Answering my prayers swoops 'Mary Magnum: Jiu-Jitsu Nun', a wonderfully silly micro-budget action thriller with a surprisingly sexy poster design. Emerging from the sea of floating heads and lazy minimalist movie posters plaguing the film world, it's safe to say my faith is somewhat restored – cinema is getting silly again.

The design in question replicates the VHS covers of the schlocky 70s grindhouse movies with faded imagery and distressed edges for an authentic retro feel. It stars Mary Magnum herself brandishing a gun (in a full nun's habit, of course). From the hilariously cheesy tagline "God forgives. She doesn't" to the slick Tarantino-esque typography, the poster has an artful balance of campy appeal and authentic style.

"You already had me with the image on the poster you didn’t need to go so hard with the title," One redditor wrote. "What a name! What a premise! What a poster," another praised, while one fan added, "Close enough, welcome back Grindhouse."

This retro-style poster trend seems to be increasingly emerging, as we saw with the recent poster for Lee Cronin's The Mummy. As a huge fan of grindhouse horror and VHS design aesthetics, I'm excited to see this style revival and hope it'll be more than a fleeting trend. For more design inspiration, check out these retro Bruce Lee ballet posters that blend Way of the Dragon with Saturday Night Fever.

Then there was the great Hexed vertical orientation conspiracy theory that suggested the movie had been framed to looked good on TikTok (and this was even before Disney even announced plans to bring TikTok to Disney+). Throughout it all, there's the injustice perceived by fans of The Owl House, an animated series that Disney cut short but which some think inspired Hexed.

The character reveals at the D23 fan convention don't seem to have done anything to win over the doubters (make sure you don't miss the news from D23 about Pixar's Ghost Market and Disney's Oswald too).

Disney revealed that alongside Hailee Steinfeld as teen outsider Billie Doe and Rashida Jones as her mum Alice Walton, the animated movie will star Walton Goggins as a three-eyed cat called Beef Roger Crummchuk and Jodie Foster as key villain Queen Celeste (above).

Concept art was also revealed, which appears to show three witches: one with purple hair and two with pink hair. That means that now as well as the wrath of The Owl House fans, who immediately see the Blights as an influence, there are also people suggesting the characters are inspired by Trix, the trio of witch antagonists in the Winx Club series, or even The Dazzlings, a musical group in My Little Pony Equestria Girls.

When asked about it at D23, Disney chief creative officer Jared Bush denied that The Owl House had inspired Hexed. "Good question, but Hexed is not inspired by The Owl House. We love witches. Tomorrow you will see we have a unique take on the world of witches," he said.

The movie's directors, Josie Trinidad, who was head of story on Ralph Breaks the Internet and Zootopia, and Jason Hand, co-director of Moana 2 head of story on Encanto, have said that Billie from Hexed is a very different heroine from the likes of Moana or Mirabel, with a sharp and more dangerous personality. They've also revealed that although the film will feature lots of music, it won't be a traditional Disney musical.

It's understandable that fans would still be annoyed over The Owl House. The first Disney IP to feature a same-sex kiss between leading characters, the series was was a breath of fresh air. It was acclaimed by critics, juries and critics alike, but creator Dana Terrace said the third season been cut short in 2023 because it "did not fit the Disney brand".

Nevertheless, trios of witches are a trope going back much further than The Owl House, to Shakespeare’s Macbeth or even the Greek Fates. Disney plays heavily with archetypes, but so do all storytellers. It's the new spin they put on them that matters.

Hexed will be released on 25 November.

While there are certain productive items that will help organise your space – storage, desk mats, etc – a perfect way to bring some fun to your setup is with the help of desk accessories. From desk pets to Lego sets, these are the perfect desk accoutrements to bring a little personality to your setup.

The new Instagram logo feels colder, more digital and less connected; the opposite of what the platform wants. It's also amusing to see people now calling the app 'Instagzam', which sounds like it could be an energy drink.

Logo redesigns are undertaken for various reasons, from fixing scalability issues to reflecting a brand's evolution or changing goals, or to target a new demographic. Instagram head Adam Mosseri's rationale for the social media platform's new wordmark is that it was "time for a refresh" simply because the existing design had been around for 10 years.

That raised eyebrows among other brands, including some who have been using the same wordmark for decades. From KitKat, McDonald's and Wendy's to newer brands like mobile phone maker Oppo and design platform Canva, community managers have been having a ball posting images of what it might look like their employers decided it was time for an update.

Some people are digging Instagram's refresh, others never forgave Meta for the last Instagram rebrand ten years ago. It feels to me like Instagram wants to look to hip again and recover the cool of what it used to be, but that's going to take a lot more than a new logo design.

It's no secret what's driving that cost up, either. As I explained in my previous article, the cost of memory has been climbing inexorably of late. And that trend shows no signs of slowing, largely because demand from the AI industry is sucking up all the supply. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently noted during an earnings call that soaring global memory and silicon costs have created a "100-year flood on memory pricing". 

RAM and storage now account for around a third of the cost of building an iPhone Pro, up from about 10% a year ago, and TrendForce expects that share to pass 40% by the first half of next year. Apple isn't a charity, and isn't making iPhones out of the goodness of their hearts; they need to make a profit. Calculations by CounterPoint Research expect the cost of an iPhone 18 Pro to jump by around $300 compared to its predecessor. Which, considering that the price of an iPhone 17 Pro is not exactly small change, is pretty alarming stuff.

Before you panic, though, it's worth bearing in mind that things may not be quite as clear-cut as they might seem. 

Price vs profit

One fundamental point to consider is that the cost of making an iPhone, or indeed any device, is not just the cost of the materials you use. You also have to factor in the costs of assembly, distribution, marketing, retail margin, the software and services layered on top, and quite a few other things I probably haven't thought of. So a rise in component costs of, say, 40%, won't automatically translate into a 40% price rise. Apple may pull off a miracle and find savings in other areas.

Also, there's a possiblity to Apple may choose to just cut its profit margins to keep prices under control. After all, if buyers can't stomach a $300 price hike – and in this economy, that seems likely – the company runs the risk of not making much money at all. A small price hike means it'd make less on each individual phone, but probably sell more phones than it otherwise would have. 

