As well as still selling books directly, Amazon's marketplace is used by many third-party booksellers, and the company remains the leader in e-readers with its Kindle line launched back in 2007. That's why it's so harmful for the self-proclaimed "Earth's biggest bookstore" to have, apparently, just been caught destroying old and rare books to train AI – and even celebrating the fact with a fun cartoon logo design.

Amazon built its business on selling books, first coming online as a bookstore back in 1994. Now, according to an investigation by 404 Media, it's tearing old and rare books apart so it can feed them its AI models.

Journalists hid an Apple Airtag inside a book in a bulk shipment of 1,000 books ordered via Biblio, a marketplace where buyers can remain anonymous, after the seller said they suspected that the order was made by an AI company. The tag was then traced to Amazon's LAS8 warehouse in Las Vegas, reportedly the location of a scanning operation called VGT3.

404 reports cites workers at the facility, who say their work involves scanning books to provide training data for Amazon's AI. To speed up the process, they would cut the bindings off books.

In an online forum, a VGT3 employee said that “all we do is scan books,” and that “some are assigned to cut books, and others go to receive where they get books and scan the bar codes.”

That practice would be damaging enough for Amazon's brand image, but to make the optics even worse, the warehouse team reportedly has a logo design that depicts a Tyrannosaurus rex devouring a book. The tone-deaf image reinforces the irony of a bookseller now consuming books for profit, including rare and irreplaceable volumes.

A couple of years ago, a backlash led Apple to hastily withdraw an iPad Pro advert that showed a machine crushing physical objects like musical instruments, books and camera lenses. In Amazon's case, it seems the crushing machine really exists on an industrial scale as a core part of its AI development.

The revelation of such cultural vandalism raises more doubts about AI developers' claims that their technology is good for human creativity. It's also likely to alienate authors, bibliophiles, and customers by clashing with Amazon’s identity as a platform for readers.

The books bought via Biblio were not necessarily highly valuable in monetary terms, but they were defined as rare. "There are a lot of other types of value," the bookseller is quoted as saying. "There’s historical value, intellectual value, sentimental value. All sorts of things, and all of those the AI companies don’t care about. They just want the content as a bunch of words strung together.”

Rare and old books not only offer "clean” pre-2022 text not polluted by machine-written content, but they can also contain data that rivals don't have, making them potentially valuable training material.

Courts have ruled that training AI on legally purchased books can qualify as fair use, but that doesn't change the fact that Amazon shredding rare works is highly damaging for its public image and brand even if technically legal.

Non-destructive scanning or licensing digital archives could achieve the same goal without destroying cultural artifacts. Rivals also destroy books to train AI, but Anthropic has claimed that it avoids using rare or antique books, which makes Amazon’s approach look particularly reckless.

“Amazon purchases books through commercial channels to help develop and improve the products and services our customers use,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement.

Set in the New Republic era after the events of Return of the Jedi, this isn't actually about podracing; instead, it centres on the Galactic League, a high-stakes underground racing tournament that includes a breadth of other high-speed racing vehicles. These include landspeeders, speeder bikes, and a tantalising new vehicle type in the Star Wars universe called skimspeeders. That variety does lead to one character awkwardly trying to mimic young Anakin Skywalker's catchphrase as, "Now this is… racing!" (doesn't quite have the same ring to it, huh), but the idea is being able to unlock and utilise different vehicle types, such as how skimspeeders can rotate sideways on a knife-edge for tight turns.

While I got to briefly take control of some of the racing rivals in the opening tutorial, including ex-TIE pilot Griff Halloran, and the league's reigning champion Kestar Bool, for its runs-based single-player campaign, I'm cast as the somewhat bland, if customisable, protagonist Shade, trying to make their way up in the Galactic League with just a humble landspeeder, and where being retired from a race means having to start over from scratch.

Galactic Racer oozes Star Wars identity

For a game largely devoid of any familiar characters, Galactic Racer nonetheless nails the look and feel of the Star Wars universe, its races set across a variety of planets in the galaxy's Outer Rim (even though you once again begin on a desert planet, but at least it's Jakku instead of Tatooine), with an unusual-looking cast of alien races, and of course the use of screen wipe transitions during cutscenes.

More importantly, the vehicles aren't pristine or shiny. No matter how you customise them, they always look beat up with chipped paint, just as you'd expect when racing in extreme conditions and ramming into other competitors. Speaking of which, Galactic Racer's unique sauce is that developer Fuse's founders are also former staffers at Criterion, the studio behind the Burnout series, and that DNA comes across in the dramatic crash cams whenever a vehicle has the misfortune of colliding with a wall or exploding into smithereens from overheating.

Admittedly, I found myself on the receiving end of the crash cam one too many times during my hands-on, proof that Galactic Racer is every bit as fast and ruthlessly furious as any high-speed sci-fi racer (despite the roguelite aspect, it's still generous to an extent as by default you can crash up to three times before you're actually eliminated). Part of the risk-taking comes from the Ramjet. It's like an additional speed booster you can use even after the booster gauge has depleted, but if you hold it down too long, it will overheat and turn your ride into a blazing wreck. Let go too early, however, and you'll have to wait for it to completely cool down before it can be used again, and as you can upgrade the Ramjet with more perks that activate while it's overheating, there's a risk-reward element to staying in that red danger zone for the extra milliseconds you can afford.

The campaign is described as a 'racing adventure', and so you're also immersed in the Star Wars universe through cinematic cutscenes as well as getting to roam a little around small hubs on each planet in between races. I've already had a scuffle with Kestar Bool, who ended one race threatening to have Shade frozen in carbonite, and am intrigued by how this narrative develops over the course of racing a series. There already feels like more stakes and substance than just another arcade racer of one-off races.

The latter is, however, available outside of the campaign with a number of single-race events and time trials. It's the perfect place to bring back podracers screaming into 2026 with Unreal 5 fidelity. Of course, one of the podraces I tried is practically a perfect creation of the original podrace in The Phantom Menace, with the twist here being that I'm not playing as Anakin but his arch-rival Sebulba, who you also get to play dirty with his flame vent that torches races on either side. It really feels in another league too in terms of velocity and skill - the F1 to the Galactic League's GT, if you will- so it makes sense that podracers can't be selected alongside other vehicles. But it's good to know that the podracing lineage lives on in the game, including multiplayer options.

I also got a taste of the game's online racing, with the headline attraction being a tour with up to 12 players. Like the campaign, it's also a series of races where you have the opportunity to improve your racer or spend your winnings on unlocking randomised upgrade packs. The fact that online tours don't have a roguelite elimination aspect does at least mean you'll actually see more of the kind of circuits and environments on offer, such as tracks with corrosive swamps, or volcanic lava that overheats your engines even faster - I certainly manage to experience more this way than my attempts at racing through Jakku over and over again in the campaign portion of the hands-on.

Explosive online pod-racing

Still, racing online against other human players is always ruthless, especially when crashing will see you dropping positions quickly. Fortunately, if you're the one causing the crashes, Galactic Racer also employs Burnout's moment of grace where you have a brief invincibility window for enjoying your rival's crash in slow-motion but without crashing yourself. Another fun part of proceedings takes place before a race where you can bet on yourself on how well you do, with rewards if you predict right but also better rewards if you aim higher.

In any case, there's an incentive for you even if you know you're not going to end up with a podium finish, while you also have the chance to double your rewards as an underdog if you finish last in a race (something I sadly discovered through firsthand experience). That you can also see other players' bets placed in real time, which can be changed right up until before the next race starts, adds to some meta visual mind games, as you scope out the cockiest racers or bet big before tempering expectations at the last second.

