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.
From the shooting-yourself-in-the-other-foot department, Target not only alienated Black-owned and founded brands after pulling back on its DEI initiatives, but apparently it’s also selling Halloween costumes inspired by minstrel shows. This bodes well for its brand-new approach to “food discovery.“
Want to know why school buses are yellow?
I can see a popsicle actually being a good vessel for protein, and Pola Pops has some pretty great branding to boot.
OK, seriously. Watch the video in this article, because these researchers have made self-healing packaging. Totally wild that you can make a Wolverine bag.
Dr. Dre is going to bat for AI and complaining about synthesizers and drum machines, and I would like to remind you that he hasn’t produced a hit single in over a decade. That said, he’s not wrong: lots of producers are using it, and by LOTS I mean pretty much all.
On that note, readers of this newsletter have a good idea of where I land on a lot of AI-generated work. But there is also no stopping it, and that’s a fairly big duh we can all let out. But I think what matters, at least in terms of turning people off, is how it’s deployed. For instance, I thought about covering a new beverage called Unfog, which apparently is a caffeine-free energy drink that fights brain fog. The packaging is fine; it reminds me a LOT of Recess, but the idea behind the beverage made it interesting enough to cover. Of course, I went to their website and was greeted by a brand world swimming in AI slop. Jeebus knows I’m just as sick of talking about brands that are using very obvious AI-generated images (and I would just as soon give them zero attention), but it’s worth asking the same question we’re seeing from many consumers who are talking about restaurants or other organizations creating AI food images, posters, and signage—if you didn’t put that much thought into how you were presenting yourself, then why should I trust your company and/or brand? Like, yes, perhaps your packaging was made by a human, but please explain how that second man from the left has a double-billed ballcap, Unfog? FFS, if you’re going to use it, at least get good at hiding it.
Be good.
-Bill