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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comfort & ergonomics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Design & aesthetics

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

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

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

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

Specs

Assembly

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

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

Price & value

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

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

Should you buy?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is Disney's Clay?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Humble beginnings

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

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

The design shift

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

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

The 'professional' era

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's no secret that the internet is quick to judge rebrands. The amount of users who actually take the time to read a brand or design studio's case study is probably infinitesimal. But Meta's own introduction to the new look does at least go some way to rationalise it.

"The team explored hundreds of directions: from all-caps, to camera concepts, to literal handwriting," Meta says. We kept coming back to what’s always been special about Instagram: the magic of crafted script. It modernizes the brand while keeping that warmth; our hope is that it feels personal, confident and unique."

And the contentious wordmark is, of course, part of a much wider brand system. Like Coca-Cola, Instagram is leaning further on its own typography, with two new typrfaces; a new handwriting font called Instagram Pen, and a (presumably monospaced) font called Instagram Mono.

“The refreshed brand system puts our community’s creativity and self-expression front and center. It’s designed to spark courageous action and give people the confidence to create and show up as themselves, freely and fully,” said May Hartono, Director of Brand Design at Meta.

Instagram says the new brand identity will continue to roll out through 2026 and beyond, and is designed to "flex and grow" with Instagram.

It's no surprise that Instagram's new wordmark has attracted kneejerk reactions. But given the enduring success of Instagram's (initially controversial) 2016 rebrand, the proof will be in how long the new look manages to stick around.

Recently, rebrands have started feeling like witch trials; too subtle and you're lambasted for playing it safe, too much and congratulations, you've become the next victim of social media critics. In a rebrand world of major changes and audacious design, perhaps Jif's concise refinements are the key to surviving the rise in branding backlash, at the expense of attention.

Jif's new logo is essentially a refined makeover, removing the old design's drop shadow border and reintroducing its iconic tri-colour banner. It's a cleaner, more contemporary look that is equal parts effective and slightly unremarkable, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

As the first major refresh in 30 years, naturally there was temptation to go big and debut a grand reinvention, but Jif stuck to its brand. Shaped by consumer continuity, the new look is refined, modern and fresh without losing sight of its core identity. So why does nobody want to talk about it?

The truth is, the internet is hungry for rebrands that push the boat out – ones where purists can say the brand has lost its soul, and design snobs can claim it's trying too hard. While grand reinvention is far more exciting, the best rebrands aren't the most radical; they're the ones that build on a brand's existing legacy.

Compared to the scathing backlash against the Instagram rebrand, Jif's humble glow-up is too functional to gain social media traction. The online discourse around branding only seems to ignite when there's something to hate, and Jif's 'safe' approach might just have saved it from public execution. Nowadays, when brands look to revamp, they first have to ask themselves – do we want function, or attention?

For this reason, across my 30-year career, I've always jumped at the chance to try new gadgets, techniques and philosophies that might help me to relax. Many have done absolutely nothing for me. A few have taken the edge off. But even fewer have actually helped my overactive brain to actually relax.

The Neurosonic Serene is one of the rare few to do the latter. It's a reclining chair from a Finnish wellbeing technology company that runs low-frequency vibrations of between 20 to 100 hertz. This small amount of vibration is nowhere near the dramatic effect you get from those coin-operated massage chairs you find in airports. But it's enough, the thinking goes, to gently prod your nervous system into a calm and relaxing state.

Now, this is not about ergonomics – if you want the best office chairs to ease you back pain, we've got a fully-reviewed list for that. But this is still very much in the world of self care. Neurosonic were kind enough to let me use one for a couple of months, and to cut to the chase, I can report that it very much worked for me.

What's it like?

The Serene looks like a cross between the kind of reclining chair you might see in a therapist's office and a first-class seat on plane. It's essentially a moulded shell in soft fabric, with a leg rest, backrest and neck support that you can adjust using a simple control panel in the right-hand arm rest. Eight transducers inside the frame deliver the vibration.

It's not really possible to sit up straight in it, although at minimum recline it is possible for me to do some work on my laptop. It should not, though, be seen as a replacement for your day-to-day office chair: this is strictly aimed at R&R.

Using the included app, which you can either download to your phone or use on the supplied tablet, you choose from four programme types, titled Relaxation, Recovery, Activation and Power Nap, each targeting either the parasympathetic system for calm or the sympathetic system for an energy lift.

