In 2026, though, it feels different. Following the latest UK price hike, Netflix’s cheapest ad-free plan costs £13.99 a month, and Premium costs £20.99.

But if Netflix were worried they'd take some heat, then Disney+ has done them a favour. Last month, it updated its UK subscriber agreement to say all its tiers “may include” promotional content, sponsorships and “advertisements before/after playback”.

Disney insists that ad-free subscribers aren't going to suddenly see traditional ads interrupting films and shows. But it seems pretty clear we're heading in that direction eventually.

How did we get here?

It's not that long ago that any ads on paid-for streaming seemed like a distant dream. It was only in November 2022 that Netflix launched its first ad-supported plan in the UK for £4.99 a month, pitching it as a budget option to offer people "more choice". Then in 2023, it stopped offering its cheapest ad-free plan to new UK subscribers, so the entry price for ad-free viewing jumped up a bit.

Meanwhile, in February 2024, Amazon Prime Video started showing ads to everyone by default, and charged £2.99 a month extra to switch them off. Disney+ followed suit with its own ad tier that November.

Spotted the pattern yet? Ads arrive as a cheap option, offering "choice". Then once people are used to the idea, the gap between cheap and ad-free widens, until ad-free starts to feel like a luxury. Even the cheap option doesn’t stay cheap for long: Netflix’s ad tier has just gone up a third already, from £5.99 to £7.99.

None of this is because streaming bosses hate us. It’s just maths. For years, streaming was all about subscriber growth, and investors were happy to carry big losses as long as the numbers kept going up.

Then in 2022, Netflix reported its first downturn in subscribers for a decade, and Wall Street changed its mind. Since then, profit has mattered more than growth.

Trouble is, most people who want a streaming service already have it, so the companies have to make more money from each viewer instead. They can do that in two ways: raise the price, or sell ads. An ad tier lets a streamer do both.

So where has all this brought us to? Several monthly subscriptions, live sport with ad breaks, ads before shows, and streamers sold to us in bundles by Sky and Virgin Media. Similarly, in the US, Disney now sells Disney+, Hulu and Max together in a single package.

We thought we'd seen the end of the cable or satellite TV package. We've just reinvented them on the internet instead. We thought streaming had freed us from expense, ads and hassle. We thought wrong.

Remember, though, we still have one weapon that cable and satellite customers never did. In the old days, cancelling was an old and cumbersome process. With streaming, cancelling takes about 30 seconds. And there are now plenty of free ad-supported services to take the place of the ones you've been paying for.

That's worth bearing in mind, next time you pull up that streaming interface on your TV, yet still can't find anything to watch.

Find today's best streaming services below:

The best billboard ads are the ones that use bold visuals to their advantage, and Sour Patch Kids' out-of -the-box approach is a prime example. Characterful, slightly silly and irrefutably fun, the new billboards prove brands need to step out of the comfort zone to make a big impact.

Created by global creative agency VCCP, the playful ads feature Sour Patch Kids in various states of chaos. One design shows the characters playing tug-of-war with one of their pals, while another features a casual game of tennis with one of their heads – a perfect blend of dark and silly storytelling.

The most eye-catching of the ‘Not As Sweet As They Look’ campaign is an immersive ad that sees the kids destroying a neighbouring Oreo ad. Physically tearing it off the billboard, the eye-catching design blurs the lines between reality and fiction, making the design all the more immersive for passersby.

“Everyone in the creative department keeps collaring us saying 'why don't people rip each other limb from limb, or pull each other’s heads off, or tear down each other’s billboards in advertising any more? Fair point, we thought," say Chris Birch and Jonny Parker, chief creative officers at VCCP. "So when Sour Patch Kids came along asking for their first ever campaign with their sweet but sour persona, [we] could finally scratch that itch. And isn't it glorious? Simple, clever, beautiful and disturbing.”

For more ad inspiration, check out the Other Mommy crying billboard that gets creepier over time, or take a look at how KFC reached new heights in this towering billboard ad.

The truth is, Xiaomi is no stranger to making some of the best camera phones. In fact, when we were considering the most powerful camera phone on the market, the Xiaomi 15 came out as the overall winner. That was before Xiaomi released its latest lineup of phones, and there would be no surprises if the 17T Pro found its way into our guide.

Speaking of the Xiaomi 15, we said, "With Leica-engineered cameras, Xiaomi is out-muscling Samsung and Apple," and that continues with the 17T Pro. If Xiaomi continues the partnership, there's no reason why Xiaomi won't begin to substantially displace the iPhone as the favoured choice for creative professionals.

Key specs

Design and Screen

• A sleek modern design with smooth edges everywhere
• A camera bump that follows the bezels of the phone

Everything about the Xiaomi 17T Pro is designed and engineered to perfection. This begins with the large 6.83-inch AMOLED display, which offers an almost full bleed right to the edges. This is only interrupted by the small front camera cut out at the top. It's an incredibly capable display that is vibrant, bright, and predictable.

Creatives will love the 12-bit colour depth and 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut, which guarantees a full and accurate representation of the images it displays. This makes it ideal for reviewing media content on the device without needing to transfer it to a dedicated monitor.

Continuing with the display, at a whopping 3500 nits of peak brightness, I found the phone more than capable of delivering the necessary brightness in all scenarios, including direct sunlight. Using it in the field or in all types of unpredictable settings is not a problem with the 17T Pro.

Turning our attention to the main frame, there's a gorgeous flat aluminium finish that ensures a premium look. The colourways on offer are Black, Deep Blue, and the one that I tested, Deep Violet. The finish is beautifully matt, and it effortlessly diffuses all reflections. All corners and edges are smooth and subtle, providing a comfortable grip at all times.

At the back is the Leica camera bump, which for perfectionists follows the same bezel design as the main frame. This provides a coordinated and well-thought-out design. With the quality and quantity of camera technology packed into the 17T Pro, it's no surprise that the bump is rather sizable. As a result, if you lay the phone down, the top end of the phone sits off the surface by about 5mm.

Design score: 5/5

Features

• A fast and efficient Mediatek Dimensity 9500 processor
• A high-capacity battery that will last you all day and excellent cooling

The 17T Pro obviously features some of the most advanced camera hardware of any phone on the market, but I'm glad to see that the rest of the smartphone hasn't suffered from a lack of attention. Don't worry, we'll get to those sumptuous camera specs and associated performance in a minute.

At the heart of the phone is a Mediatek Dimensity 9500 processor which keeps all the apps, processes, and camera smarts moving along smoothly. You won't find any lock-ups or slow-downs here. Even when pushing the creative limits, the 17T Pro kept up like a champ.

Now, because you'll be using the phone for all your creative projects, there's no use having a sub-standard battery. Thankfully Xiaomi has packed it with a huge 7000mAh silicon-carbon battery that the brand claims delivers more than 20 hours when in constant use and 9.5 hours of video recording. This battery life means you can take it on set, even when you're on location with no access to a power supply. The battery supports 100W wired and 50W wireless HyperCharge.

To complement all the power and battery capabilities is the Xiaomi 3D IceLoop system, which ensures the phone stays cool and efficient. The cooling system combines 6W/mK high thermal conductivity gel for rapid heat dissipation. Having used the phone for several months, there hasn't been a single time where it has even felt remotely hot to touch.

In terms of software, the main feature of Note is the Xiaomi HyperIsland, which serves up a superior status and notification experience. I love the fact that it occupies minimal space but at the same time enables a high level of multitasking. It's ideal for the creative professional who is always on the go.

