stunt team.

Even though your combos are essentially just spamming light or heavy attacks, your fighting style changes depending on the weapon you use, such as the one-handed Jagged Steel, which inflicts bleed damage, or the weighty two-handed Scarlet Wraithblade, which leaves energy-draining red spider lilies on the ground. The action can often feel too fast for its own good, so you're usually focused on your flurry of attacks before waiting to react to an enemy's blue or red attacks to parry or dodge, but hitting the prompt to unleash a finishing move is pretty satisfying.

Since most bosses drop new weapons, there's a thrill in getting a new toy to play with, and the game has more than 50 to find and master. It can feel a little overwhelming, and some may feel more gimmicky than useful, like a sword that gives you unpredictable drunken-martial-arts movements, so I naturally stuck to a few favourites, especially since I needed to prioritise upgrading them with my limited resources.

Nonetheless, there's an incentive to master more than one weapon, as switching automatically gives you a full Sha-Chi gauge. I often used up a gauge with one weapon, then quickly swapped to another to keep my offensive momentum going (a cooldown period does prevent you from just exploiting this).

Exploration and level design

Special weapons called Phantom Edges have limited uses but, used at the right time, can turn the tide in encounters, like a large axe that smashes through enemy shields or a chain sickle that tears through multiple surrounding enemies. Some even serve Metroidvania-style exploration, letting you access areas you couldn't reach before.

But despite some interesting designs, it's hard not to see these as glorified keycards, with most leading to little more than a small room and a chest for your trouble. Even though the chain doubles as a grappling hook, it's a bit disappointing once you realise that, like other traversal options such as running up cliffs or wall-running, it's limited to a button prompt at prescribed points in the environment.

This is one of the frustrating aspects of Phantom Blade Zero's rich, dense Wulin, even as it takes you from the bottom of a valley to mountain peaks, plus a massive lake you can explore by boat. It may all look pleasing to the eye, but it suffers from environments where you regularly bump up against invisible barriers as you try to parse the artistically rendered map (albeit elegantly emulating a Chinese ink wash painting that fills up the more checkpoints you come across).

This is especially annoying when a quest marker is supposedly close by, but you still have to wander aimlessly until you spot an interaction prompt, or discover there's actually a long-winded detour you're supposed to take instead. Doors that require specific keys are one thing, but I catch myself sighing when I approach a ledge you would expect to mantle in a similar game, only for Soul's kung fu skills to be arbitrarily eluded.

Boss fights and difficulty

Another question you might have about Phantom Blade Zero is whether it's a Soulslike. In many ways, it isn't. For instance, its checkpoints don't revive defeated enemies when you rest at them, and you also don't lose any resources permanently if you don't recover them. It nonetheless has some similarities, such as some labyrinthine level design where you'll encounter your share of doors inconveniently locked from your side, but it almost seems to turn into a Soulslike in challenge the moment you encounter bosses with hard-hitting attacks and where you have very limited heals (which you won't even be able to upgrade meaningfully until the game's midpoint).

On the one hand, some difficulty spikes are mitigated by bosses with a second phase, which also have a checkpoint so you're not forced to go through the first phase with fewer resources, and there are also difficulty options. The accessories you find and equip can also make a difference, especially ones that widen the parry and dodge windows, but my major gripe remains how spongy these boss fights feel, even for those that come back with a second phase.

This isn't unique to Phantom Blade Zero (see also Control Resonant, until Remedy patched it at launch), but it makes you question the point of staggering your opponent when, in this state, all your heaviest attacks still only chip away at their health. In many fights, it also makes your aggressive momentum push the enemy back until you inevitably get stuck on geometry. When it hits the camera, some cool-looking finishing moves get framed awkwardly, with parts of the environment obscuring the shot.

Phantom Blade Zero performance on PS5 Pro

Even though I was testing on PS5 Pro, I still ran into some pretty glaring technical issues during my playthrough, mostly in the latter half of the game, which I think came down to optimisation and bugs, since they persisted even after I turned off ray tracing and set the graphics to Performance mode. Sometimes the audio got knocked way out of balance between the voice acting and music, and in a couple of cases the big puddles I came across didn't show reflections so much as they looked more like a big mirror or a hole in the ground.