I began on Relaxation and found the vibration to be subtler than expected: it's more a low hum moving through the legs and gradually up the body than anything overtly mechanical. In fact, when I first switched it on, I wasn't certain if it was actually working.

Once you make peace with the subtlety, though, you start to appreciate its effects. And in my case, the main benefit was that it let me switch my mind off; far more than just sitting in a static chair would be. Was that effect physical, psychological or a mixture of both? Honestly, I couldn't tell you, but in a sense, who cares? The important thing is that it works; for me, at least.

Recovery, meanwhile, is when you've just come off a run, a gym session, or a long day on your feet at a festival: it focus is on getting blood moving through tired muscles. Then there's Activation, which ramps the body up rather than winding it down. After ten minutes on this setting I felt properly awake, rather than jittery (which is typically what I feel after a strong coffee).

Power Nap is the setting I've ended up using most, though, mainly because it fits into my working day so well. It runs for just ten minutes and I've found it a handy way of resetting during that mid-afternoon slump. Again, whether it's physical or psychological I couldn't say, but it definitely works for me.

What I like most about Neurosonic, by the way, is the honesty of their pitch. They aren't promising miracles or medical breakthroughs. The people I spoke to agreed that a lot of the effect comes simply from to giving your body permission to stop; something most of us creatives are terrible at doing.

An investment in wellness

Now, the drawback. The Neurosonic Serene sells at £4,490 / €4,990, which is not an amount many individual creatives can lay their hands on. That price is unlikely to come down, either, because these are a well-built, sophisticated products that are in no way cheap to make.

If you're a studio head, though, you might be making a different calculation. Creative agencies are only as good as their people, and many already spend heavily on getting talented creatives through the door and keeping them there. So in that light, the Neurosonic Serene starts to make a lot of sense.

The argument for investing in your staff's wellness, even in challenging economic times, is straightforward. A designer who's slept properly and isn't running on Red Bull and adrenaline will create better work than one who's exhausted. They'll probably take fewer sick days and be nicer to work with too.

At a guess, I'd reckon one chair in a studio's breakout space, available to a team of 15-20 for a ten-minute reset between briefs, would be a relatively affordable way to turn workplace heath around and boost team bonding. In that light, it starts to feel less like a frivolous luxury and more like a sensible investment in your organisation's future.

If all this has piqued your interest, Neurosonic runs in-person demos and has been placing chairs in hospitality and corporate settings so people can try before they buy, including at the Six Senses London members' club. So it might be worth getting in touch and seeing what they can do for you.

Of course, getting that look right takes more than remodelling an in-game asset with sleek geometric shapes and calling it done. The concept art team had to figure out what makes an Art Deco building read instantly, how to take real-world references and squash them into Planet Coaster’s chunky, playful style, and how to make a collection of assets that work together without leaving players feeling like they’re just assembling someone else’s theme park design.

Here, Principal Concept Artist Jack Griffin and Senior Concept Artist Bryan van der Linden reveal what it took to create Silver Screen for Planet Coaster 2, and how they found the right visual language to design the expansion’s new rides and characters, and the terrifying joy of handing your work over to players and seeing what they do with it.

Planet Coaster 2: Silver Screen launches August 19, 2026, for $14.99 / £11.99. Planet Coaster 2 is required to play and is available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S for a suggested retail price of $49.99 / £39.99.

Bryan van der Linden: Generally, as we do with most themes and depending on how clear the initial direction is, we start by tackling the larger visual aspects of a theme. This usually means things like the architecture or very recognisable elements of a style. Then, while exploring, we note any interesting ideas or references we find that could make for fun additions to the theme.

As for Vintage Cinema in particular, real-world references like movie studios and film sets came to mind, as well as classic buildings and golden-age cinema elements. Anything that would help set a theme apart is useful.

BL: We often go wide while exploring our options at first, and gradually narrow down our ideas until we get to a clearer visual direction, usually through picking out bits we like, shapes that strike our fancy or when we have a particular idea.

A good example would be that we knew we wanted to include an old-school Art Deco cinema, something we would need certain assets for if we wanted to build it. Generally speaking, we look for things we want to try to reproduce in our game, with a bit of Planet flair, and build from there.

BL: Part of Planet Coaster already lends itself well to simplification and exaggeration, as players view it mostly from a bird’s-eye view. This means we need to make sure our props remain easy to read from a distance.