After an afternoon of sheer speed blasting inches away from my eyeballs, I've come away impressed with the package and proposition that Star Wars Galactic Racer offers. While you can trace its older roots from Episode I Racer to Burnout, the roguelite twist is sure to make its single-player campaign more engaging and replayable, and while Fuse captures the authenticity of the Star Wars universe, its galactic races expand its dimensions in new, exciting ways, which ought to make it stand out in one of gaming's busiest release schedules this autumn.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer releases on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on 6 October.

The main advantage of an Android drawing tablet over a traditional pen display is the convenience of portability. The use of Google's operating system means no need to hook the tablet up to a computer. You can use it anywhere, including for tasks other than drawing, from email to entertainment (also see our guide to the best drawing tablets overall).

We have over a decade of experience testing technology for digital art and working with artists. After reviewing most of the tablets on the market today, we've boiled down the best Android drawing tablets to five options, which each have their pros in terms of size, specs and price point.

For more options, check our guide to the best budget drawing tablet.

The best Android drawing tablets in full

The best Android pen tablet overall

30-second review: The Wacom MovinkPad Pro 14 is a revolution in standalone creative tablets, making Android devices finally a viable option for serious digital art. It has a glorious colour-accurate 14-inch OLED screen, while the Pro Pen 3 delivers the premium build and drawing accuracy you expect from the biggest brand in the business. Overall, this Android drawing tablet is a rarity in that it genuinely feels like a complete, portable art studio rather than a device you would use as an extra.

Design: The MovinkPad Pro 14 looks and feels like a well-balanced cross between a portable pen computer and a dedicated drawing tablet. We were impressed by how thin and light it is for a 14-inch device, while the magnesium-alloy build feels study enough to stand up to regular use on the go. There's no camera, either front or back on this tablet. For many artists, that will be no issue, but it is the one missing feature that could prevent this from being a complete portable workstation for people that need to take video calls or want to snap reference photos. You'll still need your phone for that.

Features and performance: The OLED display is the headline feature of this tablet, providing excellent contrast and colour accuracy. A zippy 120Hz refresh rate keeps the drawing experience fluid and free from lag. When you combine that with the Pro Pen 3’s 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity, the experience isn't too far removed from that of Wacom’s traditional pen displays.

The etched glass adds enough texture to give a nice tactile feel for drawing (something you don't get as standard on an iPad), and the reduced parallax is notable in how lines track closely to the pen tip.

In terms of performance, the MovinkPad Pro 14 powers ahead of other Android drawing tablets we've reviewed. In our testing, apps like Clip Studio Paint ran smoothly during drawing sessions.

You can use the tablet in a hybrid workflow as well as on its own. We found that connecting it to a PC worked in general, but the refresh rate drops to 60Hz in mirrored or extended display mode. That's functional but lags behind dedicated pen display setups. The built-in storage capacity is 246GB, but a microSD card slot can support cards up to 2TB.

Price: At $899.95 / £749.99, the MovinkPad Pro 14 is not a cheap tablet. In fact, it's twice the price of options like the XP-Pen Magic Drawing Pad (see below), but it's also much more convincing as a flexible standalone Android device that can truly compete with an iPad Pro or Air (for the drawing experience at least). Plus, you're getting that OLED panel and Wacom’s precision pen tech.

Read the Wacom MovinkPad Pro 14 full review

• Back to the top ⤴

The best compact Android drawing tablet

30-second review: This smaller sibling of the Pro 14 above excels as a portable sketching companion for artists who value mobility over screen size. It's a well-built lightweight tablet with a pen‑on‑paper feel but its mid‑range performance means it’s more of an additional tool than an option to use as your main drawing device.

Design: The compact 11‑inch size makes the tablet easy to carry, and the optional cover accessory doubles as a stand and pen holder, making a well-designed package for travel. A rigid brushed metal housing feels reassuringly premium for the price point, although it adds some weight.

The MovinkPad 11 also looks more like a traditional consumer tablet due to its camera bump. Unlike its larger sibling, it has cameras both on the front and rear, which can be useful for capturing reference sketches or taking calls.

Features and performance: The display in this case is not OLED, and it doesn't offer the same professional-grade wide-gamut accuracy for colour-critical work as the Pro 14. That said, the QHD resolution and 99% sRGB coverage is fine for sketching.

Like the Pro 14, there's a matte etched glass surface that mimics the feel of paper. Without the same specialised anti-glare treatment as the more advanced tablet, colour saturation can fade at extreme viewing angles, but honestly, not the kind of angles you would normally be working at.

The stylus is the same Pro Pen 3, offering 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity and tilt support, and Bluetooth support for keyboards and mice makes note‑taking or light layout work possible.

Powered by a MediaTek Helio G99 processor, the device handles 2D sketching, thumbnails and light 3D blockouts reasonably well, but can start to lag with heavy rendering or complex 3D work. If you value portability above all else, this is the Android drawing tablet for you. If you're looking for production‑level power or better value for money, look further up or down this guide.

Price: At around $500, the MovinkPad 11 is much more economical than the same brand's higher-end 14-inch tablet above, but it's still a little bit pricier than the XP-Pen Magic Drawing Pad below, which has a larger screen and larger storage capacity of 256GB (note that the MovinkPad 11 also has no MicroSD slot) but you're paying for Wacom's exceptional line quality, accurate tilt and minimal parallax.

Best budget Android drawing tablet

30-second review: The Ugee UT3 offers a portable Android drawing tablet experience at a very appealing price, and it does it very well. The name may not be as familiar as Wacom, but we found the tablet to deliver great value and a surprisingly smooth drawing experience on a screen designed for the purpose.

Design: The Ugee UT3 is built around the company’s proven drawing tablet technology but packaged in a standalone Android device. At just 6.95mm thick and with an anti‑glare etched screen and a weight of 760g, it is clearly intended to be portable.

The display sits within a metal chassis, framed by slim bezels and rounded corners that lend it a premium finish. Unlike the XP-Pen Magic Drawing Pad below, it includes a protective sleeve that doubles as a stand and secures the stylus. While the stand is more practical for watching films than painting, the addition of hard rubber corner guards is useful.

The stylus is slimmer, lighter and shorter than the Apple Pencil 2. With just 4,096 pressure levels, it's less sensitive than modern drawing tablets, which can lead to a lag when working slowly on fine detail, though for rapid sketching or loose painting it performed well in our tests. Palm rejection was another weak point – our reviewer found he had to wear the supplied glove to avoid interference.

Features and performance: Given its price point, the UT3 clearly isn't going to match a device like the Wacom MovinkPad Pro 14, but it does compete with the MovinkPad 11 in terms of headlines specs, with a 60Hz refresh rate and 2.4k resolution and 16m colours.

The NanoMatte finish mimics paper and has an anti‑glare coating that makes it comfortable to use in varied lighting. In use, the screen feels surprisingly smooth and high‑end. Though larger than the XPPen Magic Drawing Pad, it remains light enough to hold in one hand.

Powered by the MTK Helio G99 (MTK8781) Octa‑Core CPU, it handled paint simulations in ArtRage without issue. Pre‑installed apps include ibisPaint and MediBang, alongside Ugee’s HiPaint and the PaintPal AI app, which can transform sketches into finished pieces and generate AI images live – more novelty than necessity.

The tablet is equipped with 256GB of storage, more than the Wacom Movink 11, and there's a MicroSD slot for expansion. We found the 13MP rear and 8MP front cameras to be adequate for capturing references on the go.

Price: The Ugee UT3 retails at $429 / £455, which is excellent value considering the inclusion of the case and stylus. A smaller 10.36‑inch version, the Ugee UT2, offers 6GB RAM and 128GB storage at $249 / £264.

Read our full Ugee UT3 review

• Back to the top ⤴

The best value Android drawing tablet

30-second review: The XPPen Magic Drawing Pad offers a similar experience to the Ugee UT3 but in a slightly smaller form factor, which makes it appealing if portability is a priority. The stylus proved more precise in testing, and the overall flexibility of the device makes sketching and painting enjoyable.

