Marketing & Design
Brand, creative, martech and the consumer, read for the decisions behind the work rather than the work alone.
Marketing and Design covers the work of making people want things, and the decisions that sit behind it. Three stories a weekday at 11: a rebrand and what it risks, a visual system and why it was built, a consumer shift and what it costs to ignore. The beats are brand strategy, creative and design, martech, and consumer insights, with a Funny lane for the campaigns that made us laugh, on purpose or otherwise. We write every summary ourselves and link to the publisher, because the reporting is theirs. What is ours is the choice, and the editor’s note under the day’s lead says why it was made. Readers here run marketing functions, design teams and agencies in India, the United States and the United Kingdom, and the stories are chosen for what travels between those markets.
Every story we have kept in Marketing & Design, newest first. Headlines link to the publisher; the tags below narrow the list.
Dezeen's favourite furniture and lighting from September
A ten-item roundup of September furniture and lighting picks from design weeks in London, Helsinki and Berlin features Jake Robertson's Split Lamp, Llot Llov's pigment-blasted Tilo chair and a chainmail floor lamp by Wretched Flowers.
Eight architecture and design events in October from Dezeen Events Guide
October's architecture and design calendar spans Archtober in New York, Designblok in Prague, Design Week Mexico (honouring Chile) and Design Week Lagos, plus Dutch Design Week and Design Miami Paris.
A Warsaw Law Office Finds Common Ground Between Japan and New York
Architecture studio Bit Creative designed Baker McKenzie's Warsaw office across three upper floors of Varso Tower, blending Japanese proportion with New York energy through marble, bonsai-inspired greenery, an openwork staircase, Polish art and a mock courtroom for remote hearings.
Editor's noteA Warsaw office blending Japanese and New York styles is a design compromise, not a fusion. The use of marble and bonsai-inspired greenery is a nod to both cultures, but also a nod to commercial appeal. Watch the firm's productivity metrics to see if this aesthetic boosts employee engagement.
MRDK Layers Strategic Updates Into a Historic Montreal Home
Montreal design firm MRDK completed the second phase of a renovation on an 1885 Pointe-Saint-Charles home, adding contemporary kitchen and powder-room elements in Calacatta Viola marble and white oak while preserving original pine floors and plaster ceiling details.
Derek&Eric's olive oil identity swaps Tuscan cliches for attitude and colour
London branding studio Derek&Eric designed the visual identity for Drzzl, a new olive oil brand launched by food writer Natalia Rudin. The identity features hand-drawn lettering, a zigzag drizzle motif, and bold two-tone bottle variants, departing from typical premium olive oil branding conventions.
This packaging for ready-made dinners can teach you to cook better
New York studio Center designed packaging and brand identity for Riff, chef Daniel Humm's ready-to-cook meal kit line, using color-coded plates, typography, and a mascot to teach home cooks ingredient pairings and flavor techniques.
es devlin’s rotating library holds 2,000 books inside london’s design museum
Designer Es Devlin's first European retrospective, opening 2 October 2026 at London's Design Museum, ends with An Infinite Library, a rotating triangular bookshelf holding over 2,000 volumes, which will be donated to schools and charities afterward.
Louise French quit London, cycled the Andes, and came home an illustrator who gets things done
Manchester illustrator Louise French describes how a 2019 bike journey through the Andes, after leaving London, helped her push through self-doubt and finish personal work; she has since drawn live for 200 people and keeps pursuing a children's book.
Editor's noteLouise French's journey through the Andes is a case study in how to turn self-doubt into a creative catalyst. Watch whether her ability to adapt and push through adversity translates into a sustainable career as an illustrator, rather than a solo project.
A Massive New Roof Turns a ’70s Chalet in Canada Into a Forest Palace
Architecture firm UUfie transformed a 1970s chalet in Belfountain, Ontario into a 4,628-square-foot family residence, adding one elongated roof, reclaimed elm interiors, and multiple levels that follow the wooded hillside's natural topography while preserving the original structure's north side.
Grid radiator by Tubes among seven new products on Dezeen Showroom
Dezeen Showroom featured seven new design products including Tubes' Grid radiator by designer Elisa Ossino, a perforated modular aluminium panel with interchangeable hooks and shelves, alongside a sound-dampening cork wall panel from GenCork and porcelain tiles from VitrA.