It’s also important that we approach a lot of this as a ‘theme park version’ of the real deal. We aren’t necessarily trying to make a real building, but something that would pass as a fun impression of an Art Deco building.

We also like to sneak little references into the décor and patterns. A few examples in the new Silver Screen Pack are film reel trims and stylised representations of coasters, the King and Queen.

BL: The same holds true for much of a theme park! When you see fly-over footage of real theme parks, you’ll notice that it’s mostly facades for the guests and grey block buildings behind them for staff, so it wasn’t all that different from our usual approach. Just like how we love adding realism to our entertainers in how they operate and move, it’s great for us to add decorative facades to the guest-facing sides of buildings and keep it very simple at the back where staff go. This adds a lot of storytelling and realism, two things we’re always looking out for.

That being said, with it being a fake movie inside a game where you build a theme park, it does give us the opportunity to add some extra silly things and play up the more visually entertaining parts of movie sets.

BL: That’s actually one of the most rewarding and enjoyable parts of the whole experience for me. After all, what I want most is for players to enjoy the things we create and use them to build new things with their own creativity.

It also helps inform the next things we design, as I do look at what people are requesting and what they like to use while building. I’m regularly blown away by some of the massive projects I see on YouTube and the Planet Coaster subreddit.

The Japanese tech and entertainment conglomerate has realised that it has a "lack of characters", and it's throwing big money at solving the problem. The aim is to fill the hole with someone or something that's kawaii enough to rival the world's most famous whiskered girl (because remember, Hello Kitty is not a cat. She's just an ordinary suburban London gal... with whiskers and cat ears). And it thinks it might have found the answer.

Sony's predicament might be difficult to understand for any brand outside of Japan, where mascots are huge business. In gaming, Nintendo has Mario, Sega has Sonic, Bandai Namco has Pac-Man and Digimon and The Pokémon Company has, well, Pokémon.

Beyond gaming, Hello Kitty's owner Sanrio has a whole roster of corporate pop culture icons including Kuromi, and Cinnamoroll. San-X is another character giant with Rilakkuma and Sumikko Gurashi, while the biggest grossing Japanese character of all is the ubiquitous Anpanman, a superhero with bean paste for a head.

Even regional authorities have mascots, called yuru-kyara. Kumamoto Prefecture's Kumamon has won over fans around the world. Sony has characters like Crash Bandicoot and Astrobot, but they haven't reached the level of recognition. They're also not very cute. Now it wants a piece of the action.

Behold. Nemu the Night Owl Bear.

According to the Japanese news site Nikkei, Sony's Creative Products (SCP) department has assigned a team to the mission of improving its ability to create unique characters and develop intellectual property for anime and movies. It's set a target of developing IPs that can generate sales of 10 billion yen by 2030.

Nemu the Night Owl Bear has been identified as one of the strongest candidates. Sony thinks he's the perfect character for our times, and it might be right. Tokyo-based creator Tsumupapa, who designed the character for Sony, describes Nemu as a sensitive but exhausted bear who's plagued by anxiety.

Nemu, whose best friend is a sheep, worries so much about the problems of the world that he can't sleep, which sounds just perfect. We're so used to characters with super powers, it's refreshing to have one with a weakness that makes a lot of sense right now.

The sleep-deprived bear has already racked up over 80,000 followers on Instagram. An SCP executive told Nikkei the “stress-filled society theme" was "resonating across borders,” noting a strong following in South Korea already.

Sony's aim to make Nemu as big as Hello Kitty might sound ambitious, but this is a company with massive reach across animation, film, music and games. It already makes movies with other people's IPs. It has a lot of avenues open even just within its own subsidiaries if it manages to develop a hit character of its own. A Nemu anime is apparently already being planned.

Nearly every 3D scene you’ll ever build sits inside a universe that expands in every direction, which is only bounded by the capabilities of your computer. If you’re an artist who uses 2D drawing applications, adding a third dimension to navigate can be difficult to get your head around.

The one constant is that every 3D scene does have a determined centre point, at which most 3D objects appear when first created. So why do some objects appear with their centre in the middle of the scene’s centre point? And yet others, such as a human figure, appear as if they are standing on the scene’s centre?