Design: The build quality is impressive, combining a sturdy metal frame with slim bezels and a soft‑touch display that feels premium. Though compact, it's still larger than a standard iPad, providing a balance between providing ample drawing space with the ability to hold the device in one hand.

The TFT LCD (IPS) screen is bright enough for outdoor use, with an anti‑glare finish that enhances visibility. Colours appear vivid, and line work is crisp. The screen’s micro‑textured surface prevents the slippery feel common to iPad displays, helping the stylus feel more naturally connected to the artwork.

Features and performance: A small rear stand integrated into the flexible case provides a modest incline of about half an inch, which can be useful for drawing or viewing. However, the case does not function as a full protective sleeve, so frequent outdoor use might warrant purchasing additional protection.

The newer X3 Pro Slim stylus now includes tilt support, and a high level of pressure sensitivity that we found to be more precise and versatile than the competing Ugee UT3 above. That said, general Android multitasking and processing power are modest in comparison to Wacom's options.

Price: The cost is comparable to Apple’s standard iPad, yet the Magic Drawing Pad delivers a more tactile and natural drawing experience. Choosing between this and the Ugee UT3 largely depends on preference for size: the Magic Drawing Pad is the more portable option, while the UT3 offers a larger canvas.

Read the full XPPen Magic Drawing Pad review

• Back to the top ⤴

Best of the rest

30-second review: The Huion Kamvas Slate 13 is another solid tablet but it's let down a little by underwhelming performance in terms of colour accuracy and pen precision. It's a tough sell now that there's more competition in the Android drawing tablet space but remains a contender on price when there are deals on.

Design: The Slate 13 is a nice tablet to look at with a sleek aluminium chassis and slim modern bezels. Buttons are minimal, with no shortcut keys, but you can connect a Bluetooth Quick Key remote and keyboard, and there's a Micron SD card slot to upgrade the internal storage by up to 1 TB.

At 650g, it's light enough to carry around all day, and the 4:3 aspect ratio strikes a smart balance between compact and canvas-like. One niggle is that the placement of the cameras top left does mean the Slate 13 can't sit flat on a table, but the faux leather case can serve as a stand if needed.

Features and performance: The matte laminated glass resists glare well and feels like a medium-priced drawing display. Colour coverage gives us 99% sRGB, sufficient for non colour-critical work, but it really isn't bright enough to use comfortably in strong lighting, which makes colours look washed out.

The included H-Pencil, supports tilt, pressure and fast charging via magnetic connection but only 4,096 levels of pressure. In our testing, we experienced some 'wobble' and lack of accuracy in fine pen marks.

For general Android tasks, like web browsing, video, emails and light gaming, the tablet was zippy enough, but we found that the MediaTek Helio G99 processor started to struggle with creative workflows. Multitasking proved to be another weak point. Split screen is supported, but the processor couldn't handle heavier apps well, starting to struggle with both ArtRage Vitae and Clip Studio Paint on large canvases with lots of simulation happening.

Price: For our money, the Huion Kamvas Slate 13 offers less value for money compared to the Ugee UT3 and XP-Pen Magic Drawing Pad above, which might be at least partly because it's a more established name. At $459 full price, it's in the same bracket as the Magic Drawing Pad, and it does have a slightly larger screen, but less pressure sensitivity and those latency issues that detract from the drawing experience.

Read the full Huion Kamvas Slate 13 review

• Back to the top ⤴

How to choose the best Android drawing tablet

Choosing the best Android art tablet for you may come down to several factors, including size, resolution, and price.

The size of a drawing tablet matters more than some first-time buyers realise. Smaller tablets are portable and can often be held in one hand. They're also usually more affordable, but larger models give you more room for expressive strokes and detailed work.

For most artists, between 12 and 14 inches provides a good balance between portability, comfort, control and drawing space, while larger displays are best suited to professional illustration and animation.

Screen: Different Android drawing tables use different screen tech. While most use IPS LCD panels, more premium models are introducing OLED display technology, which provides several advantages.

OLED means better contrast with true blacks. Every pixel makes its own light, which improves how you see dark shadows and fine lines. And because the screen has no backlight, it's physically thinner. With the glass is closer to the display panel, your pen tip feels like it touches the ink directly which means virtually no parallax and a faster pixel response for zero lag, and vivid color accuracy. At the same time, pressing hard with the stylus doesn't cause water-like ripples on the panel like it can on older LCD screens

Price: This will be an important factor for many artist, particularly students and beginners. A top-of-the range Wacom may be beyond what you're prepared to pay if you're starting out, in which case it makes more sense to start with an XP-Pen Magic Drawing Pad or Ugee UT3, which should give you years of use and a perfectly enjoyable drawing experience for less.

Stylus: Here most people now expect 8,192 levels of pen sensitivity, but older or non-specialist stylus drop to 4,096, which okay for general tasks and casual sketching. When testing a stylus for reliability, our reviewers track around the tablet, edge to edge, and run strokes across the tablet of varying pressures to create thick and thin lines, and crucially draw small, tight circles – cheap styluses struggle here.

• Back to the top ⤴

How we tested the best Android drawing tablets

This guide is based on hands-on reviews from our site. We test and review drawing tablets as they'd be used by you if you bought one. This means spending weeks using a tablet with a variety of digital art software to create art. For this list, we considered all the Android drawing tablets we have reviewed over the past three years, testing them with apps such as ArtRage Vitae, ibisPaint and Clip Studio Paint.

Some of the main things our reviewers look out for when testing are factors like the pressure sensitivity and accuracy, the colour gamut and accuracy, the screen quality and brightness and the ergonomics of the tablet, all of which factor into a whole host of use cases. We run the same stroke tests to gauge how sensitive a style is, for example heavy to light pressure and tight circles. We look out for stutter and lag and latency, and where possible we try and correct any problems.

You can learn more in our general guide to how we test and review at Creative Bloq.

• Back to the top ⤴

FAQs

• Back to the top ⤴

Over on the official website, fans were finally treated to the lineup reveal, so long as they could unscramble the cryptic puzzles. In true Flog Gnaw style, the unconventional promo certainly beats the typical festival poster designs, but in case you're not in the mood for word games, I think I've cracked it.

Head to the Camp Flog Gnaw website and you'll be greeted with a game to unscramble the 2026 lineup. Each word jumble has just one clue, and admittedly I found these next to useless for most of the acts. "This artist won their middle school talent show in 2004" and "God Energy, Naturally Amazing," aren't exactly the most illuminating clues Tyler, come on.

Eventually I managed to solve the anagrams (very slowly), and by my unscrambling skills, here's the full list.

• Tyler, The Creator
• Future
• Earl Sweatshirt & MIKE
• Vince Staples
• Don Toliver
• Turnstile
• Steve Lacy
• Wallows
• Lola Young
• Magdalena Bay
• JID
• Domo Genesis
• Leon Thomas
• Syd
• Jane Remover
• Isaiah Rashad
• The Alchemist
• Left Brain
• Casey Veggies
• Concrete Boys
• Quadeca
• Mike G
• Audrey Nuna
• Not for Radio
• 310babii
• Thee Sacred Souls
• 54 Ultra
• Latin Mafia
• NSQK
• Lupe Fiasco
• Liim
• Gabriel Jacoby
• GENA
• threetwenty
• Natanya
• Ama
• Wyatt Waddell
• Nomi
• 2hollis

For more creative inspiration, check out the best Coachella billboards of 2026 or discover the unconventional story behind this year's OFFF Festival identity.

I've reviewed many of these, and have had listening time with all but two of them, and I think they're all worth checking out – whether they offer exceptional value, like the $20 Pula ARC IEM, or some of the best audio quality I've tested, as with the $257 Binary Acoustics EP321.