Most egregious, however, were framerate drops during combat that devolved into a slideshow, spoiling several major boss fights. I should be relieved they didn't kill me, since most of these happened when I was already locked into my (likely very VFX-laden) attack animations against a staggered opponent.

That may make it seem like I have a lot to be down about Phantom Blade Zero, but there is still plenty to admire, including cultural and artistic flourishes I can't share in this review. The Wulin's centrepiece, Pangzhen, is the kind of labyrinthine town that deserves to be talked about in the same breath as Bloodborne's Yharnam, so rich and dense with secrets and lore, and home to some of the game's best bosses, while there's clearly been a lot of thought that has gone into the intriguing characters and deep questlines that offer meaningful rewards, including having an impact on the ending you'll get. It's just a shame that the version I got to play still needed a bit more time in the oven.

A final note: S-Game released a patch that supposedly resolves most of the above issues, but it came after I finished my playthrough, so I didn't have a chance to go through it again to make sure every issue I encountered was fixed.

While the standard Pro X use Status Audio's default signature tuning alongside an open EQ that lets you customise your own sound profiles via the app, the new GoldenSound Edition featues a locked, specialised sound profile from renowned audio engineer Cameron "GoldenSound" Oatley.

There are plenty of great over-ear wireless headphones, but for inner-ear earphones, the Status Pro really stand out right now.

• Browse Status headphones at Amazon

At the heart of the Status Audio Pro X is a triple-driver configuration, combining a 12mm dynamic driver for deep sub-bass with dual Knowles-balanced armatures for highs and mids. The standard signature profile delivers impressive instrument separation and a weighty sub bass partnered with splashes of high end, but with a rich midrange presence for an engaging V-shape sound signature.

The GoldenSound Edition feature an additional locked profile developed using the specialised Brüel & Kjær 5128 head and torso simulator. This targets a natural, balanced timbre, smoother treble and improved mid-range cohesion for a more acoustic-friendly and realistic presentation. You to switch back to the standard Pro X tuning using the app.

They also have a sharp aesthetic with a matte black and matte gold finish on the earbuds, with a matte black charging case and a matte gold lid stamped with both the Status Audio and GoldenSound logos.

The iPhone Duo selling out until January suggested that people were buying into that idea with Apple's first foldable. Now the early reviews and feedback are starting to raise questions.

One of the most concerning issues coming from real-world feedback involves breaks concentrated around the hinge of the phone, including vertical cracks down the centre, dead pixels or lines across one side of the screen. And because of the scarcity of stock, some people have been told they'll have to wait until January for a replacement.

While clearly not ideal, the extent of the issue is unclear. There's no evidence yet of a widespread manufacturing or design defect.

A lot of iPhone Duo testing posted on social media has focused precisely on the hinge and crease given that it's a potential source of weakness (and that the invisibility of the crease has been touted as one of the features making the Duo superior to other foldables.

In the video by Tim Pan above, the crease does become visibly deeper after 500 manual folds and palpably deeper after 10,000, easily within the range of a few months of real use, but Tim generally finds the hinge to hold up well.

But another test, by HTX Studio (below), finds that the crease became deeper than that of two other foldables after just 3,000 folds and also notes that the screen around the crease is softer.

Some have been subjecting to the poor Duo to harsher treatment. Trung Peng decides to pass on the device after finding the crease to be a magnet for dust and dirty. He also finds that the screen gets marked if you hold a naked flame to it. So, yeah, maybe don't do that.

Speaking of heat, other early tests have raised concerns about the phone running warm without being intentionally singed. Joanna Stern was concerned enough to end a FaceTime call during her testing because it felt too hot.

Apple responded that this points to the cooling system working correctly. The Duo's vapor chamber is slimmer than the one in the iPhone 18 Pro, and there's a flexible graphite heat pipe around the hinge to compensate. This helps transfer heat between the two halves of the device, increasing the surface area to dissipate heat but potentially making the whole device warmer to the touch.

