Side Salad: Soul Cyclospora
July 17, 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.
IKEA’s Kompishäng collection is both the smartest and most bleak line of furniture they have ever released. They know that you will never be able to afford a home, so they made “portable” furniture for short-term renters.
Guys, we already have tiny records. They’re called CDs. And they sound better.
Just like Pepsi before it, Coca-Cola is likely very late to the gut-healthy soda game, and they just don’t seem to have a reason to exist beyond being Coke and Pepsi alternatives of a product that is doing it better, and frankly, owning it, too. That’s just not a strong starting point.
The HOA moves in mysterious ways.
Get ready for some strongly worded caffeine warnings on Alani and Celsius cans. Incidentally, energy drinks will be banned from sale in England next year for kids under 16.
Dear Samuel Moore, please send me 1,000 stickers as I would like to hang them up all around town WHEN I SEE IT.
Ahead of the 2026 midterms, Ben & Jerry’s is releasing Razz UP!, a new limited-edition black raspberry ice cream with crackling fudge chunks, to mobilize voters and fight authoritarianism. The flavor will only be available in Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop, and I’m sure this is very much unsanctioned by their parent company, the Magnum Ice Cream Company.
FWIW, Ben & Jerry’s founder Ben Cohen would also like you to make your own Magnum bars, and he’s shared a recipe as well.
Begging your pardon, but did the representative from Old El Paso say Stuffed Nachos?
If you hate diarrhea, today is absolutely the best day to start a garden. By the way, a good argument for having a functional government with officials tasked with overseeing food safety is… explosive diarrhea.
The cast of Saved By The Bell reunited for Saved By the Boxtops, a nostalgia-heavy campaign celebrating Boxtops for Education, an organization that has been supporting classrooms across the country for three decades. I mention this because my wife is a teacher and frequently has to pay for her own supplies, and we need more initiatives like this (in addition to a 100% pay increase).
As it’s Friday, I hope you make some time for Cuttin’ Loose.
Don’t eat your vegetables.
-Bill