I've grouped the IEMs in ascending price with notes on sound, but if you're still hungry for more IEM ideas, head over to my list of the best budget IEMs currently on the market.

What the story does leave me thinking about is something slightly bigger, particularly now we're moving towards a games industry where owning a game and owning a copy of a game are becoming two very different things. It’s a trend that's been slowly creeping up on us ever since the PS3 era, when digital stores emerged, post-game DLC became popular, and digital releases were a neat way to explore new indie and small-budget games, like Sony’s own Tokyo Jungle and Flower. But that’s a far cry from where we are now, with games releasing digitally only and the possibility of art and design history locked behind licensing as time winds on.

GTA 6 is a pretty good example. Even if you buy the physical edition, the game itself is increasingly becoming a digital product, with Rockstar's plans putting more emphasis on downloads and online access. That's a funny thing to get your head around when we're talking about something that will probably become one of the most important pieces of popular culture of the decade. What exactly are you buying? How can you collect it? Can you keep playing it 20 years from now?

Why retro gaming matters

I still like having games on a shelf. Maybe that's partly nostalgia, but I don't think it's only that. Pick up an old PS3 game – I still have my PS3, luckily – and there's something reassuring about it, whether it’s the disc, the case, the artwork, the little booklet if you're lucky, and the knowledge that you own this particular thing. You can put it away for ten years, forget about it, find it again and, assuming the hardware still works, play it. There isn't a storefront involved, there isn't a subscription to worry about, and nobody can decide that the game you've bought should disappear from your library.

I think retro gaming has become such a big thing again for this reason. People are hunting down old PS3 and PS2 games, collecting cartridges, buying old handhelds and generally rediscovering the joy of having games that exist somewhere outside a digital storefront.

Digital games are obviously brilliant in plenty of ways. I don't want to go back to swapping discs every time I want to play something; being able to download a huge game, get patches automatically, and jump straight in is incredibly convenient, especially if you want to play instantly and not wait for deliveries or travel to the store. GTA 6 would be an absolute nightmare to distribute if we insisted on everything being frozen onto a disc from day one, particularly when Rockstar will presumably want to keep improving and expanding the game after launch, but also logistically, as I'm not sure anyone can make GTA 6 discs as fast as they'll sell.

The problem comes later, when you start thinking about what happens to those games once the companies and platforms that support them move on. Games change. Patches replace textures, fix bugs, alter balance and sometimes fundamentally change how a game looks and plays. Music disappears when licences expire. Online modes eventually shut down (or entire games, like Sony’s Concord). Storefronts disappear. Hardware stops being supported. A game you bought ten years ago can become surprisingly difficult to access, even though the thing itself hasn't gone anywhere.

That's where I think the GTA 6 leak becomes interesting from a creative perspective, without excusing the leak itself. Think about the amount of work going into this game. Character design, concept art, environments, animation, VFX, lighting, sound, writing, UI, all of it produced by hundreds (even thousands) of people over more than ten years. It's an enormous piece of digital art, and one that will almost certainly be studied and picked apart for years after release.

The more games become digital products, the more ownership starts to mean access rather than possession. For the artists who made and worked on a game, like GTA 6, that creates another problem. Their work can be sitting inside a game for millions of people to see today and become inaccessible tomorrow, not because the art has disappeared, but because the systems needed to reach it have. A concept artist's work, an animator's character, an environment team's painstakingly built beachfront block all become part of a digital object whose future is largely outside their control.

That's why preservation matters. Not because every game needs to remain frozen forever, but because games are becoming an increasingly important part of our cultural history. We preserve paintings, films, books, photography and physical design because we understand that the objects themselves tell us something about the time in which they were made, and I think games deserve the same consideration.

The GTA 6 leak shouldn't be confused with preservation, and it certainly shouldn't be used to justify stealing unfinished work. If anything, it highlights how much creative history exists behind a game and how vulnerable that history becomes when almost everything is locked inside a company's digital infrastructure. That's why the retro game revival is so popular. People aren't buying old PS3 discs and SNES games, collecting Evercade cartridges or picking up hardware like Sinclair GamerCard simply because old games are fashionable again; it's because these are things they can keep. Many gamers want a piece of gaming history that doesn't depend entirely on somebody else's server continuing to exist.

GTA 6 will eventually become one of the biggest games ever made. We'll play it, talk about it, watch its world evolve and spend years looking at the work that went into creating it. But if the industry keeps moving towards games that exist entirely under the control of publishers and platforms, we need to start asking a much harder question than whether we can download them.

Can digital games be art?

Publishers aren't necessarily thinking about games as museums, because they have a thing to sell and a budget to claw back; in GTA 6's example, it's rumoured to be $1 billion. Instead, publishers think about products, updates, licences, servers, storefronts and the next release, which makes perfect business sense, but games are also creative works, ones that have a habit of outliving the systems that created them. If we really want to view games as ‘art’ and not simply as commercial products, then digital-only releases don’t quite fit that view, unless we’re defending NFTs now.

That's perhaps why the retro games console revival feels more significant than simple nostalgia. People want old games because they're fun, obviously, but they're also collecting a bit of gaming history. We love looking at the box art, the cartridge, the disc, enjoying the old hardware design. There's something appealing about being able to pull a game from a shelf decades later and know that, for the most part, the object hasn't changed and you can plug it in and play it how you remember. Also, no one’s queuing up for a midnight launch of GTA 6 as we did for Vice City, Halo 3 or any number of big physical game launches, which in itself feels like the community aspect of gaming is waning.

GTA 6 will arrive, and millions of us will download it, install it, play it and probably spend years talking about it. Rockstar will update it, expand it and presumably support it for a very long time – and arguably for the better. That's great for the game as a living piece of entertainment, but preservation asks a different question. What happens when the servers eventually go, the storefront changes, the hardware disappears, music licenses are replaced, textures and even characters removed or updated, side-stories locked, a revamped PS6 Edition releases, and the version of GTA 6 we remember at launch is no longer the version anyone can actually access?

The games industry has become very good at making enormous digital worlds and selling games in easy ways, but I'm less convinced there’s much love for preserving the artistic intent of those worlds.

Do you think games like GTA 6 should still be physical?

A series of clever OOH Coyote Vs Acme ads see the Acme corporations infamously risky products smash their way into the real world (Also see our pick of the best billboard adverts).

For some, Coyote vs Acme is a long-awaited release. It was originally slated to reach the big screen in July 2023, but Warner Bros decided to cancel the movie to claim a tax write off. After a campaign to save the film, Ketchup Entertainment stepped in and bought the movie.

It's now trying to ensure exposure with some creative ads in Mexico. Social media users have been sharing photos and videos of traffic-stopping installations that adapt the classic slapstick cartoon language of Looney Tunes to out of home advertising. The TikTok video above shows a billboard ad set in Wile E. Coyote familiar desert world. The villain turned victim and hero is shown suspended, trapped hanging in the billboard.

Other ads (see below) include a trashed car with an Acme-branded piano that appears to have fallen on it – another classic Looney Tunes motif.

The germ of Coyote vs ACME was an article written by Ian Frazier for The New Yorker magazine in 1990 in the style of a legal brief outlining Wile E's case against the fictional Acme for its faulty products.

Directed by Dave Green, the movie was written by Samy Burch from a story by Burch, James Gunn and Jeremy Slater. It sees the long-suffering Wile E team up with billboard accident lawyer Kevin Avery (played by Will Forte) to take the profit-obsessed conglomerate to court.

It will be released on 28 August. A lot of people will be tempted to go purely to spite the Hollywood giant that is Warner Bros, but the reviews suggests it's also a very funny movie.