Another common gripe with the Duo involves the optimisation of some apps (or lack of). Some apps designed for iOS 26 or 27 present a smaller layout surrounded by black bars. Some behave the same as iPhone-only apps on an iPad: presenting a tiny version of the app in the middle of the display, which is blurry when resized.

But apps that have already been redesigned for the iPhone Duo appear to work very well. It's not ideal for the Duo to launch before a lot of apps are ready for it, but developers will catch up.

Others have cited buggy transition animations and apps that get the camera orientation wrong. Sometimes Apple's own software seems to get confused show the wrong orientation. Again, this is something that can probably be fixed.

For Stefan Van Der Merwe, the lack of Face ID is a deal breaker. I don't think this will be such a decisive factor for everyone, but I can see how it can be disappointing for a phone designed with multitasking in mind. That said, as a foldable, the Duo really needs two hands.

We haven't completed our own review of the Duo yet, and I've not yet seen anything that should massively change people's decision on whether to buy the Duo or not. It was already clear that it's not one of the best camera phones, and it's not presented as such.

You might want to wait a few months for some of the software problems to be ironed out for a smoother initial experience of the Duo – but then you might have no choice with preorders backed up until the end the year. And by that point, you might feel you have enough patience to wait another nine months for the Duo 2.

My studio is about 30 square metres, and it has a slightly odd history: it used to be two bedrooms – mine and my older brother’s – in my parents’ house just outside Paris, until we knocked the wall through. My brother’s bed is still in here, and I’ll come back to why that matters.

The space is split in two. On one side, everything digital: a Wacom Cintiq Pro 24 hooked up to a MacBook Pro M2 Max, running Clip Studio Paint [see the best digital art software – ed]. For manga specifically, nothing else comes close – the pen stabilisation, the panel tools, the screentones, it’s all built for exactly what I do.

All three screens are running my own drawings. When I’m working on my new manga I want my previous pages permanently in front of me, so I’m always referencing myself rather than hunting through folders.

The desk itself is custom-built: two and a half metres of solid wood worktop weighing around 100kg, which is not something you move on a whim. It's rated for 300kg of load. I had it built to carry everything at once: Mac, PC, drawing setup and the full streaming rig, without a single wobble.

I built the computer myself, and I’d be lying if I said it was purely for work – I’m a lifelong geek and gamer. The water-cooling loop was a project in itself. When I need to reset my eye before going back to a page, this is where I go.

On the other side, everything traditional, and this is where things get out of hand. I own more than 3,000 markers. Not a typo. Plus dozens and dozens of nibs, pencils and screentone sheets. I’m an ambassador for a few art brands, including Clairefontaine and Graph’it, so material arrives constantly and I ran out of places to put it.

This is my second desk, dedicated entirely to traditional work, with the marker and liner wall standing right in front of it. Everything is arranged so I can reach any colour without standing up or breaking concentration – that’s the whole point. I sit down here and just sink into the drawing. After a morning of screens, the smell of alcohol markers is what tells my brain it’s time to make something with my hands

Everything now lives in labelled boxes, because otherwise I’d never find anything again. There’s a third layer to the room too: I’ve been shooting photo and video since 2011, and I still use that gear every day.

A Sony FX30, a Sennheiser MKH 416 shotgun mic and big continuous softboxes – the proper studio kind – because I film courses and live critique sessions for my drawing school, and for the 550,000 people who follow the channel.

I sit on an HBADA X7, which has built-in massage, heating and ventilation – it sounds ridiculous until you’ve spent six straight hours inking a page.

Next to me is a manga library of over a thousand volumes that I raid constantly for reference, plus copies of my own manga, Astral. My day is very rigid. Up at 5:30, sport at 6, at my desk by 7. If I start at 8 I feel like I’ve already lost the day – which is ridiculous, but there it is. I work until noon, then my energy collapses, so I sleep from 2pm to 3:30pm.

That’s what the bed is for. It’s the single most important piece of furniture in the room. Cutting the day in half is non negotiable. Back at it until 6 or 7pm, then in bed by 10. I’m obsessively organised. Clean desk, batteries charged, every pen where it should be, or I feel half-lost before I’ve started.

