Side Salad: Finger Clickin’ Good

June 16, 2026

Good morning from Dieline’s editor-in-chief, Bill McCool. Here’s your daily side serving of design news, short musings, brand stuff, and forgotten ephemera.

• I cannot begin to tell you how exhausted I am with these fucking plastic cans. The only “unique” feature they carry is that they are completely unrecyclable (though, I suppose if you cut off the top, you can recycle the plastic bottom—that you even need to perform recycling surgery also means it’s not recyclable). Obviously, this reminded me of the energy water brand, Orka, which I never wanted to feature on the site because everything about the branding and packaging has a cursed aura that screams bad vibes city. That and you have to be a genuine fucking moron to launch a beverage in a “plastic can” for the sake of virality.

• Crayola’s crayons are made from Petroleum. Honeysticks, however, are made from beeswax. They’re also the 2026 Plastic-Free winner at the DIELINE Awards, and Charlotte interviewed Milk, the agency that handled their redesign.

• These clowns (complimentary) put up fake tech ads, and I think 80% of them are absolutely believable if you give them a sideways glance. Kudos.

• I understand that we are what you might refer to as a niche destination or an industry rag, and I will never not be amazed by some of the press releases that come my way, especially the ones from people who have no idea what we do. That said, I love that I now know there is such a thing as “The Spooky Awards, the Halloween & Costume Association’s (HCA) “official celebration of innovation, creativity, and excellence in the Halloween industry.” I mean, we give out awards for packaging, why not costumes, too?

• Speaking of being an oddball publication, to my knowledge, there is only one website covering the KFC redesign and doing interviews about lube packaging on the same day. Just saying.

• Asshole’s are out. It’s official.

• Clearly, I haven’t eaten a Fig Newton in a really, really long time, because not only did they redesign the packaging(announced two-ish weeks ago), but they are also no longer known as Fig Newtons (announced in 2012).

• On that note, KFC is a very JKR redesign in that it’s not even remotely offensive to LinkedIn jockeys and armchair experts (these names are also in my title FWIW). That said, I do like the employee hats with what appears to be a “wordmark bucket,” though I’m not sure what else you could call it.

Thanks for letting me calls ’em as I sees ’em.

Bill