From tote bag styles to multi-compartment marvels, there's a lot to consider when it comes to choosing your backpack. Firstly, size matters. Choose something that can fit your laptop and everyday essentials, but don't overdo it with a heavy bag that'll weigh down your morning commute. Then there's the matter of style. Are you a minimalist style icon or do you crave a bit of colour?

Whatever your style, I've collected the best backpacks for this back-to-school season. For more back to school essentails check out these artsy desk mats or take a look at our Japanese stationery hot picks.

It’s a fascinating challenge for the art team to create believable, playable environments, particularly when so little of the Minoan world survives, and much of what we know comes from fragments, museum collections, and reconstructed sites. When discussing historical accuracy versus artistic interpretation, the New World team similarly talks about taking real-world inspiration and transforming it to fit a game's own visual identity.

The result is a world that takes some historical liberties, the team had to actually wind in some of real history's excesses to make the game believable, “We had to tone down that historical reality”, says art director Olivier Cannone, but is packed with the kind of details that make a setting feel lived-in, from pottery and bronze artefacts to colourful architecture, weathered materials and ancient frescoes.

Here, Asobo art director Olivier Cannone explains how the team evolved A Plague Tale’s distinctive visual identity, balanced historical research with artistic licence, and drew inspiration from everything from Gladiator and Troy to Assassin’s Creed Origins.

Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy releases 27 August 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

AI branding disasters from Coca-Cola's Christmas advert to the withdrawn McDonald's advert and the Starbucks controversy in South Korea remind us that when it comes to reliance on AI, human judgment is vital. But where will that ability come from if entry-level positions disappear due to AI?

That's one of the key questions raised in a new study by D&AD, a global creative non-profit dedicated to excellence in design and commercial creativity. The D&AD AI & Creativity Report 2026 is based on 197 in-depth conversations with global creative leaders from 30 countries, alongside an analysis of over 10,000 D&AD Award entries.

The findings are distilled into six "critical reckonings" that the authors suggest will define whether today's creative leaders choose to build a stronger industry. The headline argument is this need to preserve human judgement.

We're continually reminded that AI can't replace human creativity; it just speeds up the most repetitive tasks. But that shortcut could also have a cost, the report warns. The repetitive tasks are where tomorrow's leaders have traditionally built their skills. If those positions are taken by AI, where do people get the training and experience to be able to form the level of judgment needed to be tomorrow's creative leaders?

"While entry-level jobs are disappearing, AI is simultaneously absorbing the remaining repetitive tasks. Together, this is eliminating the training ground that builds the judgement required for future creative leaders," the report warns,

The proportion of D&AD Award entries declaring the use of AI has more than doubled year-on-year, reaching 27.6% in 2026. Generative AI was used in 56.2% of AI-declaring entries overall, compared with 44.7% of AI-declaring Pencil winners, alongside a proportional rise in assistive AI among winners.

The report highlights that AI can be most impactful when it's invisible beneath, citing how projects like ‘Caption with Intention’ and ‘PainVisible’ have used AI to drive inclusivity. But the data suggests that while AI is increasingly part of the creative process, its use alone does not translate into creative excellence.

"AI has made creative work faster and cheaper, but if you treat it as a shortcut, you just get average output. The real value – and the D&AD Awards data backs this up – comes from skilled human judgement using AI to sharpen human craft, not replace it," the report states.

"But that judgment has to come from somewhere, and right now the industry is cutting off its own supply. The entry-level jobs where people learn to build judgment are disappearing. The fix isn't to protect those jobs as they are – it's to redesign them, so they still teach the judgment the industry depends on."

Six critical areas

Six aspects were identified as the areas that will define whether the choices made lead AI to become a shortcut to average work or a catalyst for creative excellence.: originality, speed, value, talent, governance and leadership.

On originality, the study suggests that AI on its own trends towards the average. Award-winning work emerges when specialist AI tools are paired with discerning human judgement and craft.

This is where talent comes in. The report suggests that as repetitive tasks disappear, organisations face a defining choice: use AI to replace learning opportunities or redesign junior roles around critique, taste and cultural awareness. Meanwhile, leaders are rolling out AI tools they don't fully understand themselves.

"AI has changed what bad work looks like," says D&AD CEO David Patton. "It's no longer lazy or derivative in any obvious way – it's competent, polished, and generic, and it's the default output for anyone, anywhere. The real problem sits one step earlier: how do you train someone to tell competent from excellent, when competent is now the easy default everywhere they look? This report isn't just a diagnostic of risk. It's D&AD planting a flag – not for the tools, or against them, but for the human judgment they can't replace."

The report also questions that if AI has made speed standard, what are clients paying for? It finds that 70% of agencies haven't changed what they charge, even though AI has made their work faster. The efficiency gain has transferred to clients, but the most successful agencies are reportedly using the shift to charge for the decision and IP, not the delivery.

The D&AD AI & Creativity Report concludes that AI is not determining the future of creative excellence, but the choices that organisations make about how they use it are. It also finds that while many brands and creative agencies worry about AI ethics, most but haven't put any kind of policy down in writing. That might be one of the first things to change to support clearer decisions and stronger internal trust.

You can download the full report from the D&AD website.

In this workshop, I’ll show you some Blender tricks that you can use while building your illustration scenes. No plugins, no paid 3D models; just basic free Blender and basic knowledge of modelling using extrude and bevels. Of course, feel free to use anything that you can – using models from places like Megascans greatly helps with the quality of render. But if you can create a scene using nothing but the software itself then you will be able to create them using any additional resources out there. Afterwards, I’ll jump into Photoshop and do basic photobashing with overpainting using mostly a mixer brush. This part is all about getting rid of that 3D feel we get while rendering and fixing any visible mistakes. For the purpose of this workshop, I’ll stick to the idea of creating a castle in a fantasy setting because I don’t want to overcomplicate this by focusing too much on the design aspect of image creation. If you encounter any trouble with designing, stay as close to your reference as possible. You can even recreate it one-to-one – after all the goal here is to learn the technique

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

Creative Bloq is now easier to access than ever before with our on-the-go app, which brings you all the content you know and love from our website, but in a super-streamlined design.
Download the Creative Bloq app for iOS
Download the Creative Bloq app for Android

Beiluner is one of the most popular pen brands on Amazon for a reason. Its luxury fountain pens feature a classically elegant design, with a 24k gold finish and German Schneider ink absorber. The result is a writing experience that looks and feels more luxury than it costs.

And right now it costs even less. For a limited time, the Beiluner luxury fountain pen is 39% off at Amazon, bringing the price down from £37.99 to £22.99. Reviews on Amazon rave about the luxury feel and value for money – which, at just over £20, is better than ever right now.

And to get everything that I'd need – a DTF (Direct-to-Film) A3 printer, a curing, smokeless oven and a heat press – individually will typically cost well over £3,000. So getting the lot for £2,339 – although a significant investment – is actually a bargain. And it's worth noting that this deal is only from the Procolored site – the same bundle is £3,099 over at Amazon.

If you're looking for more crafting equipment, including the best 3D printers, we've got you covered. But for now, let's look at why this t-shirt printing deal may or may not be right for you.

Why I'm seriously tempted to get this t-shirt making bundle (and what's not ideal)

The K13 Lite is not an entry-level machine. The 13-inch A3 printing capacity gives you the flexibility to handle large t-shirt graphics or print gang sheets of smaller logos for tote bags and hats. I reckon that beginners will appreciate the one-click ink setup and automated white-ink circulation, which bypass the steep learning curves usually associated with commercial printers. But make no mistake – this is a serious bit of kit that can definitely be used to fuel a small business.

One of the big pulls for me to this bundle is that as it'll be a home-based set up, the smokeless oven will be worth its weight in gold. Traditional DTF powder curing can create unpleasant fumes, but this oven significantly reduces odours and smoke, making it comfortable for a spare-bedroom studio.