The biggest lesson? For years I called myself a mangaka online and quietly felt like a fraud, because I was teaching manga without having published one. Then Astral came out in 2025 and the impostor syndrome simply vanished. I’m on my second book now.

Astral is the story of Nejma, a young woman searching for meaning, and Elane, a druidess, who are bound by Merlin’s lost grimoire as ancient Celtic legends come to life.

I was 40 when it came out, and I’d spent years teaching manga online while quietly wondering whether I had the right to – this book is what settled that question, for good.

This is an illustration of Sana, a character from the Astral universe, drawn in Clip Studio Paint.

I'm a serious figure collector: 12 large-scale statues and a small army of smaller ones. Owning them is a childhood dream made literal – as a kid these were completely out of reach, and now I get to work inside the universe that made me want to draw in the first place. They’re also genuinely useful for lighting and anatomy reference.

Gohan is my favourite character in all of manga. He’s the kid who inherits enormous potential and has to decide what to do with it, and every single day he pushes me to go and build my own version of that.

Nami is on my desk because we share one very specific trait: an excellent sense of direction. Whenever I travel with friends, I’m always the one navigating – nobody else even tries anymore.

Apprendre à Dessiner des Mangas is a practical guide book designed for those who truly want to learn to draw – not just watch tutorials, but pick up a pencil and get started.

You can see more of Yé's work on his website.

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Just Eat has apologised and said it was removing the images. But what was it thinking?

As reported by the BBC, images spotted on the Just Eat app in the UK include a bacon and egg soda bread cocktail at a Northern Ireland cafe and a 'jacket potato' represented by an actual jacket with pictures of baked potatoes on it.

Other gems included a plain garlic bread shaped like a plane because of a typo, a bowl of tiger cubs (tiger prawns, apparently), a literal toad in the hole and a 'lighter' breakfast depicted as a cigarette lighter.

Just Eat is really late to this party. Its rival Uber Eats went through this embarrassment almost three years ago. The technology has advanced massively since then, but somehow Just Eat managed to roll out an even worse implementation. On social media, people have been asking how a $4bn company managed to mess up so badly and how it could roll out such a risky feature without properly testing it.

But there's also an even more obvious question: why? Even if the AI 'worked' as intended and generated an image of the perfect Platonic ideal of each dish, using fake product photography for food seems like a guaranteed way to cause disappointment and complaints from customers.

Users have already been sharing screenshots on social media, showing 'AI vs reality' comparisons, with some complaining that Just Eat has refused to issue refunds despite the actual product ordered not even remotely resembling the AI hallucination.

That's not the fault of the business making the food when the false impression was created by an AI image foisted on it by the app. They join the growing list of businesses suffering because of automatic AI-generated images pushed on their products on platforms as varied as Amazon and Reddit.

In 2026, my inbox has been full of PR emails about these kind of developments. How&How rebranding AI image generator Ideogram. Lazarev crafting the identity for AI video app Elva. Together giving AI audit firm Clusia a four-petal mark. Meta asking lettering artist Jessica Hische to draw the new logo for its new AI platform, Muse.

So why do the companies who seem most invested in machine-made creativity keep reaching for the human kind? And should creatives whose livelihoods AI threatens be helping them? The more I think about these conundrums, the more confused I seem to get.

What branding does

The first question is, if we accept that AI can make nice looking images, why wouldn't AI companies want to use them for their own branding? It's a simple question, and actually there's a simple answer too. Branding has never been about making things look nice. It’s about making people believe you.

As I noted in my recent article about attempts to rebrand AI slop, it's pretty clear that AI companies have a credibility problem right now. Not just with designers, but with the general public too.

I've lost track of how many times I've heard people without a creative bone in their body calling out AI images, whether they're on Facebook, a dodgy gig poster hanging up in the pub, or the cover of their nephew’s self-published fantasy novel.

So it might seem like a paradox, yet it makes perfect sense that AI companies are putting humans front and centre when it comes to their own branding. But it's no surprise, too, that the backlash from some creatives has been noisy.

