No doubt, a retrospective makes you introspective, and Marc Newson is in a career-analyzing mood when we meet for lunch at the Mandarin Oriental hotel during Milan Design Week. Between plates of spring rolls sits the industrial designer’s latest project: not a luxurious watch or boat, not a $3.7 million chair made from the riveted aluminum of an airplane...

Branded is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture. Dr. Martens was one of the weirdest success stories of the pandemic: Somehow, at a sweats-and-Crocs moment when stuck-at-home consumers prized comfort above all, the maker of rebel-fashion work boots enjoyed a standout IPO that valued the company...

The former Melrose High School building in Memphis could have been like any other shuttered public school in the country. Built in the 1930s and closed in 1979, the three-story brick building had become obsolete and unnecessary. But unlike other old schools around the country, this one had a unique place in U.S. history. The school is located in a Memphis...

The online therapy company Talkspace just debuted its first rebrand since launching in 2012, and the new look is sending a message: Mental healthcare should feel approachable, not intimidating. “[The common design tropes in mental healthcare] feel so cold,” says Joe Ling, creative director of the design agency Koto. “Therapy should be warm, it...

A European court on Thursday upheld Italy’s right to seize a prized Greek statue from the J. Paul Getty Museum in California, ruling that Italy was right to try to reclaim an important part of its cultural heritage and rejecting the museum’s appeal. The European Court of Human Rights, or ECHR, determined that Italy’s years-long efforts to recover the...

Major League Baseball is going back to the drawing board for its uniforms next season, and claims Nike is the one who struck out on the current design. The MLB Players Association addressed backlash to the league’s new Nike Vapor Premier uniforms in a recent memo to players, obtained by ESPN. The memo says the league will make modifications to...