However, it’s important to be realistic. First, this setup requires serious physical space. While the printer is relatively compact, adding the oven, heat press, and room to work means a standard desk simply won't cut it. I've got a shed with some spare room, so hopefully that'll be good enough.

Additionally, the Procolored Studio Lite RIP software is strictly Windows-only, which could be a frustrating roadblock for my Mac setup. Finally, it's good to remember that DTF printing is a multi-step, hands-on workflow. Even with automatic cleaning cycles, the equipment still requires consistent maintenance to prevent ink clogs if left sitting idle.

If you have the space, a Windows PC, and the dedication to manage a hands-on workflow, this pink powerhouse bundle offers incredible value. It delivers professional-grade, vibrant apparel transfers that can quickly elevate your side hustle into a legitimate business.

Ever since the launch of the Gen Zified MacBook Neo, things have been a little different when it comes to Apple's social media marketing. What was once a classy, space grey affair has turned into TikTok memes and bountiful silliness, and some Apple purists aren't happy. But is Apple simply staying relevant or losing sight of its iconic brand identity?

It's all kicking off over at TikTok, where the Apple marketing team are hitting the college-age audience hard (makes sense, given TikTok's main demographic). With silly videos of yearning MagSafe chargers and steamy MacBook Neo romance, it's a playful mix of advertising and Gen Z randomness that seems to be a roaring success with the TikTok crowd. "This is why Apple is the best," one commenter wrote, while another added, "Love this team in charge of this account."

But over on X, the vibe wasn't so peachy. "There’s no way APPLE posted THIS on TikTok," one disgruntled user wrote, sparking a slew of criticism. "This Gen Z team running the TikTok account needs to be stopped, let us have classic Apple marketing material for God’s sake," another X user wrote. "Yo did Apple get hacked this year or smth?" another added, while one critic scathingly wrote, "Sometimes I wonder if Apple actually goes through their marketing material before posting."

It seems Apple is stuck between a rock and a hard place, keen to please its loyal fans who have stuck by across the decades, while still appearing accessible to the next generation. This 'random' Gen Z social media engagement style isn't without its risks, and striking the wrong balance can come across as desperate and cringe (take the recent influx of viral marketing stunts, for example).

While brands like Duolingo have nailed the random lightning-fast pace of Gen Z culture, Apple's gentle soiree into this world still has a tinge of its signature slick decorum. Until it can let its metaphorical hair down, Apple will exist in a limbo where it can either sacrifice its legacy or attempt to keep up with the trends.

That's not to say I don't appreciate Apple's efforts to innovate and adapt, and as the next generation evolves, I predict we'll naturally see a shift in Apple's brand positioning and tone – but I must say, I miss the dramatics of the 2000s-era iPhone launches. As Creative Bloq's official Gen Z spokesperson, hear my parting words. Uncle Apple, you don't need to keep up with us; you've always been cool.

While it might seem an unnecessary extra expense to spend real money on cases etc, I can vouch for the quality of the ones below. My phone takes a beating through a combination of clumsiness and my children constantly dropping it on the floor, and the cases are still pristine and my phone unscathed. And can I be honest? I did not believe in ring holders but I've been forced to climb down off that particular pedestal because they are so darn useful.

Initially a flop, the movie has seen a surge in sales after early viewers uploaded videos to social media mocking its crude low-poly animation and apparently nonsensical plot.

Some are now billing the movie as an anti-AI success story after it emerged that it was created entirely by a mother and son team. Meanwhile, the story's taken a strange turn.

Niu Lai translates as something along the lines of The Cow is Coming. It appears to be about a newborn calf and a skylark who develop a relationship over the course of an abstract dream told in 86-minutes of low-poly animation that looks like a late '90s video game.

The film was directed by Xin Yumeng, while his mother performed a final song. The studio behind it, Dalian Jingyuan Culture Film and Television Media, was previously an interior design firm, and the production budget is said to have been around ¥20,000–¥30,000.

Niu Lai appears to have received almost no publicity before its release. With no promo materials, some cinemas have been making their own equally hand-crafted posters to advertise the film now it's taken off (a bit like that hand-drawn Spider-Man poster, but it's more understandable that the distributor overlooked the posters).

After grossing just 7,705 yuan ($1,140) in its first 10 days, the movie's now made over 14 million yuan ($2 million), according to tracking site Maoyan. Alas, it seems not everyone is happy about that.

A comment piece in state-owned Beijing News cited by the BBC has warned that the movie has "lowered the bar" for audience expectations and that cinemas risk "losing the trust" of viewers if they "lower their standard" by screening Niu Lai. It called on cinemas to "act as gatekeepers" and "reject films that are obviously not up to standard".

Niu Lai’s distributor has been quoted in Chinese media as saying he received advice not to release the movie but went ahead because the director was a friend, while other reports claim that Dalian has now withdrawn the movie. There has been some speculation about whether there some sort of grift going on around subsidies and that the movie was perhaps not intended to get so much attention.

According to one comment in Chinese press, Niu Lai is “bad in every aspect imaginable, including the story, special effects and almost every element that a movie is expected to have”.

On social media, some are welcoming the movie's "hand-crafted" approach as proof that no AI was used and suggesting that people are turning out to see it to support human art. I'm dubious about any such ideological motive. Viewers might prefer human-made slop over slop of the AI kind, but far from being a vindication of human art, I'm afraid Niu Lai might represent the opposite. People will watch anything if it's bad enough.

What’s new here is the NanoGen Edition. Secretlab's research and design team has worked overtime to create an artificial leather material and foam cushioning that deliver the killer combination of comfort and durability, both of which are essential during both intense gaming sessions and the rigmaroles of desk-bound work.

Comfort & ergonomics

Secretlab has made no secret about the NanoGen material here — in fact, it’s made a song and dance about its next-gen leatherette. Does it live up to the hype? If I’m completely honest, I didn’t notice it when I first removed the chair from the box, but the more I used it, the more I realised that yes, the company has achieved what it set out to do.

Like high-end leather, NanoGen has a luxurious smoothness and warmth, but it still has a certain rubberiness that could never be confused with the real deal. However, it feels comfortable against bare skin, without the sweaty stickiness that can occur with organic materials.

Beneath the NanoGen skin sits a NanoFoam cushion (Secretlab really likes using the word ‘Nano’). NanoFoam aims to find the Goldilocks zone of cushioning: not so firm that it’s uncomfortably hard, but soft enough to be supportive. To achieve this, Secretlab has made use of the cold-cure foam from its other chairs, but added a layer of soft microfoam on top.

The result of this dual-layer approach is a little more sumptuousness, maybe not noticeably so, but there’s a firm level of support. If you can imagine sitting on a juvenile manatee, you’re probably somewhere in the right ball park — malleable but solid.

It’s business as usual throughout the rest of the chair, with a few minor refinements, such as a slightly taller central strut for more ground clearance. It’s also meant to come with upgraded plush arm rests, although my review sample came with standard PU foam ones. I want my fuzzy armrests, dammit!

Armrest envy aside, Secretlabs’ overall if-it-ain’t broke approach works because it’s still fundamentally one of the best chairs I’ve ever used. Everything about it feels firm and measured; there’s a little give to the whole unit to support movement. The whole backrest reclines to almost dentist-chair flatness, so you can relax and something I really like is the way that it can lean forwards a little, too, to support more intense close-up work and gaming sessions.

The backrest comfort and lumbar support can be set via two knobs on either side of the chair, the arms move up and down, side-to-side, and rotate via switches that lock them in place, and the magnetic, memory-foam headrest is such a work of simple genius that you wonder why no one’s thought of it before.

It’s so perfect that it’s almost as if Secretlab couldn’t think of anything else to upgrade, so it just came up with the NanoGen and NanoFoam materials so they could increase the price tag. More on this later.