Editor's noteSeven new design products on Dezeen Showroom are a demonstration of the market's willingness to support modular, adaptable, and sustainable design. The Grid radiator by Tubes, with its interchangeable hooks and shelves, is a prime example of this trend. Watch the sales figures for Tubes' Grid radiator to see if its modular design translates to commercial success.
Harvard University transforms waste wool into cladding for retrofits
Harvard's Grinham Research Group created insulating exterior tiles from waste wool, bound with keratin and citric acid instead of petrochemical resin, and displayed them at the Oslo Architecture Triennale as a way to retrofit existing buildings without opening walls.
Seven savvy pieces from London Design Festival made of material offcuts
Seven designers at London Design Festival 2026 turned manufacturing offcuts and workshop scraps into finished furniture, using waste to control cost as much as to make a statement.
Dezeen Awards 2026 design shortlist announced
Dezeen's Awards 2026 shortlist spans sixteen design categories and 128 projects; the ceremony is set for November 16 at London's Royal Opera House.
Cattle armchair by Design By Them among 13 new products on Dezeen Showroom
Dezeen's showroom feature rounds up thirteen newly released furniture and surface products, including a Design By Them armchair, plus tiles and lighting from Vipp, Iris Ceramica, Vitra and Andreu World.
Dezeen Showroom New Releases newsletter includes oak modular kitchen
Dezeen's quarterly showroom roundup highlights five newly launched furniture and lighting pieces, including designs from Vermland, Rakumba, Plank and Design By Them, curated from products published over summer 2026.
Charlotte Fox on painting the space between 'desire, repulsion, connection and fantasy'
A profile of Brooklyn painter Charlotte Fox describes her collage-based process transforming found imagery into paintings exploring longing, unease, intimacy and imagined narratives, following her recent exhibition Unravel at 303 Gallery.
Nina lounge chair by Patricia Urquiola for Andreu World
Patricia Urquiola designed the Nina lounge chair for Andreu World, pairing upholstered seating with a recycled-thermopolymer back shell inspired by Velazquez and 1970s silhouettes.
Editor's noteA single chair leads the section because of what its back shell is made of. Recycled thermopolymer in a piece pitched at the high end, from a designer with this reach, moves recycled material out of the sustainability brief and into the part of the catalogue people actually buy from.
Ma Yansong and Daniel Libeskind join Dezeen Awards 2026 master jury in London
Dezeen named its 2026 Awards master jury, including architects Ma Yansong and Daniel Libeskind and Nike design chief Martin Lotti, who will select 49 winners from 392 entries.
Laneige Turns Skincare Customization Into a Four-Story Experience
Laneige opened a four-storey flagship in Seoul's Myeongdong district, designed by PlayLab, with personalised scent, shade and skin-formula stations turning skincare shopping into an architectural experience.
Editor's noteFlagship stores are usually brand theatre. This one is closer to a product line rendered as a building: each floor performs a step of personalisation that the brand otherwise asks customers to do online, which makes it a genuine test of whether retail space can carry that work.
The Cladding, Insulation, and Flooring of This London Loft Extension Are All Made of Cork
Office S&M Architects renovated a damp Victorian home in Walthamstow, London, using cork for cladding, insulation, flooring and render across a 1,290-square-foot extension.
The eyes have it: How we're bringing Creative Boom's mascot to life in different time zones
Creative Boom animated its longtime eye mascot with motion designer Dan Silverstone, creating time-zone-responsive expressions, building on original 2017 design work by Samantha Wilkinson.
Seeking €820K, This Serpentine Home Is Perched Above a Pond in Southern France
A serpentine timber-and-zinc house in Fiac, France cantilevers over a pond and lap pool, listed for 820,000 euros with low-energy building certification.
London design "an international success story" says Sadiq Khan
London Mayor Sadiq Khan called the city's design sector an international success story, citing 2.2 million pounds of public investment that unlocked 1.23 billion, while acknowledging Brexit friction.
Editor's noteA mayor praising his own city's design sector is routine; the number under it is not. Two point two million in public money is claimed to have unlocked one and a quarter billion, and the same speech concedes Brexit friction is still costing studios talent. Both halves matter.
georgia o’keeffe: architecture and the artist’s homes, buildings, and landscapes
The Detroit Institute of Arts opens an exhibition of nearly 40 Georgia O'Keeffe paintings, organised geographically, tracing how the artist depicted barns, skyscrapers and New Mexico's adobe architecture.
