#design

As AI slop floods feeds, luxury brands are going all in on handmade ads

In the age of AI , handmade work is becoming radical (and chic), and consumers are taking notice. Prada’s new holiday campaign, Drawing Prada , celebrates craft and process, earning praise on social media for its use of handmade animation. The campaign transports the actors Chen Haoyu, Luther Ford, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Maya Hawke, and Sadie Sink into a fairy tale–like animated forest, complete with a cozy cabin and charming woodland creatures. In one scene, Harrison Jr. walks through a snowy path only to be hit by a snowball thrown by an animated cat-like figure who quickly turns around and wh

Fast Company Design · EN

A new California museum is a beautiful and complicated ode to the Eameses

When the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity released renderings of its new museum last week, it aimed to show how a museum campus could encapsulate the legacy of the 20th century’s most famous design couple, Charles and Ray Eames. The architectural project—helmed by museum design heavyweight Herzog & de Meuron, along with local firm EHDD and landscape architecture firm Field Operations—is meant to be more a celebration of the Eameses’ philosophies and ideas than an Eames theme park. “We try to ask as frequently as possible, ‘What can only happen here?’” says John Cary, the institute’s found

Fast Company Design · EN

NYC will flip the streets from Halloween to the marathon in just a few hours. Here’s how

New York City is gearing up for another big weekend. This year, there are just eight hours between the end of the Halloween parade and the start of the marathon. Organizers of the former expect 80,000 participants in costume and 2 million spectators, while the latter will host 60,000 runners and 2.5 million fans on the sidelines cheering them on. The two routes don’t intersect, but the streets will be unusually busy. And preparing them for the crowds and their aftermath will involve an army of hundreds of sanitation trucks and workers. “I think the great thing about New York City is that there

Fast Company Design · EN

Inside KFC’s big plan to win the chicken wars

On a busy street in Dubai, there’s a building that’s impossible to miss. Its bright red facade glows with electric white lights. Three giant archways offer passersby a glimpse of a two-story screen playing constant editorial-style videos. Inside, a stark, almost brutalist construction is offset by two-tone red furniture and a neon wall mural. It’s not a club or a luxury store—it’s a KFC. We’re in the middle of a modern chicken war , and KFC wants to reclaim its icon status. Chicken—more specifically, the chicken tender—is undeniably having a moment, even as the rest of the fast-casual food spa

Fast Company Design · EN

Going to the gym just got easier for residents at this Paris homeless shelter

At the nonprofit Emmaüs Solidarité homeless shelter in Paris, it’s not uncommon for new residents to have sleepless nights. But since the summer, residents have had a new way to cope with the stress of a restless evening: head to the courtyard and do a few circuits on their new outdoor gym. Through a partnership between the city, the nonprofit, and Omnigym, a Finnish fitness company, this new installation of outdoor exercise equipment seeks to not just help provide access to fitness gear, but build community and self-esteem. Consisting of four pieces of workout gear set up in the garden next t

Fast Company Design · EN

How Fanatics and the NHL used cryptic marketing to hype 32 new special-edition jerseys

Fanatics ’ newest collaboration with the NHL is a collection of 32 custom jerseys that use font, color, and symbolism to pay homage to the history of each team’s home city. The collection, called Hometown Remix , is a leaguewide special edition uniform, apparel, and headwear program designed in-house by the global sports platform Fanatics. It includes a bespoke jersey for each NHL team that will be worn at multiple points throughout the season, as well as a matching line of fan gear. Every jersey was made through a series of workshops between Fanatics and the team to land on a look that repres

Fast Company Design · EN

Starbucks is spending $1 billion to undo its biggest mistake

Starbucks spent years solving a very specific problem: making it easier for customers to buy coffee. As a result, it spent a lot of money on things like mobile ordering and r edesigning its stores to accommodate customers picking up drinks. The idea was to get people in and out as quickly as possible. In the process, however, it made a mistake that may have cost the company far more than it realized. It forgot why people wanted to go there in the first place . Now, under CEO Brian Niccol, Starbucks is spending more than $1 billion to bring back the thing it spent years eliminating. Sure, it’s

Fast Company Design · EN

Eight architecture and design events in November from Dezeen Events Guide

Miami art week, Design Doha Biennial, Dubai Design Week and the Dezeen Awards 2026 party are among the key architecture, design and art events featured in Dezeen Events Guide this November. Other events taking place during the month include Collectible New York, Cairo Design Week, Irish Design Week and BDNY. Dubai Design Week 3 to […] The post Eight architecture and design events in November from Dezeen Events Guide appeared first on Dezeen .

Dezeen · EN

Neri Oxman experiments with fabric pigment created by bacteria

Designer Neri Oxman has created a fabric dyeing concept where a bacterial solution is sprayed onto a 3D-knitted silk textile and left to grow a living culture which produces faded indigo and pink pigments. The post Neri Oxman experiments with fabric pigment created by bacteria appeared first on Dezeen .

Dezeen · EN

An Holistic Framework for Shared Design Leadership

Picture this: You’re in a meeting room at your tech company, and two people are having what looks like the same conversation about the same design problem. One is talking about whether the team has the right skills to tackle it. The other is diving deep into whether the solution actually solves the user’s problem. Same room, same problem, completely different lenses. This is the beautiful, sometimes messy reality of having both a Design Manager and a Lead Designer on the same team. And if you’re wondering how to make this work without creating confusion, overlap, or the dreaded “too many cooks

A List Apart · EN

Design Dialects: Breaking the Rules, Not the System

"Language is not merely a set of unrelated sounds, clauses, rules, and meanings; it is a totally coherent system bound to context and behavior." — Kenneth L. Pike The web has accents. So should our design systems. Design Systems as Living Languages Design systems aren't component libraries—they’re living languages. Tokens are phonemes, components are words, patterns are phrases, layouts are sentences. The conversations we build with users become the stories our products tell. But here’s what we've forgotten: the more fluently a language is spoken, the more accents it can support without losing

A List Apart · EN

Design for Amiability: Lessons from Vienna

Today’s web is not always an amiable place. Sites greet you with a popover that demands assent to their cookie policy, and leave you with Taboola ads promising “One Weird Trick!” to cure your ailments. Social media sites are tuned for engagement, and few things are more engaging than a fight. Today it seems that people want to quarrel; I have seen flame wars among birders. These tensions are often at odds with a site’s goals. If we are providing support and advice to customers, we don’t want those customers to wrangle with each other. If we offer news about the latest research, we want readers

A List Apart · EN

How Slack Rebuilt Notifications 📣

Introduction 🔔 At Slack, notifications are how teams stay in the loop, but they can also become overwhelming when not designed with intention. Our goal was to make staying informed feel effortless. We set out to rebuild one of Slack’s most complicated systems from the ground up by bringing calm, consistency, and clarity to the…

Slack Engineering · EN