Side Salad: Smut Happens
June 3, 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.
Rudy recapped our best redesigns of the Spring. One of them rhymes with “greazy,” or at least I hope I’m pronouncing it the right way.
Make it make-all-the-sense-movie-licensing: PAX just did a Scary Movie edition of the PAX 4 with Ghostface on it, which is very stupid, but also very brilliant.
The people have spoken, and they want SMUT.
Love what Koto did for the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, not just because it’s a Herculean task to elevate anything in Florida that has to do with CULTURE, but because it dips into the museum’s collection in such an organic way that speaks to the nature of curation.
Hey, maaaannnnnn: there’s no “climate change” if you just eliminate the systems that monitor and track these things, right?
Did you know that Schweppes is the oldest soft drink brand in the world? They’re also our May Pack of the Month. Apologies that we don’t have cheesecake centerfold spreads for this kind of affair. Someday!
I really don’t want the existential dread that comes with a Rothko weather report. Sidenote: I had a Rothko I cut out from an art history book that I hung in my college dorm room, and on more than one occasion (we’ll call it “two”), someone remarked, “Rothko? Pffft.” Pretentious liberal arts kids are often not very nice (and yours truly is just as guilty)!
Fudgie the Whale has once again washed up on shore for all of your ice cream cake needs.
Dude, no one wants wings from McDonald’s.
Speaking of liberal arts colleges, I’m currently reading The Odyssey, which I haven’t read since high school, and even then, I’m not sure I actually “read” the book. That said, while I love the Emily Wilson translation, I think it’s hilarious that every 20 pages or so, Odysseus has to go to yet another feast, where the host has to once again figure out who he is after having been bathed by his slave women, doused in olive oil, eaten three racks of lamb, and consumed 3 gallons of wine. Does no one do introductions??? What is this world!
Anywho, I hope you have a nice day.
-Bill