Features score: 5/5

Camera Performance

• Superb photo and video capabilities
• An overall quick and efficient performance

The primary reason that anyone would consider buying the 17T Pro is because of its incredible Leica-engineered camera technology. The phone is packed full of the very latest hardware and software that delivers one of the most impressive camera arrays out of any smartphone anywhere.

The main camera is 23mm 50MP with a 1/1.31-inch sensor size. Images are clear and sharp, although the default 'Leica Vibrant' crunches the colours too much. I found myself using the 'Leica Traditional' most of the time as it delivered a more realistic set of colours and contrast.

But what is most impressive about the main camera is the f/1.67 aperture, which lets in an unreal amount of light. I tested it in some of the darkest places I could find and it was still able to provide a pretty clean, noise-free image. The cherry on the cake is the optical image stabilisation, which helps guarantee sharp results are achieved every single time.

The main camera is backed up by an equally impressive 115mm periscope telephoto camera with 50MP and f/3 specs for solid performance in most scenarios. With an equivalent focal length of 115mm, I was able to zoom in and capture more detail than my eyes were capable of.

And if that level of zoom wasn't enough, Leica offers an ultra zoom feature achieved with AI, of course, that allows for 120x magnification. The zoom amount is so high that the results verge on microscopic, enabling you to capture very small details of items close to you or objects a long distance away.

But it's not just the phone's telephoto camera that has stolen the headlines; in fact, the 15mm ultra-wide camera with an aperture of f/2.2 is equally useful for creatives. The 15mm equivalent focal length means you can capture more of the world around you without moving backwards. The resolution tops out at 12MP which is similar to most of the competition but still a big reduction from the 50MP of the main and telephoto alternatives.

The 17T Pro also delivers industry-leading video recording capabilities with 8K resolution at 30fps and 4K at 120fps. There is even 4K HDR10+ at 60fps for enhanced video quality. With these specs, the 17T Pro is designed not just to meet the needs of photographers but also video content creators.

Across all cameras, the 17T Pro delivers a high-level of colour consistency so that you can switch between lenses without the resulting photos looking like they're taken with a different camera. All in, the 17T Pro is a creative dream that delivers excellent results.

Performance score: 5/5

Price

• Prices begin from £799, although discounts are often available

All 17T Pro models top out at 12GB of RAM, which means the only choice you have to make is between three colours and three storage capacities. The handset is available in Black, Deep Violet, and Deep Blue colourways, although these are identically priced within each storage bracket.

Prices range from £799 for the 256GB model up to £949 for 1TB. Sitting in the middle is the one I tested, which offers 512GB of storage and retails at £849. At the time of writing, the prices I've quoted were discounted by £100, which shows it's worth waiting for a price drop.

Value score: 4/5

Buy it if:

• You plan on using your phone for serious photography
• You love telephoto photography
• You want a slick, well-designed phone from a top brand

Don't buy it if:

• You only need a reliable smartphone for messages, calls, and social media
• You're a serious mobile gamer
• You want a smartphone with repairable parts

It was just the kind of sweet tribute you'd expect to see after the passing of two global celebrities, so close to each other. Nothing particularly groundbreaking, but certainly very shareable. In the corner was the signature "BLOPER", the pen name of New Yorker cartoonist Brendan Loper.

One problem, though: Brendan didn't draw it. A fan of Dolly Parton had simply asked ChatGPT for "a New Yorker-style cartoon", and the chatbot had made one. Then – and here's the kicker – faked Brendan's signature for good measure.

Brendan first heard about this from his brother; then emails and DMs from strangers started piling up. "I had people writing to me about this cartoon, asking if it was mine," he told Nieman Lab, a reporting project at Harvard University that covers the future of journalism. "It was very surreal."

Nieman Lab went on to investigate further, and identified more than 15 New Yorker cartoonists whose signatures have been appearing on ChatGPT images.

I've covered plenty of AI controversies over the past few years, but this feels like a pretty big deal to me.

Yes, the line between inspiration and outright copying is a murky one. But a fake signature is crossing the Rubicon. It's making a clear statement that a human, a named human, has made this work and stands behind it. And in this case, an utterly false one.

A billion dollar company has created a platform that purposefully imitates work and passes it off as their own. And that's wrong; legally, ethically, morally, any way you care to slice it. For anyone who works as a creative, this is massive.

After all, your name is your reputation, your business. Imagine a potential client stumbling across a piece of dodgy work with your name attached to it. If they told you about it, you could at least set the record straight. Yet in reality, they probably wouldn't mention it. They just wouldn't book you again, without you ever knowing the reason. It doesn't bear thinking about.

The lesson? Next time you see an image doing the rounds on social media, think before you like or share. You could be doing a fellow creative a great disservice.

Customers often re-use Lala cream pots to store all kind of other things in the fridge: beans, salsa, tinga or leftovers from the day before. It's such a familiar household ritual that it's inspired jokes and memes around the common problem of not knowing what's inside the pots. Lala's now come up with a solution, officially recognising that its packaging isn't for its own product alone.

The 'Mexiconteiners' project was a proactive idea born from observation and developed by the creative agencies Zurda México and Conciergency. They designed a Lala cream tub with a dedicated space where people can write what's stored inside once the original product's gone.

"It was 100% a lightbulb moment born out of lived experience," says Diego Gueler Montero, chief creative officer at Zurda México. "You don't need a focus group or a massive research study for this, you just need to have grown up in Mexico.

"Every single Mexican has played that fridge Russian roulette: opening a Lala container expecting cream, only to find leftover beans, rice, or salsa. It’s a generational inside joke the brand had never officially acknowledged. All we did was connect the dots between that universal truth and a product innovation."

What made the idea so strong is that Lala wasn’t telling customers what to do with its packaging but recognising the spontaneous reuse that has already been happening for years. Rather than run a standard product promo, Zurda saw an opportunity to spark a conversation that reinforced Lala's place as an everyday staple.

"We realised we didn't need to push the product itself; we needed to celebrate the container’s second lifecycle," Diego says. "That second life is the ultimate proof of how deeply rooted the brand is in our culture."

It seems such a simple and obvious idea after the fact. But it needed the right execution.

"The challenge was to make that new function feel completely integrated into the brand," says Valentina Zuchiatti, chief creative officer at Conciergency. "We incorporated illustrations and graphic codes rooted in Mexican culture and everyday life, together with a dedicated space where people could write what they were storing inside, while keeping the pack unmistakably Lala."

Customers responded, completing the circle. The campaign sparked a new wave of memes on social media as people made the design their own and shared what they kept in their containers.

Conceived as a campaign, the design now has the potential to be a long-term platform.

"Reusing Lala containers has been a habit in Mexican fridges for decades, we just gave it an official name," Diego says. "Given how huge the response was, it stopped being just a temporary campaign and turned into a permanent cultural asset the brand can keep building on."

"What’s especially exciting is that the idea didn’t stop with the original Mexiconteiners," Valentina adds. "It’s now expanding into other Lala products and collaborations, including licensed editions such as Peanuts. What began as a cultural observation on one pack is becoming a flexible design platform that the brand can continue to reinterpret."

Playing Silver Pines feels like stepping into an animated horror graphic novel. There’s a little Jock in the scratchy ink, a bit of Frank Miller in the contrast, and in the darker creature silhouettes and corners of town you fear to explore, just a bloody splash of Mike Mignola.

