A new fixture just appeared in Central Park, and it proves that New York City’s infamous “war on rats” is far from over.  The product joining the front lines is a recycling bin specifically desiged to hold empty pizza boxes—which, apparently, are like the bat signal for the reviled rodents. According to an announcement from the Central Park Conservatory,...

Branded is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture. John Mulaney’s somewhat-intentionally chaotic pop-up talk show, which ran live for six nights in connection with the Netflix is a Joke Festival, included (and often mocked) many familiar elements of the genre: gaggles of guests, live viewer calls,...

In the vast, ancient world of product design, there’s one 85-year-old classic so iconic that it’s served as a muse for dozens of artists, including Bono, Yoko Ono, Yves Behar, and Damien Hirst. This product has been turned into a car, a robot, and a grill; crushed in a hydraulic press; re-created into a tiny digital image to use instead of the “trash”...

In the age of fickle online trends, font horoscopes, and tiny mics, what room is there to engage with the humble mass-market paperback of yesteryear? A new book, Second Hand, dusts off should-be-classic book covers that have largely been forgotten, and pulls out new design lessons from old tricks. Jesse Reed, the book’s author and cofounder of the design...

Pendant lights are great for bringing concentrated light to a space, but installing them can be a real pain. Now, San Francisco-based Gantri, the company behind an array of at-home lighting innovations like wfh task lights, 3D-printed and plant-based fixtures, is releasing a collection of 13 pendant lights with this challenge in mind. The collection...

The WNBA’s newest team, the Golden State Valkyries, have a new logo that takes inspiration from both their mythological namesake and a landmark much closer to home—the Bay Bridge. The result is franchise branding with a double meaning that goes pretty hard in the paint, at least according to the initial response from fans.The Valkyries’ logo plays into...