As the Trendforce report notes, this is pretty much what happened with Apple's recent MacBook launches, where prices went up, but nowhere near as steeply as Apple's production costs did.

Ultimately, we don't know what the price of the next iPhone series will be until the day of launch; probably neither does Apple at this stage. But here's hoping they can pull something out of the bag and find a way to avoid that predicted $300 hike. 

Because let's be realistic. Given the amount people around the world are feeling squeezed right now, that's going to prompt an awful lot of them to say "I'm out".

Before Mickey, there was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, also known as Oswald Rabbit or just Ozzie (NOT to be confused with Disney's Ozzy Fox). He was Disney and Ub Iwerks' first recurring cartoon star, appearing in 26 shorts between 1927 to 1928.

However, Oswald legally belonged to distributor Universal Pictures and producer Winkler Pictures led by Charles Mintz. A contract dispute led the latter to nab Disney's animators and take Oswald in house. Disney created Mickey as a replacement, and the rest is history. After over 150 more cartoons for Universal, Oswald faded into obscurity after the early 1940s.

Completing the circle, Disney bought the rights in 2006. Although Oswald's now in the public domain, the studio will finally bring him back to the screen properly next year for his own mini series on Disney+. But will nostalgic fans finally be happy?

Until now, Disney has only brought Oswald back for short animations, such as the one above to mark Disney's 100th anniversary. He also appeared alongside Mickey Mouse for the first time in the 2010 video game Epic Mickey.

The new Oswald will be a three-part series written, directed and executive produced by Jon Favreau. The actor and filmmaker has previously directed Elf, The Jungle Book and The Lion King live-action remakes and, more recently, The Mandalorian and Grogu.

Many Disney fans have been craving a return to traditional 2D animation since the studio's switch to 3D in the early 2000s. Oswald looks set to deliver that, but with a twist: it will combine hand-drawn 2D animation with live action, like Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

The cast includes Amy Sedaris, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Martin, Al Madrigal, Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Ryder Allen, and Mykal-Michelle Harris, who voiced Blaze in Toy Story 5.

Disney says the animation will be done by veteran Disney animators and international studios such as SPA Studios, the studio behind Klaus. Live-action settings will include Disneyland and Walt Disney’s Burbank office.

That suggests that the series may be presented as a meta-story exploring Disney history rather than a straight cartoon in its own fictional word (but without the real-world controversy that accompanied Coyote Vs Acme, coming next week). There's not too long to wait to find out. Oswald is scheduled for release on Disney+ in February 2027.

I wanted to create an image that blended simplistic shapes of an almost stylised quality with realistic texturing. Almost all of my ideas take shape in VR, but I usually refine my models in Blender, one of the best 3D modelling programs. For this work, I decided to leave my concepts a little bit simpler than usual.

My main inspiration for such a world is ‘blame’. I’m constantly enamoured with the idea of never-ending megastructures, and how people would find their own place within them. But I wanted my take to be a little more upbeat and romantic, rather than dark and dystopian.

If you need a device to work on, see our guides to the best laptops for 3D modelling and the best drawing tablets.

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

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Sure, Coco has skeletons, but this new Pixar movie is being presented as a true ghost story with the thrills and jumps that come with supernatural horror – although the short teaser has people wondering whether it will be genuinely scary. The vertical mobile vlog-style promo channels a Blair Witch found footage concept that blends the spooky and comedic in equal measure.

But Disney and Pixar fans have one big question. Haven't we seen this kid before?

Pixar's Ghost Market teaser

Ghost Market was revealed on stage at Disney’s fan convention by Pixar chief content officer Pete Doctor. The 3D animated movie is being directed by Trevor Jimenez, known for his acclaimed short Weekends, and was inspired by Asian myths about stores where the living and dead cross paths.

The star is Kyle, a "fast-talking teenager and content creator from Chicago”, whose life gets turned upside down when his mother forces him to go on vacation to Hawaii.

"He stumbles into a mysterious hidden market in the middle of nowhere. He realises his hunt for a late-night snack has turned into something bigger. He’s discovered the crossroads of the living and the dead,” Pete said.

Pixar fans were immediately intrigued by the supernatural premise, which looks like it will see the animation studio venture into darker, myth‑inspired territory following afterlife-themed movies Coco and Soul. The teaser shows Kyle getting chased by a bowl of noodles.

People are also fascinated by the uncanny resemblance between Kyle and the baby from Disney's Ice Age. Is this another case of Disney same-face syndrome?

The human baby in the first Ice Age movie was named Roshan, often called "Pinky" or "Squirt" by other characters. Could Ghost Market have a massive twist where Kyle himself turns out to be the ghost of Roshan, or the character's spirit reincarnated in contemporary Chicago? I have a feeling this might be a stretch even as Pixar delves deeper into the supernatural.

It will be really interesting though to see how Pixar strikes the balance between the spooky elements and comedy in Ghost Market. Some wonder whether learning into darker themes will make the movie too intense for Pixar's younger audiences. The environment design in the teaser does look eerie and ethereal, but Pixar’s track record and the brief glimpse we have into Kyle's amusing character suggest the movie will balance scares with heart and humor.

Ghost Market is lined up for a spring 2028 release.

Pixar also revealed the first concept art for Coco 2 (above), showing an older Miguel Rivera with the perfect Mexican teen haircut.

We have to wait until 2029 for this one! Between Ghost Market and Coco 2, we'll have Incredibles 3, scheduled for June 2028.

Also check out the tour of the Pixar D23 pavilion below, and don't miss the news about Disney's Oswald, its first 2D animation in years.

Admittedly, I'm not surprised by the backlash; Instagram has been rocking the cursive wordmark since 2010, becoming an enduring part of its identity as it evolved across the years. Fingers were pointed, accusations were thrown. This is all Gen Z's fault because... they can't read script fonts.

Taking to X, one user claimed, "If you're curious why Instagram changed their wordmark today, it's because schools stopped teaching cursive ~10 years ago so GenZ+ can't read it." Others soon piled on, revelling in the Gen Z mockery, with one person writing, "Gen Z thought it was a weird scribble,” while another lamented, "Can't believe cursive has become a lost art already." Well, good news, it's not.