This is because every object within a 3D scene has its own ‘centre point’, and in the case of the human figure, this centre point just so happens to be at their feet. This has the potential to get confusing. When moving, rotating, or scaling an object, understanding where you want it in your 3D scene and where the centre of the scene is becomes critical – especially when animating, as the centre point of an object is used by the 3D software as its pivot point.

Thankfully, though, most 3D applications make it easy to move, scale, and rotate objects within a 3D scene and show where its pivot point is. That said, being aware they exist is a key factor in being a better 3D artist.

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

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But it's not simply a matter of ticking off the specs and tech that sound impressive, because we've reached the point where drawing-tablet manufacturers can keep doubling the numbers on the box, but 8,192 versus 16,384 pressure levels isn't going to suddenly make your brush strokes twice as good, and it's certainly not going to turn a mediocre pen into a Wacom Pro Pen 3.

What I want from a new drawing display is pretty straightforward, really; it needs to have a bright, smooth screen, a pen that feels good for hours of use, decent colour, useful controls and, increasingly, something I can actually carry around with ease, because more and more I’m moving from home to the office, on a bike.

The Artist Ultra 14 specs

That's why the new XPPen Artist Ultra 14 has impressed. Launching at $699 / £599, it's a 14-inch portable drawing display with a 2.8K OLED screen, 90Hz refresh rate, 10-bit colour, 99% Adobe RGB, 99% sRGB and 99% Display P3 coverage, alongside Delta E <1 colour accuracy and Calman Verified certification. It also weighs just 720g, which is considerably less than most of the 15- and 16-inch pen displays I've been looking at lately.

The OLED is probably the biggest draw here, particularly when you start comparing it with what's available at a similar price. XPPen has paired the 2.8K panel with 100,000:1 contrast, a 90Hz refresh rate, and a very fast OLED response time, so moving around a Photoshop canvas, zooming into an illustration, or scrubbing through animation should feel smoother than on the 60Hz IPS displays that still dominate this part of the market.

The colour specification is equally interesting because you're getting 99% Adobe RGB, 99% sRGB and 99% Display P3, with native 10-bit colour and a claimed Delta E below 1. That matters if you're working professionally with illustration, photography, animation or video, and it's considerably more useful to me than another manufacturer telling me its pen has doubled the number of pressure levels.

How does it rate?

The obvious comparison is the Xencelabs 16-inch OLED Pen Display, which is still a seriously impressive tablet with 4K resolution, 10-bit colour and similarly broad gamut coverage, but it launched at £1,199. The XPPen is arriving at almost half that price and is substantially lighter. At 720g, the Artist Ultra 14 is light enough that I can carry it around with a laptop rather than leaving it permanently attached to a desk. The 16:10 display also makes sense for creative software because you get a little more vertical workspace for toolbars and timelines than you would with a similarly sized 16:9 panel, while the full-featured USB-C connection can carry power, video, and data through a single cable on compatible devices.

That combination is probably more appealing to me than simply making another 16-inch drawing display with a slightly better pen. A lot of artists are moving between home, studio, office and other workspaces now, and there's a big difference between something that's technically portable and something you wouldn't mind putting in your bag.

The Artist Ultra 14 comes with two X3 Pro pens that support 16K pressure and 60-degree tilt, but I'm still more interested in how those pens actually feel. Initial activation force, tracking accuracy, nib movement, and the feel of the nano-etched glass surface will matter far more than whether I can theoretically produce 16,384 different pressure values. You'll be able to read more on how the Artist Ultra 14 actually feels to use in my upcoming review.

Buy the XPPen Artist Ultra 14 from today.

Digital that feels traditional

You don't need to become a traditional painter to get that look. Start in Procreate, Photoshop, Fresco or whatever you already use, then bring in some decent paper textures, scanned marks, dry-brush presets or a bit of grain. Better still, make your own: scan a bit of watercolour paper, photograph an old canvas, scribble with a pencil, splash some ink around and bring those marks back into your digital workflow.

Rebelle is worth a look if you really want to push this, because its whole thing is making digital paint behave more like actual paint, with bristles, pigment, granulation and all those little inconsistencies that make a physical brush such a lovely, unpredictable thing to use.

Maybe that's where digital art is heading next. Not backwards, and certainly not abandoning the technology, but remembering that the looser, raw bit of a painting is often the bit you actually remember and keep coming back to studying, because you can see the human process in each stroke, line, colour palette and mistake.

Below are six ways to try and give your digital art a messy, traditional feel.

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".