The art sells the game. It’s genuinely unsettling in places, and the town feels fully formed, slowly unfolding its secrets with the same teasing paranoia as Silent Hill. That’s quite the debut for Wych Elm, a five-person studio spread across Sweden and Norway, clearly passionate about its inspirations; Twin Peaks' dark Americana mingles with X-Files investigations as much as Konami’s classic.

You play private investigator Red Walker, sent to a half-abandoned, half-forgotten town in the middle of nowhere to find missing musician Eddie Velvet. The trail takes you from the Miner Diner to the Crimson Bear Motel and Rodney’s General Store, and the case quickly turns into something much stranger.

That Silent Hill comparison is apt: Silver Pines is the Metroidvania Silent Hill no one saw coming, and the combination works beautifully. The side-scrolling design feels layered and dense. As you stroll in trepidation through Silver Pines’ dimly lit streets, the challenges ahead are teased in the distance: a crumbling Town Hall, an illuminated cable car, and the oppressive bulk of Mt. Siah Kopa, which you just know you’ll need to climb to get to the bottom of the town’s secrets.

A town full of wrong turns

Those secrets unfurl in the same way. Find and use a cog to get the sewer sluice gate working on the docks, which in turn opens new sewer tunnels and more puzzle routes. Hunt down a set of bells scattered across town to mend that mysteriously musical cable car (a real Resident Evil hangover). You can also veer off the path to free a cat locked in a cage under the Pet Clinic, meet some cryptic residents, or stop to stroke the horse randomly plodding outside the Quiet Hour Cafe.

Behind the weirdness is the familiar back-and-forth of a Metroidvania. A found torch lights up dark rooms, a sledgehammer smashes through cracked walls, a box cutter slices open tarps to new rooms, and the shotgun blasts apart wooden barricades. Your guns open up the map as much as they kill things, because rusted padlocks, boards and vent grilles are all there to be blasted. Each new tool and solved puzzle opens up another corner of town, and uncovers stories that play on your mind, gnaw at you and demand you explore more.

The map does much of the heavy lifting in Silver Pines. Snap a photo of a locked door or odd object, and the game pins it to the map, so when you return with the right tool, you know exactly where to go. The Polaroids are a lifesaver for backtracking, but the map also has logic, and areas are memorable enough that you’ll often have an ‘ah-ha’ moment and race to put the solution into practice.

The story arrives in pieces, found in drawers, pinned to notice boards and on hushed, crackling phone lines to strangers who tease leads. These notes and documents are scattered everywhere; some help solve puzzles, but many just add to the world-building, like conversations that stick in your head for an hour before you find out why they mattered. Everything hinges memorably, making puzzle-solving feel earned rather than pulled from thin air; it took me far too long for the playing-card symbol puzzle to click, but once it did, I had a proper ‘ah-ha’ moment.

In fact, the puzzles generally are more logical than some of the game’s inspirations. They lean towards Resident Evil’s item management, lock gizmos and code-breaking rather than Silent Hill’s more surreal ideas. If you’re stumped, a solution is always hiding in plain sight, whether it’s a clue in a pinned newspaper clipping, a number on a framed baseball jersey, or something glimpsed through a smudged shop window.

You handle keypads and doors by hand, so you tap the digits yourself and watch the key slide in and turn. Even the Crimson Bear Motel’s gate code changes with every save, so you don't have to look it up.

When the town fights back

Combat can be a little awkward at times. Manually wrapping a bandage to heal takes longer than you’d like when a dark, ghostly dog thing is pouncing at you. Generally, though, it’s snappy and surprisingly aggressive for a side-scrolling indie. The shotgun you prise out of a locker at the Crimson Bear Motel rips apart enemies and scenery, and later variants get more powerful, sending papers and debris fluttering satisfyingly with every shot.

Survival horror means managing everything. Your inventory is a tight grid, and Hip Bags hidden around town add extra slots. Guns take up space, ammo is scarce, and weapons wear down as you use them. You mix herbs and empty bottles into tonics, and melee swings drain stamina, which you can restore with coffee from the filter jugs dotted around town. You can also equip Mementoes for perks like extra stamina and faster reloads, letting you tailor your approach to combat.

Upgrades make an actual difference, too. The rifle's scoped sight extends how far you can pan the screen, so you spot enemies sooner, and life gets a bit easier.

The little things matter

Small design choices and attention to detail lift Silver Pines from a Metroidvania Silent Hill to something of its own. You save at payphones, drop in a coin, and call Mr Jackman. A lone I Want to Believe poster in an office made me smile, a TV show that eerily plays episodes of a paranoia show as you pass, and the misty decay of the town’s worn Americana just gets under the skin. In all of this, and in the puzzles and map design, Silver Pines captures the weirdness of Twin Peaks and the mystery of The X-Files.

On Switch 2, it’s an engrossing couch game. The side-scrolling format suits picking it up for an hour at a time, and the art direction gives you plenty to look at even when a puzzle has you stumped and frustrated. I never wished it were a bigger 3D horror game, because those restrictions are part of why Silver Pines works so well.

My complaints are small. One is the mid-fight healing, and the game can’t escape the genre's trappings: the back-and-forth wandering and nosing around every corner of the map to find that one tool, for me, a crank and then a sledgehammer, that finally opens the route you need to progress. And sometimes, that blocked path you hoped would lead somewhere just offers yet another roll of tape or minimal reward.

But these are small, probably very personal frustrations for what is one of the year’s most interesting games, and with three endings to chase and different difficulties that make a difference, there’s a reason to go back and explore Silver Pines more. Plus, it’s an engrossing Switch 2 sofa must-play.

If you need the tools to get started, see our guides to the best 3D modelling software and the best laptops for 3D modelling.

Usually, upon creation, a joint’s orientation is set so that it automatically points to its parent in the hierarchy. So, for example, X will be the primary axis and aim at the next joint in the chain.

This is to make animation more predictable, meaning you get a better twist around the joint. Imagine rotating your upper arm while keeping your elbow in place; this works because, in theory, the axis you’re rotating around runs down the humerus bone. There will be times, however, when you may need a different primary axis. This could depend on a number of things, like the game engine you are working on for example, or to help reduce gimbal lock, something we discussed in last month’s issue.

There will also be times when the axes are reset or even changed by accident, so they need to be corrected. Fortunately, editing rotational axes is very easy to do and you have full freedom to configure them any way you like, and at any angle too. Let’s take a look at how you would approach this in a simple, three-joint arm setup.

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As a long-standing mentor across several programs, Chloé is passionate about supporting the next generation of design talent and helping more women move into leadership roles. As part of our 5 Questions series, I caught up with Chloé to discuss career imposter syndrome, pet peeves and the 24/7 drive of the creative mind.

As you'd expect, the show itself was sprinkled with spectacle, pizzazz, and plenty of Disney magic. Bart Simpson opening proceedings. Stitch arriving on the big screen with his new pink co-star. Giant red balloons bouncing around the arena for a mass game of Keepy Uppy. Fantastic.

But D23 isn't just about feelgood vibes, it's mainly about announcing new projects. And the list of forthcoming films made me decidedly underwhelmed.

What's coming next

In the animation corner: Frozen 3. Incredibles 3. Coco 2. Zootopia 3. A sixth (yes, sixth!) big-screen outing for Ice Age. A second Simpsons movie. In the live action corner, meanwhile, we're getting a remake of Tangled, and a sequel to 2025's previous live-action remake Lilo & Stitch.