Design & aesthetics

Visually, this isn’t hugely different to the non-Nano Titan Evo: it’s a hunk of slightly menacing darkness that looks a little like a gatekeeper from a high-tech RPG. It’s in keeping with the Titan’s gaming chair nature without going for the plasticky racer bucket-chair look, and a soothing white edition is available, but you might be better off looking at a more graceful mesh chair if you find it visually unappealing.

There are some minor upgrades here to the way it looks: the Titan Evo NanoGen edition replaces the slightly cheap glossy plastics of the original with a classy matte finish, and the NanoGen material itself has an unpolished, microtextured finish that looks low-key high-end.

What’s missing with the NanoGen edition is the massive range of licensed chairs so you can show your allegiance to your favourite cultural phenomenon: Batman, McLaren racing, Game of Thrones, Overwatch. This probably isn’t something that most Creative Bloq readers would be interested in (correct me if I’m wrong), and you can still pick up Secretlab ‘skins’ that wrap around your chair.

As it stands, it’s a decent, distinctive chair that will fit into home and business office environments, even if it does err towards the gamier side. It’s worth noting that Secretlab’s Atlas is the company’s more mature task chair, designed for calmer office environments, with soothing colour schemes and a slightly more passive silhouette.

Specs

Assembly

Secretlab has made the assembly process for the chair as straightforward as possible — open the box and you’ll find a large, foolproof instruction card. The steps required are fairly minimal, but aligning the backrest with the buttrest is probably a two-person job. One thing to bear in mind is that the width of the armrests can only be set via bolts, so it’s a good idea to try and get them in the right place first time.

It’s a good idea to build the Titan Evo NanoGen Edition on whichever floor it’s going to live on, because its 35kg weight and bulky size make lugging it up stairs a colossal workout. Secretlab also makes it tricky to get to the bolts, which is what gives the chair its seamless look, but also makes disassembly a more convoluted process.

Price & value

The NanoGen upgrade bumps this Titan Evo into a higher level of budget chairs, bringing it in line with perches such as Hinomi’s H2 Pro and the ErgoChair Plus.

While not as gamer-focused, these chairs feature more refined designs and better adjustability in some cases. There is nothing wrong with the Titan Evo, though, and it's arguable that it's worth more than Secretlab has been charging for it because it's such a nice chair in the first place.

Should you buy?

The big question here is not whether you should buy the Secretlab Titan Evo, but whether the NanoGen upgrades are worth the extra cash — the standard edition is $549 / £449, but the NanoGen tech bumps the price up to $799 / £639. Which seems like a lot, and, if I’m honest, I don’t think it’s worth an extra $250 / £190 because the chair gets so much right without it.

Of course, if you love the Titan Evo’s design and can afford the NanoGen upgrade, it’s worth it for just a little extra comfort — but those on a smaller budget can stick to the standard edition without too much NanoFoam FOMO.

Hidden in the source files for the latest MacOS Tahoe beta, users have found what appears to be an official Apple video showing AirPods Pro with Visual Intelligence. Which means, yes, these must be the long-rumoured AirPods with cameras.

The short video depicts a man holding a book up to his face, while a voiceover explains, "With Visual Intelligence, your world becomes saveable. See something you like? Just ask me to save it for later." Since the man isn't wearing any kind of smart glasses, or indeed holding a phone, the reasonable assumption here is that the AirPods he's wearing contain cameras.

Design-wise, they look pretty similar to the current AirPods Pro, although the stem is perhaps a tad longer. If the stems do contain cameras though, they might end up looking a little different from the front.

But it's that design similarity that arguably makes these somewhat alarming. Judging by the video, these look extremely inconspicuous – like any other AirPods. And while we don't know the specifics of the cameras and what they'll be able to capture, wearables with cameras are a contentious topic right now. Just look at the controversy around Meta glasses.

As you might expect, the response among fans is concentrating primarily on privacy concerns rather than the tech itself. "I hate this. Gyms obviously ban phones in locker rooms but now I’ll have to take off my AirPods to make sure people feel comfortable," one Redditor comments. Another adds, "Oh wow. I really surprised they moved ahead with these after the backlash Meta is getting. This is a privacy nightmare."

Time will tell whether Apple has managed to get its privacy features and messaging right. But right now, the discomfort is real.

Meta has described the new look, part of a wider brand identity refresh, as "rooted in the bold, fresh spirit our community brings to Instagram." The company says it explored "hundreds of directions: from all-caps, to camera concepts, to literal handwriting. We kept coming back to what’s always been special about Instagram: the magic of crafted script."

We want to know what you, our readers, think of the new design, and the reaction to it. Is the new wordmark a success? Is the reaction overblown? Or should Meta have left the existing design alone? Let us know in the comments below.

But perhaps the most interesting and original-looking new Disney movie in the works is Clay. Disney's 67th animated feature film looks and sounds very different from anything it's done before. But can it live up to that promise?

What is Disney's Clay?

Disney's Clay is an upcoming original animated movie slated for a 2028 release. It's being directed by Fawn Veerasunthorn, who was a storyboard artist on Frozen (2013), Moana (2016) and Zootopia and directed Wish with Chris Buck.

We're told the movie will follow a character called Flip. Played with Kieran Culkin, he gets chosen to be the mentor of a ball of clay called Mushy in an enchanted forest. But the reluctant Flip is a terrible mentor, leading to a chaotic and life-changing adventure.

Disney Animation Studios' chief creative officer Jared Bush said the idea was to reverse the long tradition of infallibly strong and wise mentor characters.

The early concept art showing the characters Flip and Clay have been well received, with some people seeing a resemblance to the Rayman video game franchise. But some are skeptical about how much of the vibe from the 2D concept art will make it into the final 3D animation.

Jared has told The Wrap (below) that Clay will use CG animation but will be designed to look as close to real claymation as possible. He thinks it "will look very different than anything we’ve ever done.”

That should sound encouraging for all those people who are getting tired of Disney's 3D CG art style, but crucially, it's still going to be CG. Some suggest that's a missed opportunity to try something completely different – a collaboration with Aardman, anyone?

On the face of it, a baby ball of clay should be one character design that can't possibly lead to the usual accusations of Disney same-face syndrome. That said, some readers may remember Clay the yellow stop-motion mascot for the Playhouse Disney television block back in the early 2000s. I don't think it's supposed to be the same character, but here's is what that Clay looked like.

Disney's Clay is slated for release in November 2028. In the meantime, check out our guide to the Disney principles of animation.

Within a few months, two apps have been released that allow you to send messages at 19th century speeds – but via your smartphone. Both involve using animals.

Carrier Pidge is an iOS app designed to make messages travel as if they were being sent via homing pigeon. The further you are from the recipient the longer the message will take to arrive.

At 110 mph, a message sent from someone in New York to a recipient in London takes over a day to arrive. Speeds can vary, and there's a chance the message won't arrive at all. The pigeons have a 0.2% probability of getting lost and dying before they reach their destination.

It's not quite like the days of the Pigeon post. Delivery is calculated digitally using the GPS distance between the sender and recipient, and you can watch your message's journey on the map in real time. You can also add friends in the app to create a 'flock' while your messages are stored in your 'aviary'.

It probably doesn't need to be pointed out that Carrier Pidge is not a very efficient way to communicate in 2026, particularly when you have to pay for a replacement pigeon if yours happens to be among the 0.2 per cent that don't make it.

Developer Noah Larrobino says it took about three weeks to make the app. It's currently placed #24 in the social networking category in the App Store.

And it's not the only app of its kind. Logan Mendelsohn's Roost Social , available for both iOS and Android, launched in May and now claims over 200,000 users.

Roost lets you choose among various animals to carry your message, from snails to bats, penguins and, yes, pigeons. In this case, none of them die, so your message will arrive, but it could take a month.