Understandable anger

When Jessica announced her Muse work, for example, she was hammered on Threads, despite explaining that the $12,500 fee would help her keep two small shops and their staff afloat. Her critics argued, though, that we shouldn't be lending our craft and credibility to the thing that’s eroding demand for it.

I understand the logic and I understand the anger. But one has to wonder how much refusing such commissions would actually change anything.

Capitalists are investing literal billions of dollars in generative AI, and ultimately if Jessica had turned down the Muse job, it's not like they'd have turned on their heels and gone home. They'd just have found someone else. There are lot of capable designers out there, and even if they'd hired a bad one and the logo hadn't been any good, it hardly would have brought the AI juggernaut to halt.

On a more positive note, the very fact these companies are keen to hire humans is surely something we can hang on to. As Jessica said in an interview for Wired: “Isn’t this ultimately the future that we want? Large companies hiring independent artists to do things?”

In short, if AI companies want to pay humans to make them look human, surely it's best we take the money, do brilliant work and remind everyone why they asked in the first place?

That inevitably limits the lifespan of any earphone no matter how well it's designed. But the German audio specialist Sennheiser has now come along with the Momentum True Wireless 5, a premium inner-ear headphone with strong active noise cancellation, customisable sound and the ability to swap out the batteries in both the buds and the case using nothing more than a small screwdriver.

That could be a game changer when it comes to sustainability, allowing these to outlast rivals like the AirPods Pro 3, which retail at a similar price (for over-ear options, see our guide to the best wireless headphones).

• Browse Sennheiser headphones at Amazon

The perfect wireless inner-ears for everyday use?

Apple often gets called out for the lack of repairability of its products. The launch of an iPhone self-repair kit in 2022 did little to quell the accusations that it makes things intentionally difficult to fix, reducing tech sustainability. Three years ago in 2023, we reported on a hardware hacker who was determined to correct that by designing his own repairable homemade AirPods.

If you don't want to go to those lengths, the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 are an attractive alternative. They're one of very few mainstream inner-ear headphones with a replaceable battery – the component that most tends to limit the lifespan of wireless earphones.

The vast majority of earbuds are sealed with glue or solder, making the batteries difficult or impossible to change without destroying the device. Fairphone Fairbuds are one exception, packing fully modular, screw-based, user-replaceable coin-cell batteries.

The Momentum True Wireless 5 are a more premium option. They have high-fidelity TrueResponse transducers, 3D Dolby Atmos sound, adaptive active noise cancellation, AI-powered voice isolation, automatic wind reduction and a Lossless codec option for maximum fidelity. They also have a new ergonomic design.

Sennheiser cites up to 40 hours of playtime per charge with the case, while the Smart Control Plus app allows advanced sound personalisation, with customisable EQ.

It seems the team wasn't fazed by the controversy one iota. Two years on, it's doubled down with a remixed design that takes the Third Reich resemblance even further. The memes didn't take long to arrive.

On social media, the Atlanta Falcons' new profile picture has been dubbed the "gridiron cross" and the "Bird Reich". "I read that the NFL wanted to conquer the world but I didn’t think they meant it so literally," one person comments on X.

The logo shows the previously used angular black falcon forming an 'F' shape over red, beige, black and cream vertical stripes. It's presumably intended as a temporary design just for this weekend, as the Falcons will play against the 49ers on Sunday wearing retro 1966-inspired uniforms, comprising red helmets, black jerseys and white pants.

To be fair to the Falcons, Nazi Germany never had a monopoly on birds of prey insignia (nor even the swastika, which had a long history before it was adopted by the Third Reich). The bald eagle is also a familiar piece of US iconography.

But after all the comments and ridicule during the last revival of the 1960s design two years ago, there's no way that the team didn't know what was coming this time around. And the addition of the vertical stripes only makes the resemblance to Nazi iconography more apparent, which it must have realised.

I'd be interested to hear from long-term Falcon fans about whether the same comparison was made when the team originally used this logo back in the 1960s. I guess that in those pre-social media days, people didn't pick apart graphic design in the same way they do today.