If you count up the films Disney and Pixar announced, only four are original: Pixar's Ghost Market and Gatto, and Disney Animation's Clay and Hexed. The rest is a company repurposing its past.

I've written before about why I think Disney's live action remakes are all wrong, but a live-action Tangled is really depressing. The 2010 original was already made with CG, so turning it into "live action" – which will doubtless be dominated by CG anyway – feels less a brave reinvention and more like a tweak of the 3D software.

Not to mention that when it arrives in March 2028, it'll be remaking a film that's barely 18 years old. One that very much hasn't aged, and anyone who's interested will have seen on Disney+ already.

What's depressing me most is that I can see the business reasons for what they're doing. The live-action Lilo & Stitch took over $1 billion at the box office in 2025, so a sequel is a slam dunk.

Original animated films are expensive and risky, as Pixar learned when Elio struggled at the box office last year. If I was a Disney investor, I'd be screaming "Make Frozen 3!" from the rooftops.

But over the long term, that just means Disney will end up eating itself. If you think about it, every franchise Disney is milking today was once a risky original. Where are the next risky originals coming from?

The good news

Admittedly, there is some new stuff on the way. Hexed, Disney Animation’s next film, is an original that hits cinemas in November. At D23, Disney announced two big additions to its voice cast: Jodie Foster as Queen Celeste and Walton Goggins as a character called Beef Roger Crummchuk. That name alone makes me want to buy a ticket .

Pixar, meanwhile, has Gatto, a Venice-set adventure from Enrico Casarosa, the director of Luca. The latter's sunny take on the Italian Riviera was charming; a shame it went straight to Disney+ in 2021. At least Casarosa is getting a proper cinema release this time, with Gatto due in March 2027.

Further out, there’s Ghost Market, a totally original Pixar film due in March 2028, and Disney Animation’s Clay, also set for 2028. Disney's said very little about either, and Clay is only a working title. But I'm still eager to learn more.

Finally, there's The Bluey Movie, and while that's based on a well-known character, a jump from TV to the big screen can often lead to great things: just look at Aardman. The irony? Disney didn’t make it: they're only distributing it.

Yes, one of the most exciting projects at Disney’s event was an idea someone else had, and which somebody else is making. In the meantime, I'm putting my trust in Laika to bring some child-friendly movie magic back to our cinemas.

Almost three months on, and with the new packaging designs out in the wild, a more practical concern is causing problems for some. The standard Coke looks more Coke, but so does Coke Zero, making it potentially easier to confuse the two. If one of the aims of design is to improve the user experience, some see that as a fail. Or is it part of a longer-term plan?

Coca-Cola Zero was launched back in 2005 and rebranded as Coca-Cola Zero Sugar in 2016. The packaging was initially black, and then it became red with a black logo. Now only a black ribbon remains as a colour clue from the visual system that distinguished the product from standard Coke.

That might seem like a minor inconvenience. The packaging says 'Zero sugar' in fairly large type, so it shouldn't take too long to find the product you want. But it seems it can be a problem for people who have to select the product quickly and repeatedly as part of their job. An Australian flight attendant recently posted on TikTok to complain that the change had made her work more difficult.

In a post showing two almost identical-looking cans, she writes that she's “lost count of how many wrong Cokes l’ve handed out this week”.

The post received thousands of likes and over 100 comments. Some of those note that the confusion can have potentially serious consequences for people who have allergies or certain medical conditions.

“I’m allergic to an ingredient in Coke Zero but can have regular coke. Why would they think this is a good idea?!” one person asks. “I RELY on that black lettering for Zero cuz I’m diabetic. Why on earth would they do that?," another person writes.

“I can’t tell yall how many times in a rush I’ve accidentally grabbed Coke Zero and didn’t mean to,” is another comment.

According to Coca-Cola's press release at the time of the rebrand, the main objective was consistency. “With one seamless visual identity, we can deliver one recognizable brand experience to consumers,” it said.

It seems that the brand experience some customers would most like to have is to be able to select the product they want without having to hesitate.

There is a logic to the evolution of Coca-Cola Zero's branding. When it was first introduced as the biggest new Coca-Cola product launch for two decades, it needed the all-black can to communicate its existence.

But people were confused about what Zero was, and about how it differed from Diet Coke. That led to the last design refresh in 2016. It was clarified that the product was 'Zero sugar' rather than Zero cola or zero anything else, but it was also decided that the distinction of the black can was no longer needed.

Now people know that Zero Sugar exists and generally know what it is, perhaps it doesn't need to look so distinct. But why make things more difficult for the consumer?

Some think the explanation goes beyond the question of consistency. Over on Reddit, there are suggestions that the decision to blur the visual distinction between the two products is part of a long-term plan to ease customers off the standard sugary coke, and possibly even discontinue it to make Zero Sugar the standard product.

With sugary drinks taxes and labelling rules coming into force in various countries, it could make sense to try to push people towards the zero version. Nevertheless, Coca-Cola has never expressed any intention to phase out sugared Coke, and it's recently started making a sugar cane version in the US. Most standard Coke in the US is still made with high fructose corn syrup, while in Mexico and Europe it's made with sugar cane or beet sugar.

To remedy this, Bentley devised a synthetic soundtrack built from drum recordings modelled on its old eight-cylinder engines. Distinctly different from its previous models, the startup noise replaces the engine purr so many drivers are used to, but will this mark the death of the traditional driving experience, and is it enough to convert classic car lovers?

To get a deeper understanding of this new EV trend, I caught up with Max De Lucia, co-founder of sonic branding agency DLMDD, to discuss what the future of EV sound design will bring.

There was the M4 iPad Pro launch video, in which Apple crushed a haul of cameras, musical instruments and other creative tools to make the point that the tablet is very thin. Then there was the Thailand advert, packed with stereotypes, and the cringey Parent Presentation, a campaign that aimed to teach students how to convince their parents to buy them a Mac.

More recent ads suggest that Apple's learned from those blunders, and it's avoiding the mistakes that other companies are making as AI slop takes over social media. An embroidered Apple logo invite for its upcoming Welcome Home event is the clearest sign yet that it's pulling out all the stops to ensure that it's associated with hand-crafted human-made creativity.

Apple's Welcome Home event scheduled for Tuesday (13 October) has come as a surprise to some since the company hasn't run an October event for the past couple of years. That said, we had been expecting news about new home devices. With September's event already so packed with the iPhone Duo reveal alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and Apple Watch Series 12, it made sense to put those back.

The advert for the event posted by SVP Marketing Greg Joswiak above shows the creation of the Apple event invite. This almost always involves a depiction of the Apple logo in some form, depicted in a way that alludes to a theme or piece of news that will be revealed at the event.

The Welcome Home invite takes a distinctly handmade approach. It sees the iconic 1977 rainbow Apple logo revived in an embroidered design. The stitching is the work of Sydney-based twin sisters and multidisciplinary artists Maricor/Maricar, who bridge the disciplines of design, illustration and embroidery (you can see more of the process in their Instagram post below).

Embroidery is an art form that dates back thousands of years, yet Apple using it for an advert in 2026 is breaking news. It's the latest example of the lengths the brand's going to to make to make it as visible as possible that its marketing is made by humans, not AI.