As a Gen Z, I'm obviously fairly heated about these claims. I was born in 2000 and yes, I can read cursive. I didn't sit through hours of joined-up-handwriting classes in primary school to be accused of being cursive illiterate. Not to mention the new Instagram logo is still a stylised cursive font, just a less legible, slightly unconventional one. The truth is, the new Instagram logo wasn't made for my generation; it was simply time for a refresh.

There's a temptation to prescribe a greater purpose to Instagram's rebrand as a way to rationalise why many of us don't like it, but the truth couldn't be more simple – the brand was getting stale. While I know I'm feeding into ragebait in writing this article, the reaction to Instagram's new wordmark points to a wider issue – logo backlashes aren't really about design anymore. People are tired of empty redesign, and hungry for rebrands with purpose.

So, here we are again. Adobe's recent blog post titled "Introducing Adobe for ChatGPT: Create, edit and get work done — all in ChatGPT" might have made you think that their team-up with the chatbot was a new thing. But just for the record, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Express and Adobe Acrobat have all been living inside ChatGPT since December 2025. That in itself is not new.

What is new, though is that these tools – along with a bunch of others, including Firefly, Premiere, Lightroom, Illustrator, InDesign and Adobe Stock – can now be accessed via a single, unified plugin. Which, on the face of it, sounds very handy.

Indeed, Adobe have made things even simpler than that. You now just have to type "@Adobe" into ChatGPT, then describe what you want, and the plugin will decide which of its 70-plus tools to reach for. Pretty neat, huh?

Even more intriguingly, you don't have to be a Creative Cloud member, you can just use it as a guest. And I can imagine that will excite a lot of people who don't know how to use design software, or who've never used Creative Cloud and want to know what it's capable of. 

That said, Creative Bloq's audience is mainly made of creative professionals for whom that won't be the case. So if that includes you, and you're already a Creative Cloud subscriber, is there any point?

After all, you already have Photoshop's generative fill, Premiere's auto-reframe and Firefly within a Creative Cloud interface that's probably become second-nature to you. So instead of being able to access features layers, masks, granular colour work and undo history through a series of familiar menus, you're faced with typing a sentence and hoping the plugin picks the right tool from a multitude of options. Not exactly a sense of being in control.

I'd guess that in most cases, this will be more trouble than its worth to you. But at the same time, I think Adobe gets points for giving you extra options. And one place I could imagine this being helpful is at the edges of a job, rather than the core of it.

For example, generating event badges out of entries in a spreadsheet, fashioning video shorts for socials out of two-hour video, whipping up a quick mood board before (or even during) a client call... these are things Creative Cloud handles well as it is. But if this new ChatGPT plugin can save you 15 minutes of messing about with menus, why not?

Even Adobe's own press release accepts that this option isn't for prime time: in their own words, "when you want advanced editing, creative control or pixel-level precision, you can continue your work in Adobe’s apps right where you left off." For "pixel-level precision" you might read, "something that doesn't look like it's been knocked up in a few minutes". Which is, of course, what you want for finished work. For some of the in-between stuff, though, "knocked up in a few minutes" might actually be fine.

In short, I don't think Adobe's ChatGPT plugin is a game changer, or even anything many creatives will find useful in the long term. But at the same time, I don't think it's a bad thing to offer. It might be fun trying it out. And who knows? It might help you to speed up some bits of your work that you really hate. Probably worth a try anyway.

It's good news that Spotify wants to tackle the epidemic of AI content on its platform. But it also looks like a crystal clear admission by a big tech brand that something has gone wrong, and we're surrounded by slop.

Spotify recently announced that it has removed 75 million spammy tracks. Deezer has shared the alarming statistic that more than half of the tracks uploaded to its service every day are AI generated. The proliferation of AI slop isn't some distant problem; it's happening now, and you might be listening to it without even realising it. Those lo-fi beats you're working to? Who knows who made them, and whether it was a person at all.

Nobody asked for this. Users didn't wake up one morning demanding an endless supply of synthetic artists with suspiciously polished album covers and just as suspiciously polished beats. And real artists certainly didn't ask to be buried beneath a bunch of algorithmically produced background noise. We've gone so far as to say AI is killing music, with fake bands like The Velvet Sundown drowning the platform with crisp yet somehow dead-behind-the-eyes soundscapes.

It's the platforms that allowed it to happen. Today's media platforms and social media reward quantity and novelty. They embraced the shiny new thing, AI, and now they're having to clean up the mess.

Spotify isn't alone. YouTube has recently tightened its approach to low quality AI content by demonetising accounts. LinkedIn is letting users report posts they think are AI. It's encouraging that the tide seems to be turning, with badges and filters naming, shaming and, most importantly, hiding artificially generated content.

But this feels very much like a problem of big tech's own making. Both AI and streaming promise infinite content. Combining the two is a recipe for infinite slop.

Users of one particular top-of-the-range phone were disappointed that their snaps of the solar eclipse came out looking like photos of a supermoon being eclipsed by another moon. The phone's AI interpreted the sun as the moon and pasted a fake lunar surface texture over it.

The AI fail is clear in a video by a French tech website below, where the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, Oppo Find X9 Ultra, Xiaomi 17 Ultra, Google Pixel 10 Pro XL are put head to head using the same solar filter and identical testing protocol. One came up sorely lacking (this is another reason why people might want to learn how to make a pinhole camera to view the solar eclipse).

Warning: never look directly at a solar eclipse and never try to photography one without using dedicated solar filters and solar viewers.

There was a famous controversy over Samsung's AI-enhanced moon photos in the past. The company claims that what it's tech does has been misunderstood and insists that it only sharpens real detail rather than generating entirely new imagery.

In Frandroid's comparison video above, Samsung's Galaxy S26 Ultra is actually one of the better performers. Bottom of the class is the Xiaomi 17 Ultra – Ultra in name, but mendacious in nature. Its Leica optical lens designs and colour science went out the window when its 'Supermoon Mode' automatically triggered and pasted a lunar texture over the sun's surface as the moon began to obscure it. All that was missing was Mario twerking.

Others users say they had a similar experience while using the phone during the solar eclipse on Wednesday, with many expressing disappointment by the AI overlay.

"The moon was the other one. It detected a bright sphere in the sky, went into 'supermoon' mode, and straight up invented the entire surface," one person writes.