Even the best sports logos can generate controversy, and the Falcons logos aren't the most disturbing we've seen. That accolade goes to the old Red Sox logo. Meanwhile, the main Atlanta Falcons logo retains its place in our pick of the best NFL logos.

And the brand's founders, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, have also participated directly in protests. In April 2016, both were arrested at the US Capitol during the Democracy Awakening demonstrations against the influence of money in politics and restrictions on voting rights. More recently, Cohen was arrested in May 2025 during a US Senate protest over military aid to Israel and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

At this year's Paradigms conference in Croatia, in a talk exploring the power of brands to drive social change, chief marketing officer Jay Curley argued that businesses should do more than pay lip service to good causes. For the Vermont ice cream maker, activism is baked into the business, alongside the Cookie Dough.

But what happens when a brand gets it wrong, faces a backlash or risks alienating customers? And how do you choose which causes deserve your voice? We caught up with Curley to discuss why brands should stop sitting on the fence, why perfection shouldn’t stand in the way of progress, and how a little creativity can help change the world.

I'm here to argue that variant designs and fan posters are where it's at if you're looking for elite horror movie poster design. Among the recent sludge of formulaic black-and-red horror flick designs, consider these stunning designs your official spooky season palette cleanser.

01. An American Werewolf in London

• Buy the poster at Vice Press

Created by graphic designer and illustrator Grzegorz Domaradzki (a.k.a. Gabz), this Japanese variant poster for 'An American Werewolf in London' puts a dramatic spin on the minimalist original. Created in 2021, the intricate design is based on a pencil drawing and remastered in Adobe Photoshop. With ferocious illustration in spine-chilling detail, it's a prime example of how straying from minimalist design can bring a film to life.

02. Dracula

• Buy the poster at Hammer Films

A contemporary take on Terence Fisher's 1958 Dracula, this limited edition poster is a wonderful homage to Hammer's most iconic release. Created by legendary Swedish illustrator Robert Sammelin, the design captures the terror of the horror classic with bold freehand linework and hazy visuals that blur the line between dreams and nightmares.

03. The Shining

• Buy the poster at Bamalama Posters

Created as part of a limited edition run of custom hand-pulled silkscreen prints, this minimalist take on The Shining's iconic poster demonstrates how Kubrick's iconic cinematography has stood the test of time. Created by Inkcandy, the poster series is inspired by the 'Italian shot', taking its name from Sergio Leone's Italian-Western films – a cinematic trope featuring extreme close-ups of the eyes.

04. Pearl

• Check out the poster at A24

Commissioned by Pearl's Japanese distributor, Happinet Phantom Studios, this stunning poster created by Japanese artist Yuko Higuchi puts a soft, folk art spin on the film. Known for her surreal paintings and dreamlike illustrations, this gentle take on Pearl is a beautiful contrast to the film's violent horror.

05. Talk to Me

• Buy the poster at A24

Created by award-winning and published Illustrator Matt Ryan Tobin, this stunning illustrated poster for A24's Talk to Me pairs claustrophobic visuals with a stripped-back palette to create a wonderfully stylised design. The design earned high praise, seeing Tobin awarded a 2024 SILVER Clio.

06. Alien

• Buy the poster on Dom Bittner's website

This alternative poster for Ridley Scott's 1979 Alien is a beautifully frightening take on the iconic original design. Created by movie poster artist Dom Bittner, the hand-painted poster brings a whimsical quality to the classic horror – a wonderful contrast to the minimalist design of the franchise's posters.

Several brands have held their nerve in the face of the onslaught. Mars refused to entertain Tucker Carlson's fetish for the green M&M, the Jaguar rebrand is starting to make sense, and Bob's Red Mill seems to be sticking to its decision to 'kill off' Bob.

Alas, it seems a library in North Carolina didn't have such guts. Farmville Public Library has reportedly ditched the logo design it had been using for the past 14 years because three people complained that it looked a little bit like a rainbow, which apparently reminded them of gay people.

According to Farmville mayor Alex Joyner, the town's library changed its logo after three complaints were made to a town commissioner. I won't comment on the choice of typeface, but the mark itself was perfectly serviceable for a public library: it was cheerful, it stood out, and it obviously depicted a book rather than a weapon of LGBT propaganda.