From Skechers sketchy AI posters to the frightful Fanta Halloween advert. some brands seem to have underestimated the strength of feeling against AI. Despite being part of the AI industry (albeit a relative latecomer when it comes to developing its own models), Apple's seen that. It's recognised the growing backlash and the desire to connect with more traditional human qualities. It's now creating a brand around human craft.

Other recent examples have included the stop-motion animations created for the launch of the new Apple mini and Apple Games (see below)

Apple's also realised that behind-the-scenes videos are now as important as finished adverts in the AI era: or perhaps even that behind-the-scenes videos are now the real advert. If your brand is going to invest in human-created art, you want to make sure people recognise it as such and appreciate the craftsmanship that went into it.

Meanwhile, iPhone Duo pre-orders begin on Friday 16 October. Alas, there's no news that preorders will be available for the embroidery.

While some predicted that AI would be the final death for handwriting, a strong counter movement has been pushing back against that idea. People are increasingly rediscovering the benefits of handwriting for focus, reflection and creativity. Businesses have even started hand-writing social media posts amid the backlash against AI slop flyers on Instagram.

And right now, you can get a lovely pen for less then the price of a month's subscription to ChatGPT. Amazon has various versions of the legendary Parker Jotter (as used by James Bond in Goldeneye), on deal. The classic black and steel model with arrowhead clip is reduced by 30% to $8.34 and the larger stainless steel Jotter XL by 18% to $32.79.

If you prefer to go even more traditional, the Parker 51 fountain pen favoured by the late Queen Elizabeth (and used by James Bond in the Moonraker novel) is reduced by almost $25 to $101.25.

Here are all of the best deals.

• Shop Parker pen at Amazon

Not in the US or want something different? See more pen deals below:

In a subtle yet touching homage, shoe brand New Balance has recreated one of Jobs' most iconic looks, honouring his legacy as a creative inspiration. Quiet and authentic, New Balance proves that honouring the past can be done with small yet thoughtful actions.

Appearing among promo shots for the grey 992s, New Balance subtly recreated Steve Jobs' iconic pose from the original iPad presentation in 2010. A key part of Jobs' 'uniform', the quiet homage is a tasteful Easter egg that honours the icon without grand gestures and loud design. Minimalist, just as Steve Jobs would want it.

"Proof that the best branding doesn’t need to shout. If you know, you know. Brilliant little detail," one X user praised. "The kind of details I adore," another added.

For more creative inspiration, take a look at how Apple became the world's most valuable brand or check out the best Apple ads of the last 50 years.

A classic graphic design reference book has resurfaced on social media, and it's getting attention for the familiarity of some of the symbols it depicts. Some of them look incredibly similar to identities belonging to modern-day companies, from AMD to Google.

The book is Trademarks & Symbols, Vol. 2: Symbolical Designs by the Japanese designer Yasaburo Kuwayama. While Volume 1 had focused on alphabetical and letter-form designs, the second tome centres on symbolical and pictorial designs. It's a directory of real symbols and logos organised according to their form, for example circles, squares, trees, eyes and human figures.

From a just a few pages shared on social media, people have spotted designs that resemble the logos of chip maker AMD, Google Drive, Chase Bank, Natwest, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Portugal's state bank, Renault and more.

Have the graphic designers behind modern big brand logos been picking and choosing old designs to recycle? Probably not. Geometric forms are relatively universal, and Yasaburo's book is so extensive that it's logical that modern brands could arrive at similar shapes on their own.

One observer has pointed out that in the book's appendix some designs are listed as being used by multiple companies. Even today, we see brands with similar logos.

When it comes to minimalist geometric symmetry, there are only so many options. Nevertheless, if you're looking for a logo design for your startup, some people reckon the book still has a few gems that could be available for the taking.

Trade Marks & Symbols was originally published in Tokyo by Kashiwa Shobo and Orion Press and internationally by Van Nostrand Reinhold Company. You might have to part with a lot of money to get a copy today. There's a hardcover copy selling on Amazon for over $2,000.

The nearest contemporary equivalent I can think of are Jens Müller's Taschen books Logo Beginnings and Logo Modernism, which I can highly recommend.

I really did think the iPhone Air was for me when Apple announced it last year. As an iPhone mini apologist, I've always favoured design over features, whilst lamenting the trend towards massive, heavy bricks. But all of those compromises that tech nerds have accused the Air of making in its pursuit of ultimate thinness? Yeah, they're valid.

I still love the design of the iPhone Air. From the ultra thin profile to the polished titanium edges, this is the most premium looking and feeling iPhone ever. It's the closest thing we've had to Steve Jobs' dream of a device that's genuinely all-display – the phone is so thin and light that it disappears into the background when looking at the 3,000 nit display.

But yes, it only has one camera lens. And despite Apple's claims that it's somehow worth two (still not sure how that checks out), the limitations are a pain in everyday use. Countless times I've tried to take a 0.5x photo, only to remember the feature doesn't exist on the Air. Same goes for zooming in on anything further than the near distance – the digital zoom just doesn't cut it.

The other major drawback, of course, is battery. Over the course of a year, my iPhone Air's battery health has degraded to 91%, which is much quicker than my iPhone 15 Pro degraded. The result is not-quite-all-day battery life, which has got me into trouble a few times when travelling.

And while I said I love the design of the iPhone Air, I do take issue with one aspect: the width. Why, oh why, is the so-called thinnest, lightest and therefore most portable iPhone too wide to use one-handed? It makes no sense to me that the iPhone Air is taller and wider than the iPhone 18 Pro.

Speaking of which, it's the 18 Pro that's finally turned me off the Air. I've been using the Pro for a week now, and realised just how much I've missed those basic features: a better camera, and better battery life. And despite the heft, I'm actually finding it easier to use one-handed, because it's less wide. It's almost a novelty that my thumb can reach the edge of the screen.

It may not be as 'pretty' as the iPhone Air, but the 18 Pro just feels more solid as a device that fits into my life. I'll miss looking at the Air, but it's time to admit: looks aren't everything.

Given the high risk, the temptation to use generative AI in filmmaking is entirely understandable.​ It can bring entire projects to life in a fraction of the time and on a much smaller budget. But at what cost?

The risk of casting AI

AI is capable of throwing together a semi-coherent script and generating visuals that pass the eye test without much scrutiny. Yet, we’re nowhere close to the point where AI can write scenes, organize productions, act naturally, and shoot movies without any human assistance.

The industry will continue to rely heavily on the creativity and vision of its writers, performers, directors, designers, and wider production teams for the foreseeable future, and they’ve already made it abundantly clear that they’re unwilling to share a set with AI if it’s given a starring role. Preventing AI from taking creative jobs in the field was one of the primary causes of the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, which caused losses in excess of $5 billion.

Audiences share that sentiment, regularly panning the use of generative AI for creative purposes. And not just heavily AI-generated projects, such as Misaligned, starring AI actress Tilly Norwood, but movies that used it sparingly, such as Young Washington.

While the technology is constantly improving, algorithms are infamous for producing inconsistent narratives, repetitive tropes, and uncanny imagery. With that in mind, something as simple as using generative AI in a promotional poster can, and has, caused backlash. The actual film might be perfectly watchable, but like a poor critic score, that label alone is bound to put plenty of people off buying a ticket.

AI’s role in Hollywood

There’s an important distinction, however. Netflix’s The Gentleman received positive reviews from critics and audiences – despite the use of AI.