It is possible to disable Xiaomi's Supermoon mode if you go into the settings, but the comical AI blunder raises the question, what's the point of taking a photo of the moon, or of any subject if you're not actually capturing what you're seeing? There are plenty of stock photos of supermoons out there, or you could go straight to an AI image generator.

For comparison, here's what the phones tested cost where you are.

At the time of writing, the live action-animation hybrid, which Ketchup Entertainment bought from Warner Bros to bring to the screen, has a 96% positive rating from 46 reviews on the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The Hollywood Reporter calls it a "hilarious delight, one of the best live-action/animation films ever" and says it will be "treasured by Looney Tunes fans".

But the movie's critical success is about more than just nostalgia for classic characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. It's about the film's underdog status and accidental meta-commentary on corporate greed.

The germ of Coyote vs ACME was an article written by Ian Frazier for The New Yorker magazine in 1990. It was written in the style of a legal brief making the case for Wile E. Coyote in a lawsuit against the fictional Acme Corporation for repeatedly selling 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 Acme conglomerate to court.

The Hollywood Reporter, has published a deep dive into the troubled history of Coyote vs Acme's journey to the cinema. It reports that Warner Bros spent $70 million on the movie, which it originally intended to release an HBO Max Original.

However, the studio decided to drop the movie in November 2023 so it could claim a tax write off to the tune of $30 million. It eventually sold the movie to Ketchup for $50 million, and now a film meant for streaming is coming to the big screen with more hype than it might have originally enjoyed.

Producer Chris DeFaria speaks of how the film's team acted quickly to "take control of the narrative" and prevent Warner's decision from being seen as a sign that Coyote vs Acme was a bad movie. That included a lengthy fan campaign and interventions at industry events.

Director Dave Green also reveals that the team had to fight to defend certain creative decisions against execs at Warner, including the inclusion of an animated Peter Lorre.

The effusive praise for Coyote vs. Acme in the reviews this week isn't just an endorsement of its slapstick comedy or the nostalgic charm of Looney Tunes characters. It’s also a lesson in how audiences value underdog stories, especially when they turn out to mirror real-world corporate power plays.

The movie’s resilience now amplifies its message about corporate greed. It's become a reflection of how we, as viewers, will still root for the little guy standing up against massive corporations, and a cheeky reminder that sometimes the best stories are the ones that the big studios try to bury.

Coyote Vs Acme will be released on 28 August.

The main Unreal Engine 6 news so far has been around the convergence of the standard engine with the Unreal Editor for Fortnite and the controversial decision to gradually phase out Blueprints and the traditional C++ Actor system in favour of Verse, a new text-based programming language built for a unified metaverse and Scene Graph architecture.

Now we've got a first glance of an experimental new reference mode for Lumen, Unreal's global illumination and reflection system. Apparently added to Unreal Engine's UE6-Main branch, it looks set to take cinematics artists closer to the ability to use only emissive sources instead of fake lights.

As shared by VFX artist and Unreal Engine supervisor Dylan Browne in the YouTube video above, LumenRef appears to be a reference-quality Lumen, "somewhat per pixel", that gives a "stunning pathtraced feel to deferred renders but orders of magnitude faster than using the full path tracer".

The scene above in the demo has no lights, Dylan says. It's lit only by those emissive signs, with almost pixel perfect lighting and reflections through the scene. "This is an absolute game changer for rendering cinematics in Unreal," the artist says.

Each frame takes around 30 seconds to render (in this case in 8K with 64 temporal samples on an AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7975WX and Nvidia RTX 5090).

The new Lumen mode appears to be for cinematics rather than games for now. Dylan says it does run realtime but is very noisy. Nevertheless, this is an early prototype that's almost certain to evolve.

Alas, there are still well over two years to go before the full release of the next-generation platform. Unreal Engine 6 is expected to get an Early Access release in late 2027 and a full launch 12 to 18 months later.

In the meantime, check out our guide to the best game development software. You might also need one of the best laptops for game development and the best graphics cards.

Sankar Thiagasamudram, though, thinks this is a bad situation to be in. The CEO of Californian audio company Audeze, known for its planar-magnetic headphones, such as the MM-500, says he's working hard to make multiple headphones unnecessary with the Maxwell gaming range.

His pitch, in short, isn't: "buy these headphones, they sound amazing". It's, "buy these headphones, and then you won't need three other pairs... (and also they sound amazing!)"

Understanding the market

To those of us who enjoy listening to quality audio, it can seem puzzling why our friends and colleagues put up with crappy cans. But Sankar takes a bird's eye view.

"High-end audio on its own is a tough sell to a mainstream market if it comes with compromises," he reasons. "To capture a wider audience, a product must first satisfy modern lifestyle requirements: comfort, industrial design, wireless stability, active noise cancellation, and multipoint connectivity. Once those baselines are flawlessly covered, you can layer a premium, audiophile-grade sonic experience on top."

In other words, he's less interested in impressing you during a three-minute trial in a shop, and more interested in headphones that will get you through all-night edit sessions, endless client calls, and a weekend of kicking back with your friends gaming, with high quality sound.

Built for workflow

Audeze's willingness to build around people's actual day-to-day habits is no accident. It's how their pro-audio line originally came about.

"When we launched the LCD-3 in 2011, we noticed an influx of studio engineers adopting it," Sankar recalls. "However, delicate wood rings aren't practical for rugged, day-to-day studio handling, and the original impedance required heavy amplification. So we developed the LCD-X specifically for creators, swapping wood for durable, matte-finished aluminium rings and re-engineering the drivers to be easily driven by a laptop, mixing console, or dedicated amp." This is the exact approach that Audeze took to the recent MM-520, and MM-500 before that.

To my mind, that's pretty significant. Audeze didn't set out to capture the creator market; it simply noticed creators were already using its headphones and adapting them to their work. It's the same instinct that's since shaped Maxwell 2 ANC, and it show how good Audeze is at listening to how people actually use its products, rather than hoping they might.

No need to swap

When focussing in on the Maxwell range (above photos), one practical payoff is its ability to handle game and chat audio as separate audio streams. "A great example is Maxwell's hardware-level game and chat mixing," Sankar explains. "When connected via USB or our ultra-low-latency dongle, the host system recognises the headset as two distinct audio endpoints. This allows seamless on-the-fly mixing."