These cat animation designs look nothing like what I expected
Studio Original Force revealed behind-the-scenes art for the Warrior Cats film adaptation, showing an expressive CGI style with elongated proportions rather than the glossy look of recent animated features.
Editor's noteAnimation coverage usually leads on release dates. This leads on craft instead: a studio showing elongated, expressive proportions where the current house style is glossy realism, which is a visible argument about where mainstream CGI goes next rather than a marketing beat.
A new house in Croatia is broken down into components to create a curious composition
A two-storey private house outside Zagreb, set back from the road in a planted landscape, broken into components by its Croatian architects so it reads as several small buildings.
Hot Lab and Garage Italia give the Fiat 500 Spiaggina restomod a nautical makeover
The original Fiat 500 crossed every class line in its lifetime and became a design classic afterwards. Two studios have now given the open-topped Spiaggina version a boatbuilder's treatment.
Silk fashion collection informed by robins among projects from Häme University of Applied Sciences
Student work from a Finnish university includes hand-painted silk clothing taking its cues from robins, a collection shaped by Alvar Aalto's architecture, and a dress made from recycled denim.
Thunderbird is OMI’s multidimensional orbital laboratory developed for Max Space
Space stations remain an irresistible brief for designers, and this proposed orbital laboratory leans in: pure function, dramatic light and weightlessness, drawn with the optimism the setting always invites.
OpenAI's controversial ChatGPT-6 Astra advert paints a sad vision of the future
A new advertisement for the latest ChatGPT release has landed badly with designers, who read its portrait of creative work as bleak rather than aspirational.
Editor's noteAn advertisement that upsets the people whose work it portrays is a reputational problem before it is a creative one, and the reaction is the story rather than the film. Worth watching whether the campaign is quietly retired, because that decision will say more about the company than the advertisement did.
A Collaboration of Ampersands
A limited-edition book by Studio Sutherl& celebrating the ampersand through more than a decade of commissioned work, workshops, found forms, and creative collaborations, turning a typographic symbol into a study of connection and creativity.
Be a hater all you want, AI's here to stay
AI will remain transformative despite job displacement, accuracy problems, and market turbulence, predicting broader workplace adoption, continued automation of knowledge work, and growing influence from both proprietary and open models.
De Pé No Chão
Illustrated series reimagines iconic Brazilian samba album covers through simplified icons and forms, exploring visual memory and suburban cultural identity embedded within recognizable imagery.
Creative Boom IRL just got bigger! Here's how to join us
Creative Boom IRL, free in-person networking events for creative professionals, secured sponsorship from Affinity and Cavalry by Canva. Events are expanding to Glasgow, New York, Shrewsbury, Nottingham and other cities.
This dark Slavic fairy-tale game is like Devil May Cry with ballet combat
Tsareva: Age of Tales incorporates motion capture from professional ballet dancers to create a combat system inspired by Devil May Cry that emphasizes choreographed, dance-like fighting mechanics.
Brennan Lee Mulligan returns with Dimension 20: Toylight trailer
Dimension 20: Toylight, a new tabletop roleplaying season featuring Brennan Lee Mulligan and the Intrepid Heroes cast, launches September 16 on Dropout. Players portray toys defending an enchanted realm against a dying child's fading imagination.
Has the world been too harsh on Disney's Hexed?
An analysis examines Disney's Hexed film and evaluates whether critical reception has been unfair, examining its adherence to traditional animation techniques through shot-level examination.
Do You Have a Beautiful New Project? We Want to See it!
Communication Arts invites designers and creative professionals to submit innovative projects for free featuring on their website and potential exposure to the global creative community.
People can't decide whether Newcastle United's logo design poll is a joke
Newcastle United conducted a logo design poll featuring three options that fans struggled to differentiate, sparking debate about whether the exercise was genuine or satirical.
Editor's noteA rebrand poll only works if the options differ enough to choose between. These did not, and the resulting argument about whether it was satire is more instructive than the logos: consultation that offers no real choice reads as contempt, whatever the intent behind it.
A Foundation for Multiple Dimensions
Typographer and designer Andrew Footit explains how he developed his distinctive color palette and two and three-dimensional illustration techniques through systematic experimentation with various materials and approaches.
Editor's noteAndrew Footit built his palette and his illustration technique the same way, by trying materials until one refused to behave. It led Marketing & Design because a style manufactured one test at a time is more useful to a designer than one discovered. The difference between a look and a practice is whether you can say how you got there.