The difference is, the technology was used exclusively behind the scenes to break down the series’ action-packed script, inform shooting decisions, and help the production run smoothly. Viewers weren’t presented with AI-generated visuals or a storyline shaped by algorithms. Many productions now use AI in this way, assigning it menial, repetitive pre-production tasks such as script breakdowns, shooting schedules, and budget planning that do not influence what ends up on the screen in any way.

That isn’t a change that’s going to result in another costly strike. I worked as a director’s assistant in Hollywood, and I can confidently say the vast majority of the industry’s workforce would be happy handing over these tasks. Film production is a gruelling, high-stress environment, where 12-hour days are the norm and 16-hour days aren’t uncommon. Nobody suffers through that because they love combing through call sheets for clashes or calculating expenses item by item. These tasks are all vitally important to a successful production, yet creatives would much rather spend their time on the creative side of the process.

The benefits of boring automation

AI, on the other hand, is perfectly happy taking on tedious pre-production processes. And, unlike the creative process, it’s far better at it than humans. It can process far greater amounts of information at far greater speeds, and it doesn’t make mistakes due to fatigue or boredom like humans often do.

Pre-production on a Hollywood film typically takes anywhere from three to seven months. A simple scene breakdown would take days. However, using AI, you can produce the same document in minutes, and the industry has already saved over 5.2M hours of manual work by automating these processes.

Automating ‘boring’ pre-production tasks might not save as much as replacing A-listers with AI stars or generating VFX instead of creating it. However, pre-production still accounts for 10-15% of the total budget on average. That alone would have shaved $80M off of Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ $537M production cost. It’s a huge saving for studios, without the risk of losing your audience.

For AI to pay off, however, the aim shouldn’t be to reduce budgets. Studios should view it as an opportunity to focus more money, time, and attention on the things that actually matter to audiences: refining scripts, improving special effects, perfecting performances. Essentially, creating better films. After all, the real issue with AI in Hollywood isn’t the technology itself – automation has been streamlining creative processes for decades, without complaint. The concern is what happens when all those cost cuts and shrinking teams ultimately compromise the quality of the final cut.

Discover more about Filmustage.

Yet since then, we've had a sequel, Carrie 2 in 1999, plus three remakes: a TV movie in 2002, Kimberly Peirce's 2013 movie, and now an eight-part series released on Amazon Prime Video this week. All of them felt a bit unnecessary, but none prompted as much debate as the latest interpretation.

Warning: this article may contain spoilers for those who have not watched Carrie on Amazon Prime.

Developed by Mike Flanagan (The Life of Chuck), Amazon Prime's Carrie stars Summer H Howell as the eponymous teenage girl with telekinetic powers.

In contrast to the movies, it sticks closer to the documentary format of the novel. It also recognises the impact of the social changes that could make the story worth retelling: metal detectors in US schools, the additional harm of cyberbullying and online harassment via social media.

But it makes other changes that go far beyond merely updating the story to a different age. Carrie's personality has been changed dramatically, making her more optimistic and likeable.

For some, this reduces the concept of what defines Carrie to a series of setpiece scenes. Over on X, someone's provided a side-by-side comparison of one of the most famous: the prom scene, comparing the 1976 Carrie against Amazon's series. Opinions are not favourable to the latter.

"The sound design. The cinematography. The lighting. The editing. The pacing. The score. The performances. How did we regress this badly?" one person asks on seeing the comparison above.

Some point to the inanity of a script that has fleeing characters redundantly explain that the doors are locked and that Carrie's coming for them. Yeah, I think we could gather that.

Others feel that the more sympathetic portrayal of Carrie lightens or even glamourises the scene, making her a heroine in a "crush the bullies" fantasy. The blood looks carefully painted, more like a Halloween costume than a revolting humiliation. Carrie looks like she's "aura farming", one person thinks.

"Carrie is not a 'girlboss moment', it's a mass killing," another person points out. "It ought to convey the horror of a school shooting, hundreds of people trapped in a burning building."

The ending is drastically different too, adding the kind of plot twist that's obligatory in any TV series that's aiming for a second season. I don't want to give too many spoilers away, but it seems to open the possibility of Carrie becoming a kind of X-men/Heroes/The Tomorrow People story.

Flanagan has said that he felt there was more of Carrie's story to tell and that he aims to bring in elements that reflect the larger world that King built through his later books like The Shining, Doctor Sleep and The Institute.

But is the series really telling more of Carrie's story of writing a completely different one that happens to have the same name?

On the outside, it’s the same old Studio we’ve seen for generations, but Apple keeps piling on the improvements and innovations in its silicon, and that’s lead to a machine that’s pulling ahead at the top of many of Creative Bloq’s benchmarking charts, will be a great alternative to the best laptop for animation and is looking hard to catch.

Key specifications

Design, build and display

• Small for a desktop Mac
• Lightweight

Opening up any new Apple product is always an exciting experience as they’re just so well packaged. You pull tabs and tear strips away from the box, then follow arrows to fold down the sides and reveal, in the case of the Studio, the aluminium monolith inside.

The M5 Max version of the Studio looks little different to the way it has all the way back to 2022, with all the changes concentrated on the inside. This means you get something that looks like a Mac Mini under a magnifying glass, only without any of the slight annoyances that have crept into the little computer over the years. The power button is at the back but you can reach it without turning the Mac over, there are loads of USB ports including some Type-As, there's an actual light on the front to tell you if it’s on, and a port for everything so there's less need for a dock or adapter. If you’re lucky enough to own an Apple Studio Display, it will sit on the foot like it was designed to go there.

If you’ve bought the M5 Ultra version of the Mac Studio, it’s heavier than either M5 Max edition due to the presence of an enhanced cooling system for the hotter chip, but the M5 Max is barely heavier than many laptops, and for something that’s settled nicely into the Mac Pro’s niche at the top of the product stack, that’s remarkable.

Design score: 4/5

Features

• Thunderbolt 5 aplenty
• Easy to reach ports

As Apple is reusing the same Studio chassis we’ve seen previously, and the M5 Max version even has the same IO as the M4 Max we reviewed previously, there's very little new here. The Wi-Fi has had a bump to version 7, the Bluetooth to version 6, but there's still plain Thunderbolt 5 (which is plenty fast enough) and a boring old HDMI port.

This machine doesn’t use the M6 - we haven’t seen that chip yet - but the M5 Max takes the already excellent M5 and just adds more to it. Apple is claiming 3.9x faster AI performance than the prior generation and 4.3x the peak AI compute performance of an M3 Ultra. You can spec it with up to 512GB of RAM, if you dare, and you’ll find that this has 50% more memory bandwidth. If that’s not enough, you can use Thunderbolt to connect multiple Mac Studios together to load the most demanding frontier-class open-weight models available. A cluster of four Mac Studios, so it’s claimed, can deliver up to 3x faster AI inference than a single system.

Apple is really pushing the AI capabilities, presumably getting in on the local model and agent action before the first crop of Nvidia RTX Spark machines arrives. But you know what else likes huge amounts of RAM and enormous bandwidth, not to mention loads of processing power? Creative work, that’s what. If you want hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes and AV1 decode, or to colour-grade uncompressed 8K footage while processing multiple concurrent video streams, this is the Mac to do it for you.

It’s also worth noting that Apple has moved its in-house creative apps to a subscription model, called Creator Studio. You get Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro and a bit more for a monthly fee rather than a large up-front cost, something that will hopefully rekindle interest in these underappreciated apps.