You don't need to be a gamer to appreciate the broader idea, either. In theory, a single pair of headphones could handle a Zoom call, a reference mix and casual listening, without forcing you to constantly switch between different sound signatures.

Of course, there's a difference between being capable of handling all these jobs and being the absolute best tool for each one. A dedicated studio monitor, gaming headset or ANC travel headphone will still have advantages in particular situations. But Sankar's argument is: if one pair can do all those jobs well enough, why keep buying different headphones for each one?

Then there's Audeze's SLAM technology, which stands for Symmetric Linear Acoustic Modulator. According to Sankar, it began as an attempt to solve a mundane problem: a crinkling noise in the company's electrostatic headphones caused by air pressure around the ultra-thin diaphragm.

The solution turned out to have an unexpected benefit, helping Audeze extend bass response and reduce distortion across the wider frequency range. It's a good example of how solving one practical problem can lead to an unexpected improvement elsewhere.

Key takeaway

The practical benefit for anyone editing audio or video is a headset that renders low-end detail more accurately without relying as heavily on EQ. It's a small thing, but it's the sort of small thing that saves you second-guessing your mix on a different pair of speakers later. So maybe it's a big thing, really.

None of this means the Maxwell will replace a studio monitor set-up for serious mixing work. But as one pair of headphones that can cope with calls, casual reference checks and your gaming needs, Sankar makes a persuasive case.

"Our North Star will always be uncompromised audio," he stresses. "If delivering the next generation of acoustic performance or computational audio requires us to integrate advanced sensors, bio-metrics, or new physical architectures, we'll absolutely do it. We don't view tradition and technology as opposing forces; we look to merge them."

This new little gadget aims to solve one of phone gaming's biggest frustrations: when someone calls mid-game, and you have a controller attached, you have to wrestle with it to get to your messages and calls. As the name suggests, the FlipPad's answer is basically to, well… just flip it down. Okay, so there’s a small part of me that loves how we’re heading back to the ‘90s with accessories like this, and I remember clicking on lights and magnifiers to my Game Boy in much the same way. And that’s part of the appeal, for me anyway.

The new gadget is built around portrait gaming, which makes it different to something like the GameSir X5 Lite or Backbone One controller, which simply turns your handset into a tiny landscape console. The FlipPad sits alongside your phone and gives you a physical D-pad and ABXY buttons, so retro games, arcade titles and controller-supported mobile games can be played with something a bit more tactile than virtual buttons. In some ways it’s more akin to the Evercade TATE Grip that turns the EXP-R retro game console vertically.

FlipPad is a return to physical buttons

The FlipPad appeals because touchscreen controls and virtual buttons just don’t feel the same as pressing actual buttons; it’s one of the reasons I keep picking up the newest retro handheld, the Sinclair GamerCard: its rubber discs may be a little weird, but they just feel good. FlipPad is aiming for something similar, and it’s a design I feel could be perfect for playing retro games on a phone.

8BitDo has gone for a wired USB-C connection too, so there's no Bluetooth pairing and, according to the company, no wireless connection dropouts or latency to worry about. Plug it in and play, which is pretty much what you want from a phone accessory. It's also small enough to carry around, doesn't need its own battery or charger, and is designed to work with most phone cases, so you shouldn't have to strip your phone down every time you fancy a quick game.

The FlipPad launches today for £24.99. It works with iOS 26.2 or later and Android 13.0 or later.

Yet these old rules of premium branding have collapsed because Gen Z never bought into them, just as they never bought into heritage branding. Gen Z consumers evaluate brands in the same way they evaluate everything else: laterally, comparatively, and without the deference on which the old hierarchy depended. A drinks brand isn't competing with other drinks brands. Instead, it competes with the best experience that person had yesterday: the app that worked seamlessly, the café that named the grower, the moisturiser that itemised every ingredient.

When the benchmark is every category simultaneously, price loses its authority as a proxy for quality. The functional gap between premium and mid-market has narrowed across almost every category. What separates brands that gain loyalty versus more transactional brands is a genuine feeling that this was made for a person, not a market segment.

Design for the long hello

For Gen Z, buying items that last isn’t idealism; it’s just good economics. Permanence for this group isn’t indulgence, it makes common sense.

Capgemini found that 89% of consumers name durability as a guiding factor across categories, but thrift isn’t driving that, it’s a question: will this purchase still mean something in five years’ time?

Design something worth keeping and keeping becomes its own reward. Stanley took the everyday drinks cup and redesigned it around permanence: a lifetime warranty, a vessel weighted and finished to signal durability. A pleasant surprise for Stanley was that once people owned one cup, they wanted more.

The practical consideration for any brand should hinge on whether the packaging can earn a place in the home once the product is gone. Loewe's ceramic candle holders give a clear answer: the vessel outlasts the product by design, not by accident.

Own the specific, not the broad

The cultural authority that once came from being universally recognisable has shifted away from reach towards rootedness. What Gen Z reads as credibility isn't scale but depth.

Gen Z consumers use products to signal who they are. A brand speaking their specific cultural language earns something a globally optimised visual system cannot: the feeling of being seen rather than targeted.

The most culturally intelligent brands aren't adapting. They're building from the culture, not towards it. Indian chocolate brand Subko runs its packaging in Devanagari and Kannada and traces every ingredient to a named farm. That local specificity is the product. Gully Labs builds sneakers as collectible documents of modern Indian street culture, gaining global traction precisely because of how rooted they are, not despite it. Cultural authority comes from depth, not reach. A brand that genuinely belongs somewhere will always outperform a brand trying to belong everywhere.

Make the encounter the brief

Shelf performance used to be the primary design brief but now the product also performs in the bathroom, at the table, or in the corner of a photo. It exists in a permanent state of being seen by someone other than its buyer. Gen Z shops with that in mind.

Deloitte data puts 47% of consumers in the category of active value-seekers: people who require a product to justify itself socially. Being worth the price and worth being seen with are equally weighted criteria.

Rhode's phone case embodies this shift. The product sits on a phone, appears in every selfie, and generates media without a media budget. 818 Tequila designed a miniature keychain bottle: an accessory first, a product second. Both brands understood that the encounter is the marketing. Design for it intentionally.