The app also has a Penpal function intended to allow people to make friends around the globe.

While the world bickers over the new Instagram logo, Roost and Carrier Pidge have adopted a philosophy of seeking to slow down social media and the speed of information in modern life. They might be slightly absurd, but could they also allow us to recover some of the suspense and joy involved in receiving letters by post?

Created for Vagisil, the campaign puts an intimate spin on the social media 'what's in my bag?' trend in an attempt to present women's intimate care creams as something that should be as commonplace as lipstick and other skincare products.

The What's in my Vag? campaign was created by Publicis Spain. It says it started out from what it saw as a contradiction: "skincare has become a daily ritual. Body care has evolved into an entire category. But when it comes to intimate care, the conversation is still surprisingly quiet."

The logic behind the timing is that during the summer months, vaginal discomfort can increase by up to 50% due to heat, sweat, humidity and exposure to sand and chlorine in swimming pools.

If you're not chronically on TikTok or Instagram, the what's in my bag? trend may have passed you by, but it basically involves people revealing to camera the essentials they've packed for the day – often makeup, skincare products and things like snacks and chargers.

"Everything makes the cut – except intimate care products. Is it simply habit, or does embarrassment still play a bigger role than we'd like to admit?" Publicis wondered. And it realised that bags themselves have the perfect form to get people asking the same question.

The campaign appeared across social media and DOOH at Atocha Train Station, Moncloa Bus Station and shopping centres as people were leaving Madrid for the summer holiday season.

Each asset presents a wash bag carefully art-directed to evoke the shape of a vulva, with a Vagisil product inside. I have a feeling that's probably not how the products are supposed to be applied, but the ads have made an impact by using a recognisable trend to break down taboos.

But leaked images purporting to show screen protectors for the upcoming device have revealed a couple of interesting tidbits regarding the placement of the camera cutouts and Dynamic Island, as well as the shape of the display.

Shared by a well regarded Apple leaker known as Ice Universe on X, the images of the screen protectors seem to suggest that, for the first time on an Apple device, the front-facing camera won't be centred. Instead, it'll sit on the top right corner of the display. This also suggests that the iPhone Ultra won't feature a Dynamic Island. Which, given that rumours have suggested the phone will featured TouchID rather than FaceID, seems to make sense.

The screen protectors also feature, somewhat unexpectedly, rounded corners on one side, hinting at an asymmetrical design when the device is closed. It's possible that the screen protector is covering the entire glass front, and Apple will round-off all four corners of the actual front screen. But if it doesn't, we could be looking at our first asymmetrical iPhone screen. Which, let's be honest, doesn't sound very Steve Jobs.

The question of how to design the front screen of a foldable seems to have troubled a few phone makers in the past, since it's impossible for a folding phone to feature a rounded edge on the hinged side. Samsung has lately settled for squared edges with its Galaxy phones, which at least allows for a sense of symmetry and cohesion.

We don't have long to wait to find out what will be entering the fold in September. That said, if it's the standard iPhone 18 you're waiting for, we have bad news for you.

Instantly, I was taken aback by his shame for the graphic design software – hey, it doesn't have the sexiest rep, but it does the job. With Canva's recent Affinity acquisition and a slew of user-friendly innovations, it's surfaced as a real contender against industry favourites like Adobe and Figma, which begs the question: why are we still embarrassed to use Canva?

Humble beginnings

When Canva first emerged on the design scene, it had a reputation for being a little... juvenile, to put it lightly. The platform was mostly resigned to amateur creatives who wanted to create a quick templated invite or poster, and was certainly not favoured among industry vets who valued the craft and skill they'd honed with traditional software like Photoshop.

In the design sphere, Canva was a joke. No serious designer would be caught dead subjecting themselves to its accessible tools and friendly UX. Canva felt easy, almost sleazy compared to the refinement of Adobe and the likes. Its cut-and-paste templated models often led to design that felt generic and bland – the antithesis of professional craft.

The design shift

As the social media age began to usurp print design and traditional editorial, jobs soon became more demanding. Employers were hungry for multiskilled creatives who could balance copy, design and strategy in one, all with speedy proficiency. And there was Canva, standing in the shadows like a sleazy temptress.

The aforementioned Affinity acquisition added more fuel to the fire, finally positioning Canva as a legitimate challenger for the big dogs that had ruled the design world, but its user-friendly past still held it back. Originally, the platform played coy, telling Creative Bloq back in 2023, "We certainly don't see Canva as a straight-up replacement for tools like Figma or Adobe, but pros' projects can be scaled through Canva. What we are great at is being the place where assets are created."

The 'professional' era

In 2026, Canva is going all in, guns blazing, with its new acquisition of motion design software Calvary. Growing its self-proclaimed "professional creative ecosystem", Canva has honed in on its toughest audience of seasoned industry vets – it finally felt like Canva wasn't a joke anymore.. A study conducted between May 2025 and April 2026 found that Canva attracted 144.5 billion web visits, proving the platform is performing exponentially well, but some creatives are still unconvinced.

In part, Canva's embrace of AI tools is likely to blame, but with Adobe also throwing its hat in the artificial intelligence ring, even industry favourites aren't without sin. For years, the term "that looks like it was made in Canva" has been an insult, and until the platform can distance itself from its amateur beginnings, I believe it will always struggle to convert the entire design industry.

On a heated r/graphic_design Reddit thread, one user wrote, "Canva is for enthusiastic design amateurs, perhaps working in marketing, that think they don't need a real designer. The kind of people who incorrectly believe design is 'subjective'. This is why the percentage of sh***y design out there in the world is ever increasing."

Another added, "Canva is a dumbed-down program made for people who aren't designers to limp their way through making stuff. I've been forced to use it, and even with experience, it's incredibly frustrating how limited and blunt it is. There is no way to compare a Ferrari (Photoshop) to a golf cart."

In one breath, Canva is claiming it's turning over a new 'professional' leaf, while on another it's adding a cringy Gen Z mode and collabbing with Gemma Collins. Until it can pick a side and either double down or shed its bright, user-friendly image, the Canva brand will always be stuck in a limbo that makes people at house parties embarrassed to confess, "I used Canva."

So when Bluey: The Movie was announced at D23 over the weekend, I wasn't the only one disappointed by the revised animation style. The gorgeous original 2D animation has been replaced by CGI, and I just don't understand why.

Turning a beloved show from 2D to 3D alters not just the feel of the animation, but the look of the characters themselves; Bluey and Bingo don't quite look like themselves in the trailer. It also shifts the feel of the world they live in, so delightfully simple and in which dimensions are frequently played to highlight the perspective of the children (the endless corridors and ever-changing house size, for example).

I fail to see what's gained by a shift that has blighted so many of our favourite '90s shows, from Thomas the Tank Engine to Rugrats. From an artistic point of view, it feels as though the beauty of 2D animation has been forgotten in favour of 3D wherever possible, stripping away one of the last bastions of visual simplicity I was so eager to see on the big screen.

Other voices across the internet agree, mostly from disappointed parents – you can read the comments in the above Instagram post, but this one sums it up: "Reasons for Bluey's success: Soft colors / slow-paced scenes / low stimulation / not 3D. The movie trailer: Vibrant colors / fast-paced scenes / high stimulation / 3D."

More specifically is disappointment expressed by accounts focused on neurodivergence, which rightly point out that Bluey's original style is one of the few that won't overstimulate children with sensory differences.

I recently discussed how much I loved seeing Lady and The Tramp at the cinema for its anniversary release. My children were captivated by the slow pace and vibrant art, so I really hope Bluey retains some of its original feel even with the CGI alterations.

What do you think of the teased style for Bluey? Would you like to see more 2D animation on the big screen? Let us know in the comments.