Feature score: 4/5

Benchmark scores

We test every one of our laptops using the same benchmarking software suite to give you a thorough overview of its suitability for creatives of all disciplines and levels. This includes:

• Geekbench: Tests the CPU for single-core and multi-core power, and the GPU for the system's potential for gaming, image processing, or video editing. Geekbench AI tests the CPU and GPU on a variety of AI-powered and AI-boosted tasks.
• Cinebench: Tests the CPU and GPU's ability to run Cinema 4D and Redshift.
• UL Procyon: Uses UL Solutions' Procyon software suite to test the system's ability for AI image generation in Stable Diffusion, its Microsoft Office performance and its battery life in a looping video test.
• Topaz Video AI: We use Topaz Video AI to test the system's ability to upscale video and convert video to slow-motion.
• PugetBench for Creators: We use the PugetBench for Creators benchmarking suite to test the system's ability to run several key tasks in Photoshop and Adobe Premiere Pro, as well as its performance when encoding/transcoding video.
• ON1 Resize AI: Tests the system's ability to resize 5 photos to 200% in a batch process. We take the total time taken to resize the images and divide by 5.

Performance

• Good at everything
• Even the fan isn't too loud

The M5 Max Studio we’ve got here is the top model, with six Super cores, 12 Performance cores (for a total of 18) and a 40-core GPU. It sits one level below the M5 Ultra, which is two M5 Max chips stuck together and can have up to 36 cores, split between 12 Super and 24 Performance, but which costs a lot more. You don’t get Efficient cores on this level of Mac, and it’s essentially the same chip we saw in the M5 Max version of the MacBook Pro, just given slightly more room to breathe in the Studio chassis. It’s backed up in the model sent to Creative Bloq by 128GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD, which contributes to the cost as well as appealing to the new crop of AI types who want to run their models locally.

And so we see it head to the top of our benchmark charts. In Geekbench 6 it takes the top spot in both the single- and multi-core tests, butting even more of a gap between the M5 and its closest rival, the Snapdragon X2 Elite. In Geekbench 2026 it leads the Core Ultra 9 290HX+ in the Razer Blade 18 by almost 3000 points in multi-core rendering, and it’s the first CPU to break the 200-point barrier in Cinebench 2024’s single-core test, in which we used to say that 100 was a good score.

The GPU does well too, sitting 4.2% behind the GeForce RTX 5070Ti in the latest HP Omen 35L - a full-size desktop card - in Cinebench 2026. It beats the popular 24-core Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX laptop CPU in multi-core rendering, and almost doubles the score of the Omen 35L’s CPU, the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D beloved of gamers, in the same test.

Speaking of games, if you were thinking of dropping this much money on a Mac and want to use it out of hours, it can get 60FPS out of Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K resolution using the ray-tracing ultra preset, as long as you turn on MetalFX upscaling and AMD FSR frame generation. Drop the res down to 1440p and you can go as high as 89FPS.

In single-precision AI workloads the M5 Max sits between gaming laptops with GeForce chips in our charts, still behind the big desktop PCs. It drops in the Quantized test, however, sitting behind the likes of the Geekom A9 Max, but still ahead of the vanilla M5.

It shines in creative apps though, taking a long lead at the top of the Premiere Pro benchmark chart, beating its portable sibling and the HP Omen 35L. It’s the same in Photoshop, where its results are 6% better than the MacBook Pro with the same CPU.

Performance score: 5/5

Price

In the spec we’ve reviewed here, the Mac Studio costs £6,899/$6,899, but with a lesser spec (M5 Max 16-core, 36GB RAM, 512GB storage) it starts at a more reasonable £2,499/$2,499. That’s still a big chunk of change, even if you are getting a lot of power in a small chassis, and you should definitely look at what a (much larger and noisier) PC with an Nvidia card can do for you in the same price bracket. There's not much else like the Mac Studio, however, and if it has the capabilities you need in a form factor you covet, you’re going to have to open your wallet.

Value score: 4/5

Who is it for?

• Creators and developers

Apple is going big on AI, but has also made a Mac that should be able to do the heavy lifting for many different creative disciplines. It will be overkill for many, as the basic M5 and the M6 that’s on the cusp of arriving are good enough for a lot of tasks. But if you find that you could do with a speed boost in your work, then it’s well worth looking at.

Buy it if...

• Your M1 machine is looking tired
• You prefer MacOS to Windows
• You can’t get enough raw power

Don't buy it if...

• Something cheaper will do the job
• You have little interest in AI
• You’re waiting to see what M6 can do

Also consider

If you're not sure which type of machine is best for you, see our guide to the best 3D printers based on our own reviews, but we rate this mid-range FDM printer very highly, and particularly for beginners who want to avoid buying a printer that they might outgrow too quickly. It provides native multicolour printing and larger print sizes than cheaper options, providing more flexibility to develop your craft.

• Browse 3D printer deals at Amazon

The best multicolour 3D printer for beginners?

The Kobra X isn't the cheapest 3D printer for beginners, but we think it could be a better long-term investment for newcomers who think they're going to want to stick with the craft and possibly even develop professionally. It's simple enough for a newcomer to get started with it but also versatile enough that most users won't outgrow it quickly.

Auto levelling, app control and AI monitoring make it easy to use, while the native 4-colour printing – expandable to 19 – mixed-material capabilities and large build volume mean you can grow into the hobby without having to upgrade your machine a year or so down the line.

If it's your first time looking for a 3D printer, be aware that there are two main families of device: resin and FDM printers.

For most beginners, and for 3D printer users in general, FDM is the way to go. It's easier and safer to handle, has lower running costs, less clean up, and you can get larger print sizes for your money. The exception would be if you really need the extra detail that resin 3D printing can provide for small things like tabletop gaming miniatures or small, detailed jewellery (for that, I'd recommend the Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Pro, currently reduced from $669 to $449 at Amazon).

You can see more deals below.

While Adidas uses several iconic logo designs, its three-stripes have become synonymous with the brand. The athletics company claims that White Fox's four-stripe design is "deceptively similar" to its own, calling for a legal resolution.

White Fox's four-stripe clothing designs have appeared throughout its advertising, which Adidas claims shows an "intention to trade off our reputation". Adidas has trademarked the iconic three stripes in Australia since 1957, and the athletic giant alleges White Fox's designs are "substantially identical with or otherwise deceptively similar."

White Fox's legal team has defended the move, claiming that other Australian brands like Cotton On and Sportscraft sell items with "similar decorative stripes". But Adidas has countered the defence, claiming that White Fox's advertisements feature "genuine" Adidas items, which could form "an association in the minds of consumers."

Adidas is seeking legal damages for the alleged infringement, including profits earned from the products, along with interest and legal costs. For more design disputes, take a look at why New Balance sued this rival athletics brand over a shoe logo or check out the latest Washington Commanders logo controversy.

It's also still a joy, if you'll forgive me. Everyone I know now gets a card I make personally, which is handy when you forget a birthday and can't get to the shop in time (that's happened more than once).

Below, I test and compare the older Joy and the new Joy 2 to see if the updated model is better, especially as right now the original cutter is on sale. I'll start with a basic comparison and then dig a little deeper into how they are to use.

Cricut Joy 2 vs Cricut Joy: quick comparison

The original Cricut Joy is small, simple, and good for cards, labels, and decals, with Smart Materials and foil transfer on board. No Print Then Cut, no scoring, and you have to open the front section every time you use it.