Lead with the true thing

Density of claims used to mean quality: if a brand had a lot to say, it must be worth it. Now restraint is a statement of confidence, and saying less is a premium signal. The Ordinary skincare products name the active ingredient and state the concentration; there’s no narrative or lifestyle imagery. Its clinical type and bare packaging trust consumers to know what they are buying. In the same category, Drunk Elephant built its identity around a public exclusion list: six ingredient categories it will not use. It’s defined by what it removes, not what it adds. That’s radical clarity delivered with personality.

Bake conviction into the brief

Each of these shifts signals something significant about the brand. Building for permanence means believing in your product, while leading with ingredients means transparency.

None of this requires a luxury price point. It needs conviction baked into the brief, not applied as a layer at the end. The brands getting this right didn't arrive at it through execution. They started from it.

For more, see why brands need to ditch the monolithic Gen Z concept.

Admittedly, open-ears are never going to compete with the best wired headphones, and the audiophiles out there may turn their noses up at these compact buds, but I'm here to fight their corner. Lightweight, unobtrusive and surprisingly crisp, I'm happy to announce I've met my new audio soulmate.

The look

I've been curious about open-ear audio options for a while now, as AirPods (and AirPods-adjacent options) have never really done it for me – my individuality complex needs something more... underground. And while beauty is subjective, in my humble opinion the Clip Pros are aesthetically gorgeous.

The design is simple and clean in line with Nothing's future-forward aesthetic, featuring a matte white case with a large silver dial on top (more on that later). As for the buds themselves, the ultra-lightweight build and covert design make them a great, unfussy option, and while I predict the clip stem will be stylistically divisive, I happen to like the look. More than an audio option, the Clip Pros are the ultimate accessory, toeing the line between playful tech and fashion statement.

The sound

I said I was going to try and convert you to these open earbuds, but I must ask that you approach them with an open mind. No, they're not going to perform the same as a pair of noise-cancelling wireless headphones, but the integrated Ultra Bass Technology brings a nice body to the sound. It's clear enough that I can feel immersed without losing track of my surroundings, perfect for when you want to soundtrack your life but still be tuned in.

I find myself gravitating towards my Clip Pros during my evening walks around the city, where having an open ear is sensible for safety. The audio is surprisingly crisp and clear despite the buds' open design, and there's minimal noise leakage (great news for my paranoia that people can hear me listening to Britney Spears on the bus). I even put them to the test in the office and can confirm they are delightfully covert, despite taking a bit of trust to get used to.

The function

Naturally, these open earbuds aren't going to be the best performing when it comes to audio quality, but there's a place for them if you're fed up with stuffy headphones that suffocate your ears. Their ultra-light build makes them a great compact commuter option and everyday companion that can be easily stowed away in a pocket.

When it comes to functionality, the Clip Pros are an absolute treat. Straight out of the box, I found that the earbuds were a doddle to connect as they instantly appeared on my phone's Bluetooth device list. Once connected, they make a little blink sound, and you're good to go.

The usual earbud controls are present – tap once to pause, tap twice to skip a song, tap thrice to go back. My only minor gripe is the volume. Controlled by holding down the button that lurks behind your ear (left for volume down, right for up), I find the reaction time a little slow, especially with the earbuds' gentle bleep to let you know it's responding, so I find it easier to control my sound via my phone or, even better, with that nifty silver dial.

A design delight, the Clip Pros Smart Dial is a wonderful touch that adds an extra layer of control to your setup. Already, it gains major points for the clicking sound as it turns (I'm a sucker for something tactile that I can fidget with). You can customise your listening experience via the Nothing app, which is surprisingly straightforward and well worth the 30-second minor faff. Check out my set-up below.

I was initially a bit sceptical about the Smart Dial being a little too smart (a.k.a, triggering in my pocket when I don't want it to), but thankfully Nothing has that covered. Tap twice and hold; the dial will lock, so there's no chance of non-consensual interruption. However, it does alert you with a scary robot lady that says "SMART DIAL DISABLED", which spooked me on first encounter – you have been warned.

Charging

Now I must confess, I spent an embarrassingly long time trying to work out how to put my earbuds back in the case, but once you've got it down, they snap back into place easily. The 10 hours of playback time mean that you rarely have to give them a proper charge, and with only 10 minutes, you get 4 hours of juice – great news if you're in a pinch.

Final thoughts

Open earbuds will always be divisive given their unconventional design, but for some (a.k.a. me), I think they're a perfect fit. If you're looking for an audio option that feels light and unnoticeable in ear, the Clip Pros are a delight to wear all day. Do you sacrifice a little noise cancellation? Yes, but what you regain is an in-tune connection to the outside world.

The truth is I don't always want to shut the world out – whether it's for my safety when walking around alone, or simply because I want to feel present. Nothing's Clip Pro provide the perfect background soundtrack to my day-to-day life. If unique style, comfort, and convenience are your main prerogatives, Nothing's open earbuds are a perfect fit.

Below, Jin explains the concepts behind four examples of his work.

Corruption

“This piece depicts someone consumed and controlled by wicked desires, twisted into something hideous and deformed.”

New Species

“After an ecological catastrophe devastates Earth, civilisation is nearly destroyed. Nature reclaims dominance, and species that slept for thousands of years begin to awaken.”

Exploring the Ruins

“Deep within an ancient continent lies a long forgotten demon temple. Years later, adventurers drawn in by rumours of a mysterious power that could reshape the world journey to uncover its secrets.”

Demon

“A malevolent demon that preys on human desires and greed, cunningly taking everything you possess.”

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

If you're building your own creative setup, you might also want one of the best laptops for 3D modelling or the best drawing tablets.

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With PlayStation announcing the death of physical games, the console itself has never been more important. Whether you're looking to snag yourself a swanky custom PS5 or simply upgrade your DualSense controller, for Marvel fans, this new collab is pretty much a no-brainer.

Inspired by Insomniac Games' Battle Reborn suit, the new console and accessories have a bold, tactile feel across the collection. Coming in a yellow, black and slick Adamantium colourway, the collab features distinct details like hand-drawn ink illustration and claw marks that reveal the inner workings of the console.

