The tantrums thrown across social media over the past few weeks in reaction to Jaguar’s redesign have once again revealed a fundamental contradiction underlying contemporary branding. According to its practitioners, it is supposed to differentiate and distinguish companies and their products, allowing them to stand out from the crowd, a line of thinking that was reinforced just last month when New York creative agency &Walsh rolled out its new mantra, “Find your weird.” But any attempt to do something even slightly weird with regard to advertising, marketing, or logo design is typically me ..read more

Four years ago, Jaguar’s chief creative officer, Gerry McGovern, sent a creative brief to his team: “Understand and obsess where we’ve come from, but don’t be harnessed by it,” he wrote. “Be bold, be brave.” On Monday, at Miami Design Week, the British heritage automaker revealed the result of that creative brief—an electric four-door GT concept car named Type 00. The car’s design breaks with traditional trimmings, like a rear windshield and the brand’s long-standing “leaper” hood ornament. Its an unconventional design for a company that is looking to reinvent itself, wholesale. The morning af ..read more

Parisians navigating the narrow streets of the 4th arrondissement in recent days may have heard a familiar, yet nearly forgotten, sound. The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral have been ringing again after nearly five years, in preparation for the famed building’s long-awaited reopening. Notre Dame officially reopens on December 7, 2024, with a liturgical ceremony. The following day, the cathedral will host a public Mass, and its bells will again begin marking the hours of daily life in the French capital. On April 15, 2019, at about 6:50 p.m., Frédéric Lenica, the chief of staff to Paris Mayor Ann ..read more

7 Mile + Livernois at the Detroit Institute of Arts celebrates Detroit as a place for Black women to live and create by elevating both the work of the featured artist, Tiff Massey, and the community from which she comes. The exhibition draws attention to how Detroit is represented in the national—and even global—imagination. As an art historian who specializes in modern and contemporary art of the African diaspora, I found the exhibition absolutely mesmerizing. I appreciate the ways in which the show recognizes the desire for belonging and self-expression among Black people. I also admire how ..read more

I’ll get you, my pretty! And your little pygmy hippo, too! Forgive us for the shameless attempt to link the fantasy hit “Wicked” to the delightful Moo Deng. But, hear us out — there’s something the two have in common as the year draws to a close. Escapism. Whether we found it on the yellow brick road, or in videos from a Thailand zoo, or perhaps in unlikely Olympic heroes, we gravitated toward fantasy and feel-good pop culture moments this year. There were new trends, as always. “Brat summer” became a thing, as did “demure, mindful.” And for some inexpli ..read more

The most expensive dinosaur fossil ever discovered will be on view in New York starting this weekend, American Museum of Natural History officials announced Wednesday. The giant stegosaurus fossil, dubbed “Apex,” is 11 feet (3.3 meters) tall and 27 feet (8.2 meters) nose to tail. The display will start in a giant atrium at the museum’s entrance before being moved to the museum’s existing fossil halls next year. The museum also confirmed the identity of the philanthropist who purchased Apex. Billionaire hedge fund manager and longtime museum donor Ken Griffin bought it at an auction in July f ..read more

Branded is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture. As the Taylor Swift “Eras” era approaches its finale, the impact of the Swifty Economy is showing no weakness. The pop juggernaut’s last feat, in fact, may be saving Target’s holiday season: Fans lined up at the store on Black Friday to snap up new vinyl and CD versions of her latest album, as well as The Eras Tour Book, available exclusively through the big-box retailer; the $40 coffee-table volume sold out in stores. Throw in online sales that kicked in after Black Friday, and the book so ..read more

Years before Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral was damaged by fire, a handful of architecture enthusiasts had already set the stage for its eventual reconstruction.  In 2012, when he was an architecture student, Rémi Fromont re-created the cathedral’s charpente, or roof structure, on a sketch pad for class, notating each beam while donning a flashlight and headlamp. There’s a reason this part of the cathedral is nicknamed “the forest.” This attic superstructure was constructed of more than 1,000 beams, many from trees that began growing hundreds of years before the cathedral was first complete ..read more

This week in branding news, Skechers caught some flak for an allegedly AI-generated ad in Vogue, Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper debuted a functional drink brand, and the Skims-North Face outerwear collab went all-in on flesh tones. Here’s everything you need to know. An AI footwear misstep [Image: Sketchers] The news: A new Skechers ad is turning heads, and not for the right reasons. In a recent video, TikTok creator @polishlaurapalmer found a Skechers ad in the print copy of Vogue’s December 2024 special edition that showed some rather obvious signs of AI hallucination. Big picture: Upon fir ..read more

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is once again the star of an army of clay figurines caught with their pants down and defecating, produced by Spanish craftsmen in keeping with a tradition from the country’s north eastern Catalonia region. The “caganer” (pooper) figures were originally designed as comical shepherds hidden among nativity scenes for sharp-eyed visitors to spot, but the tradition has expanded to include world leaders and celebrities who have dominated the headlines over the past year. Sergi Alos, CEO of online store Caganer.com, said sales of United States presidential candidates ..read more