By comparison, the new Joy 2 follows the same small, compact craft-machine idea, but in a lighter, flatter body that's ready to go straight out of the box. Print Then Cut means full-colour stickers, and the bundle includes a scoring tool. This newbie is fully automatic, too, making it incredibly easy to use.

Cricut Joy 2 vs Cricut Joy: price

The Joy 2 starts at $99 / £99.99; for comparison, the original Joy started at $179, so the new model already looks like a bargain. That's for the machine alone, and most people will end up buying a bundle. The Essentials Bundle includes a fine point blade, a scoring tool, a dual-tip pen, a LightGrip mat, a card mat, a portable trimmer, a weeding tool, a scraper and a spatula, so there's plenty to get started with, and you don't need to buy extras before your first project.

These days, the original Joy is much cheaper and often on sale as Cricut promotes its new machine, so expect to pay closer to £50-£69 for this older model. If you are buying a Joy 2, look for bundle deals on the Cricut store for a good deal.

Cricut Joy 2 vs Cricut Joy: design

When the older Joy is in use, you have to open the front section, and it measures 23cm deep. The Joy 2 is 15cm deep and ready to go because nothing folds out. It's slightly wider at 24cm vs 22cm, but much flatter at about 7cm tall vs about 11cm, and it weighs around 1kg vs the original's 1.7kg. It's noticeably easier to pick up.

I used to store my Joy in the cupboard because it was taking up space on my desk. The Joy 2 can just stay out, or you can slide it into a desk drawer. The plug also comes with adaptors for each country, and they're easy to swap, so it travels well (and I've seen people unpack this at airport security, so it's a gadget some crafters can't live without).

Cricut Joy 2 vs Cricut Joy: what's new?

Print Then Cut is the big addition. You print your images on an inkjet printer, upload them to Cricut Design Space, and the Joy 2 cuts them out with high accuracy. The original Joy couldn't do this, so stickers and other full-colour printable projects are new territory.

Scoring is the other one. The Joy 2 comes with a scoring tool, which opens up a lot more projects, especially folded cards. It also comes with a card-making mat, and I've found it ideal for cards. I use it for labels too, cut from card or vinyl.

For quilting, it's been great. I cut cardboard templates on the Joy 2, then use them to cut quilt patterns, and it's a quick, easy way to fit it into a job without bringing out the larger Cricut Maker 5, which I always save for larger projects because of its size.

It's also easier to use than the original Joy. Everything with Cricut is easy, but at first I found it odd to leave the little cutter to decide what to cut and how. It's sensor-driven, so you set up the project in the Cricut app, press your material against the rollers, and the Joy 2 does the rest. If you use the mat, you put it in at the "load and go" stage, and it gets on with it. If you're new to digital crafting, this machine gets you cutting quickly with no hassle.

Cricut says it works with 75+ materials, up from 50+ on the original, and you can use Smart Materials without a mat. Design Space now includes AI tools that make it easier to create highly personalised cards and projects.

Cricut Joy 2 vs Cricut Joy: common features

Both machines are compact and beginner-friendly, work with Smart Materials and foil transfer, and have the same cutting width: 4.5 inches (11.4cm). That's why neither suits big projects. With Smart Materials, you can cut lengths of up to 48 inches (about 122cm) without a mat, which suits long banners and decals.

The software is the same, but when you log in to Design Space, select the Joy 2 from the drop-down menu so you only see compatible projects.

Cricut Joy 2 vs Cricut Joy: which should you buy?

If it's your first compact Cricut, buy the Joy 2. It's well-priced for the tech and use cases, takes up much less room, is easier to use, and adds Print Then Cut and scoring. With all this on offer, I wouldn't buy the original new.

If you already own a Joy, it depends on what you make. For simple cards and vinyl labels, the original is still a really good machine (and if that's all you need, it's on sale so at a reasonable price).

But overall, it's hard not to opt for the new Joy 2. If you want stickers, are short on desk space, or are a crafter like me who wants a small machine to support the big one, the Joy 2 is worth the upgrade.

Continuing our regular series of artist showcases, he briefly introduces three examples of his work below. If you're inspired, see our guides to the best drawing tablets and the best laptops for drawing and digital art.

Goblin Chirurgeon Reimagined

“A reimagining of Magic The Gathering's Goblin Chirurgeon Card, this piece transforms the original goblin with a hacksaw into a dark surgical session.”

Dragon Tamer

“This was created for a book with my mentor Kenny Vo based on the prompt Land of Legends. Exploring the girl’s story resulted in the tattoo ritual depicted here.”

Ethereal Goddess

“This began as a portrait study from reference before evolving into freeform exploration. I pushed the image even further with fantastical elements.”

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

Today's best drawing tablet deals

Inspired to work on your own digital art? See below for deals on drawing tablets that we've reviewed.

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Recently, billboard ads have stepped up, ditching static design and quite literally thinking outside the box. Unnerving and eye-catching in equal measure, the new Other Mommy billboard proves that breaking convention can have a huge impact.

The new billboard seems pretty unassuming at first. Featuring a picture of lead actress Jessica Chastain alongside the film's bold logo, it could easily be seen as just another static design. But give it time, and slowly it begins to come to life.

As people pass by, a single tear begins to drip from her eye, turning her creepy, waxen-faced smile into a far more foreboding image. The design shines in time-lapse, where you can see the slow yet eerie progression of the billboard.

A crying billboard for a horror movie is marketing genius," one X user wrote, adding "nightmares free of charge." Another chimed in, "That billboard is creepy as hell. Horror fans are eating good!" while another added, "That’s the coolest thing ever omg."

For more creepy design inspiration, check out the Other Mommy poster or take a look at the terrifying new You Can See Everything poster.

Little known until a few days ago, this feature buried in customers' account settings reveals some of the information the online retail giant thinks it's gleaned from your activity. This can vary from mundane records about preferences to surprisingly specific and descriptive observations about customers' habits, interests, lifestyles and buttocks.

Amazon introduced About You in May, but the recent Threads post above is largely responsible for bringing it to public attention in recent days. The section lists assumptions that Amazon's AI has formed based on customers' purchasing history, reviews, wishlists and conversations with Alexa (the OP above later concluded that the comment on her physique may have been deduced from her purchase of some “butt scrunch leggings”).

According to Amazon, the assumptions listed can influence the ads and product recommendations that it shows the user. You can edit or remove details that are wrong or that you don't want to be used for recommendations, and you can also import data from other AI bots to help Amazon build up a more detailed profile for you, should you be inclined to do that.

Discovery of the feature has triggered a wave of other Amazon users to check their About You sections and post screenshots of them to social media. In some cases, people have been Amazon's profiling to be eerily accurate, while others have found assumptions that were wildly off the mark.

We know by now that most tech companies profile us. What's surprised people is that Amazon's now letting us read the notes without having to make a freedom of information request. Google and Meta allow users to edit their ad preferences, but they use fairly broad categories. Amazon's go much more granular. It thinks it knows whether you "engage in serious coffee brewing", whether you care for a cat and whether you have "tall books".

While some people are saying they find this algorithmic profiling sinister, most seem to be amused. Perhaps we've become desensitised to data collection amid the normalisation of AI, or maybe Amazon's made a smart move, gaining trust by revealing some of the logic behind its algorithms.

But is Amazon showing us what it knows about us, or just what it wants us to know it knows? The company doesn't claim that the About You page represents all the data associated with an account, but rather a way to view and edit details used to personalise shopping recommendations. It's potentially only a carefully curated view of a small subset of the data it has on us.