“I still draw all my artwork traditionally, so the opportunity to marry cutting-edge hardware with the energy and looseness of hand-drawn ink is incredibly exciting. I’m stunned by how well the console and accessories captured the raw energy of the drawing, bringing Wolverine to life in a completely unique way,” says graphic artist, Jock.

For those who are already the proud owners of a PS5, limited-edition console covers give the same distinct look without having to spend out on a new PlayStation. A pair of DualSense wireless controllers, available in yellow and Adamantium colourways, completes the striking collection.

The limited-edition consoles and accessories will be available for pre-order on 19 August at 10 AM local time on the PlayStation website.

Hayao Miyazaki has made some of the most beautifully constructed animated films of the 80s and, well, ever put on screen, so you'd probably expect him to have every detail mapped out before the first frame is drawn. Apparently not.

In a 2002 interview with Midnight Eye, Miyazaki explained that he often starts making a film without having the whole story worked out. Instead, the story develops as he draws the storyboards, with production beginning while those storyboards are still taking shape. I've rejigged the quote around in this article's header, but he says, “We never know where the story will go,” and adds, “but we just keep working on the film as it develops.”

That's a surprisingly reassuring thing to hear from someone whose films can feel so meticulously planned and executed. From the best anime films like Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke to my favourite, My Neighbour Totoro, these are the sort of films where you can spend hours picking apart the details and wondering how Miyazaki could possibly have known exactly where everything was going. It turns out, he didn't, and that's refreshing to hear for anyone who's sat down and stared at a blank canvas wondering where to begin, or even where it's going.

Miyazaki actually describes this way of working as “dangerous”, and admits he'd prefer it to be different, but it's how he makes films. The story grows alongside the drawings, rather than the drawings simply being used to execute a finished script.

That's probably something a lot of artists need to hear because it's very easy to look at a finished illustration, animation, game or film and imagine that the person who made it knew exactly what they were doing from the start. They probably didn't. They started somewhere, made some decisions, changed their minds, followed an idea that seemed interesting, threw some things away and kept going until the art began to take shape.

That's particularly easy to forget when you're working digitally, where there's always another layer to add, another reference to find and another opportunity to convince yourself that you should have figured the whole thing out before you started. Miyazaki didn't have the whole story finished. He just started drawing, and sometimes that's enough, because getting started can be the most frustrating part of any new project.

Read the full Midnight Eye interview with Hayao Miyazaki for more.

Our pick of the best Hayao Miyazaki art books:

The reason for this week's new chapter in the Instagram logo history was less immediately clear. According to Adam Mosseri, head of the platform, it was "time for a refresh" simply because 10 years have passed, which sounds more like a motive for repainting the kitchen than a rationale for a rebrand.

When you look deeper into what Instagram's saying about the new logo, things become clearer. Nevertheless, users have largely decided one thing already: the new design doesn't say 'Instagram'.

Behold, the new Instagram logo – or is it Instagzam?

Instagram says its new wordmark "elevates simplicity, creativity and connection". The aim was to achieve a design that still feels like Instagram but also carries it into the future... and also takes it back to its roots.

The Meta-owned platform says its team "explored hundreds of directions: from all-caps, to camera concepts, to literal handwriting". Basically anything; after all, it was time for a change. But they came back to the idea of a script typeface, which was deemed to feel warmer and more personal.

“Script reflects individuality, so referencing that felt right. The new wordmark is bolder and simpler, with touches of unexpectedness. It cues individual expression, a personal voice, both of which have always been core to Instagram,” says Jasmine Probst, Director of Product Design.

The colours aren't going completely. Alongside the wordmark, there's a new brand system, but the existing camera logo and app icon will remain in use. The rainbow gradient will also be retained, although its use is going to become more subtle.

We're told there will be refreshed motion and UI design. There's also new typography in the form of an updated Instagram Sans, a new handwriting typeface called Instagram Pen and a new Instagram Mono font.

For some users, we've reached "peak blanding" when even the Instagram logo starts to look like a generic fashion identity. It is simpler and bolder, but is it also somehow more complicated at the same time? It moves away from true cursive while also leaning into some of cursive writing's more challenging forms – and everyone knows that Gen Z can't read script typography.

'Instaguam?' is one person's attempt in the comments on Adam's post above, perhaps taking the new name to be a tribute to the US Micronesian territory. “Instagwam – how a toddler would pronounce it," someone else thinks. "InstagZam… like an orgasm?" another person suggests. That latter interpretation seems to be the most popular so far.

Perhaps we have to give it some time. When Instagram launched in 2010, it was with a skeuomorphic logo designed by co-founder Kevin Systrom to resemble a vintage Polaroid camera. But this was a time when the app's rivals weren't TikTok or Snapchat, but retro photo apps like Hipstamatic.

In 2016, Instagram replaced that with a flat, neon gradient glyph. Users weren't wild about it, to say the least. But ten years on, I think we can conclude that it was huge success in terms of building the brand. It's become one of the most recognisable app icons, if not one of the best logos, and still stands out.

My first impression is that the new wordmark feels colder and less human: less connected but more digital, which I think is the opposite of what the platform's aiming for.

Reading the blog, it sounds like Instagram wants to roll back time and recover what it used to be: a platform on which to share cool, spontaneous creativity with friends, while injecting a touch of class to redeem it from the torrent of AI slop that's been unleashed on social media. The problem is that achieving this is going to take a lot more than a new logo design.

What do you think? Will the new Instagram logo grow on us? Or have they achieved the seemingly impossible and created a design that's simultaneously blander and less legible?

I am German, living and working in Hamburg for quite some time, but I was lucky to grow up in Paris and to call France my part-time home for a couple of years. So whenever something is buzzing in the French branding landscape, I tend to notice. And there is definitely some buzz around Monoprix. (See here how to celebrate heritage brands.)

When I was a kid – this was the casual store we would go to grab our groceries on the way from the »Metro« to our family apartment in the Marais. Over the past few years I noticed Monoprix lifestyle items in the Vogue or Elle magazines on our coffee table at our French house. Now a new brand identity is popping up – and it reminds me more of a MoMA store or a softened version of the legendary Jean-Paul Goude posters for Galeries Lafayette than of groceries. Something must have happened!