The mayor himself has taken issue with the decision. He pointed out that the iconic television series Reading Rainbow had made said climatic phenomenon a “significant symbol of libraries across the entire US”. He also complained that the logo was changed “in the dead of night behind a curtain” with no opportunity for public comment.

“The library is a symbol of inclusion and is supposed to be welcome to all. For a handful of people to be able to decide who is welcomed and who is not here is unacceptable in my eyes,” he said, as reported by ABC.

I'd also point out that the logo's seven colours don't even reflect those of a rainbow or the Pride flag. It's clearly an open book, with each hue depicting a different page. It's a nice way to show that books can contain a wide array of knowledge on diverse subject matters, like how colours are used to depict different subjects in Trivial Pursuit. Although admittedly, Trivial Pursuit is very woke.

The culture war, it seems, has now become a war on colour. Next, we'll be banning box sets of the best coloured pencils. Apple's iconic rainbow logo would never be allowed today, and I'd be surprised if Google doesn't soon receive complaints too: it's workmark contains red, yellow, green and blue. At this rate, everyone is going to have to dress in black, and any splash of colour will become the ultimate act of rebellion.

There's a change.org petition calling for the library logo to be changed back. It currently has 331 signatures, over 100 times as many as the three complaints made against the original design.

A public meeting to discuss the controversy will be held at Farmville Town Hall on 2 November at 5:30pm.

From branding books to mindful practice guides, Radim's bestselling works have inspired creatives across the globe with his practical yet inspirational words. Yet another valuable curation of his industry knowledge, Daring Forever is a wonderfully human take on creative empowerment.

"‘Daring Forever’ begins at the edge of something – a blank page, a stage, a life we haven’t quite stepped fully into yet," the press release reads. "The rope feels unattached. The drop looks real. And still, something in us leans forward. The book is a love letter to that lean: to the body that carries us further than we believe it can, to the self we are still learning to accept, to the curiosity that refuses to sit still, and to the gratitude that brings us home to the present."

"After years of interviewing remarkable people, I noticed the same pattern. The ones doing the most daring work were often the most afraid. Nobody has it figured out, and that’s the point," Radim explains. “Your body is the vehicle, and you’re the driver. Most of us were never given the owner’s manual. This book is my attempt to write one.”

“Daring isn’t a personality trait reserved for the fearless. It’s a human capacity we all carry, and it’s never too late to use it,” he concludes.

Daring Forever is now available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and audiobook form.

It' could be a game changer – not least for those who insist on listening to their music on speakers when they're sitting alone on a bus – and we can't wait to get our hands on a pair to see whether they're worthy of a place in our guide to the best wireless headphones.

• Get the TDM Neo for $249 at the TDM website

What's so new about the TDM Neo?

The TDM Neo's headline innovation is their simple twist mechanism that turns them from premium on-ear headphones into a compact, portable speaker. Revealed at IFA 2026, this unique design means you can use the same device when you're listening to music alone or sharing it with others.

That's more than just a party trick. To allow it to work, the Neo have a groundbreaking audio system comprising four 40mm drivers: two inward-facing headphone drivers and two outward-facing speaker drivers.

Together, these are intended to deliver balanced clarity when worn and energetic output when twisted into a speaker. TDM tells us that the headphones have a clean, detailed sound profile and that the speaker mode has impressive volume for a device that fits into the palm of your hand.

The TDM Neo use dual-mode Bluetooth 6.0 for wireless connectivity. Four buttons on the device control power, volume, and change modes between headphones and speakers. You can also control the functions with the customisable twist feature, adjusting the settings to twist to pause, power off to switch audio.

As for construction and comfort, the Neo has dual layer memory foam ear cushions and a headband cover made with soft vegan leather, intended to provide long lasting comfort. The headband is adjustable, and TDM claims over 200 hours of battery life in headphone mode and 16 hours in speaker mode. USB-C fast charge can deliver a full charge in three hours and an eight hour headphone playback period in just five minutes

We're looking forward to testing them. You can find out more at the TDM website.