Let‘s start with some facts.

Monoprix is a retail chain founded in France in 1932 and headquartered in Clichy; it has been wholly owned by the Casino Group since 2013. The company operates approximately 736 stores and combines groceries with fashion, cosmetics, and household goods. In addition to its core market in France, Monoprix operates through franchise and partnership structures in Belgium, Luxembourg, Tunisia, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Guadeloupe, and Réunion, among other locations.

But how did it all begin and why is the new brand identity so spot on?

The founder Max Heilbronn, "Monsieur Max" as his employees liked to call him, invented a new type of store in the early 1930s, in the midst of the economic crisis: a downtown store offering all the essentials of daily life at low prices. No one had thought of this before or dared to take such an initiative. So in 1932 »Monoprix« was born. "Monsieur Max" envisioned a future society where everyone would have access to a wide range of products previously considered out of reach. He was driven by the desire to "make beauty, goodness, and well-being accessible to all". That mission is at the core of the brand up to this day.

Since then, Monop' – as the French call it – has always been an innovator. Its apostrophe eventually became the brand's iconic "Pop" mark. The company launched its first private-label brands and introduced self-service as early as 1950. Already in 1990 they started selling ecological food, invested in eCommerce in the early 2000s and broadened their portfolio to meet the habits of modern society. The latest »coup« was then the curation of French designer furniture at discount prices – most items are sold out in hours and feature in Architectural Digest or Elle Deco.

Slowly Monoprix evolved from a daily go-to-store to a symbol of French style, something the people can relate to and even be proud of.

The new identity delivers exactly that. It is unmistakably French by means of mixing an effortless attitude with a high sense of style and beauty – a combination mostly uncommon when you think of grocery stores.

From Heritage to Identity

To meet this cultural grounding, W Conran Design went back to the source: the legacy, the French Art Nouveau movement, popular posters, and mass-market graphic design. These references reflect a conviction that has remained intact since the beginning: Monoprix enriches life.

This reinterpretation of the brand’s heritage led to the establishment of three principles. First, they understood that Monoprix is not merely a retailer but a brand of taste and curation, the author of its own narrative. Second, their blend of worlds – fashion, home, food, and beauty – becomes a visual language in its own right, not merely a juxtaposition of departments. Finally, pop culture is the visual DNA that anchors Monoprix as much in culture as in commerce.

A Unified Brand Language

This translates to a redesigned iconic logo, a reinvented pattern, a proprietary iconography created from scratch, original illustrations, and a vibrant, confident color palette.

Together, these elements form a unified language designed to encompass the full spectrum of brand expression: from the bag to the storefront, from the app to in-store signage, and from customer loyalty to brand commitments.

As Martin Pilot, Vice President of W Conran Design, puts it: “We didn’t redesign a brand—we reawakened an icon.”

Why It Works

And they did a great job. At a time when retailers are seeking to differentiate themselves beyond price, Monoprix is asserting its status as a lifestyle brand more than ever. This rebranding captures that approach in a new theme: “A taste for the good and the beautiful.” It's a reminder that, in an increasingly competitive sector, brand identity remains a powerful driver of consumer preference. Rather than chasing trends, Monoprix has chosen to highlight what has always set it apart: a retail experience where commerce intersects with popular culture.

Excuse my French, but this is "formidable"!

For more excellent branding, see our best branding of the 2020s so far.

The upcoming animation Charlie Vs The Chocolate Factory will get the prestige treatment that KPop Demon Hunters was denied, with a seven-week exclusive theatrical release before it comes to Netflix. It seems the streaming giant has learned from its biggest animation release to date, which could be good news for KPop Demon Hunters 2.

Netflix Animation Studios' Charlie Vs The Chocolate Factory was made possible by the streaming platforms's acquisition of the Roald Dahl Story Company in 2021. The movie will tell a new story set several years after the events of the original novel.

This will see Willy Wonka return to his factory after doing time for turning a kid into a blueberry. Meanwhile, one Charlie Paley and friends plot to break in to steal a chocolate bar that could save them from eviction from their London homes.

Like KPop Demon Hunters, the animation will be the work of Sony Pictures Imageworks. Kit Connor will voice Charlie, while Taika Waititi plays Wonka. Nicola Coughlan, Charithra Chandran, Samson Kayo, Christopher Chung, Kate Winslet, and Helena Bonham Carter also star, directed by Jared Stern and Elaine Bogan.

What Roald Dahl would think of the story, I can't say, but it's interesting to see the about-turn that Netflix has made in its release strategy. It's not the first time it's taken animated movies to the big screen, but it will be the first time it's giving one such a long and prominent run.

Back in 2022, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was released in cinemas a month ahead of its debut on Netflix but only in a limited number of independent venues. KPop Demon Hunters was released in cinemas for special sing-along events, but only after it had already become huge on Netflix.

It seems Netflix has realised that big-screen releases are more than an irritation necessary to qualify for major awards. They bring sales, and they can help secure big names, who still see the cinema as having a prestige value over TV.

Netflix also wants to avoid being caught by surprise like it was with KPop Demon Hunters, for which it hadn't even lined up merchandise lines. It's going to avoid that with the Charlie sequel, having already signed up Ferrero to release ten Wonka-branded chocolate, candy, ice cream and cereal, and with Moose Toys to launch a toy line.

Studies suggest that streaming has hit smaller-budget movies, dramas, and comedies. On-demand access has replaced the routine habit of going out just to "see something" at the weekend, but event films continue to draw huge crowds.

Netflix's decision to give movies like Charlie Vs The Chocolate Factory and next year's live-action Narnia long cinema runs suggest that after missing out on buying Warner Bros. Discovery, it aims to slink into multiplex's itself. KPop Demon Hunters 2 will now surely have to receive a proper cinema release. Fans wouldn't accept anything less.

What's less certain is Ray Gunn, the more imminent neo-noir science fiction mystery from Brad Bird. Despite Bird having written and directed hits like Pixar's The Incredibles and Ratatouille, there's been no news of a theatrical release. The film's due to hit Netflix on 18 December, the same date that Dune 3 and Angry Birds 3 come to the box office.

Charlie Vs The Chocolate Factory will be released at cinemas on 5 November 2027 and on Netflix on 22 December 2027.