DesignObserver

Jessica Morgan, the director of the New York-based Dia Art Foundation, has been tapped to lead Tate, the British art institution home to some of the most visited museums in the world. The move comes at a difficult time for the institution, which has yet to regain pre-COVID-level attendance. The London-native was a clear front-runner: the former Tate curator of international art was widely praised for her transformational leadership. nyti.ms/4x586dz

“Make Coca-Cola more Coca-Cola.” That was the brief given to global branding agency Jones Knowles Ritchie, who was selected to overhaul the iconic brand’s assets. “This refresh is about being clearer and more consistent in how we show up, wherever people experience our brand,” said Arnab Roy, President, Coca-Cola Global Category. jkrglobal.com

Wildfires in France have driven some 250,000 people from their homes so far this summer. The fire is inching toward the Bordeaux region. “The situation remains very unfavorable,” says the French Interior Minister. bit.ly/4fGZItQ

Shein trips over tariffs ahead of historic Hong Kong IPO. The bad boy of fast fashion showed a $99 million quarterly loss due to slowing sales after the U.S. removed an import ​duty exemption on small packages (like ones filled with toxic, morally dubious dupes) and a hefty one-time accounting charge. reut.rs/4wv452r

“Open source did more than lower the cost of software; it created a shared foundation of knowledge on which generations of American engineers and entrepreneurs built their institutional sovereignty,” he writes. “The United States now faces a similar choice with artificial intelligence.”

We went from avoiding people who disagree to no longer needing people at all. That's the quiet impact of AI. Helder Santo, CEO for AKQA’s Americas region, on doubt, collaboration, and what happens when the second brain never gets pulled in. designobserver.com/ai-will-offer-…

Not so fast, say human creatives; we can sell snacks. London-based T&T Design Group published research last week that found that consumer packaging designs created through hybrid human-AI collaboration significantly outperformed those generated by AI alone. The categories they tested were snacks, skincare, functional drinks, vitamins, coffee, and frozen meals. bit.ly/4wWY3aC

The annual What Clients Think report, produced by UK-based consultancy Up to the Light, dropped its premium edition last week, revealing that clients are increasingly frustrated with design agencies’ over-reliance on AI tools and lack of strategic depth. bit.ly/4w30VSx

“Design has been too settled for too long,” says design leader and investor Andy Budd, commenting on Designer Fund’s latest AI in Design 2026 report, which digs deeply into the sector’s most-used tools and most pressing friction points. Judgment will rule the day. “If your value as a designer is mainly that you can produce neat Figma files, the next few years may be rough.” bit.ly/3RqAIio?

Koto, the global brand studio, unveiled a comprehensive rebrand of Stack Overflow that reframes the platform’s identity around human expertise rather than algorithmic answers. The 18-year-old site where programmers have always gone to “get unstuck,” needed a big swing, writes Katy Cowan. “Rather than tiptoe around the AI wave, they’ve gone and planted the new brand right in the middle of it.” bit.ly/45geSRP

Customer experience quality in the U.S. fell to a new low in 2025. Fourth consecutive year of decline. The companies bucking that trend started at the top. Kate Watts on what it actually looks like to treat the customer experience as something worth designing. bit.ly/3RkJvlY

The “ghost font,” a new anti-AI font designed to foil AI, is working so far. The font, designed by developer Eric Lu, uses dynamic noise videos to render text, which current models can’t read — humans detect the words via motion perception; the machines see only static snow. Want to stick to the machine? Try it for yourself, here. bit.ly/4fuwrUd

A new wave of carbon capture facilities is being planned across the rural US, subsidized by US tax dollars. A slam dunk for the environment or a potentially deadly health hazard? Clymers, Indiana, takes center stage. bit.ly/4yll3RS

DesignThinkers Toronto — Oct 20–21, 2026, Meridian Hall (in-person + virtual) RRGD’s annual graphic design conference returns to Toronto on October 20–21 with the theme “Out of Office” — a celebration of unconstrained creativity, rule-breaking, and visualizing without signal or performance pressure. It’s Canada’s largest design gathering, run by a member association of 4,500+ designers, with a virtual pass option for watching live-streamed sessions. bit.ly/3BUIYPj

Service Design Global Conference (SDGC26) — Oct 28–30, 2026, Wiesbaden, Germany + online. The Service Design Network’s 19th annual gathering is organized within the World Design Capital 2026 program, whose bid theme was “Beyond Boundaries: Enabling Solutions that Shape Tomorrow.” Attendees come from over 60 countries, and registration is open now for both in-person and virtual tickets. bit.ly/3SOtcON

Ana Mendieta gets her season in the sun at the Tate Modern, London’s “all-female” summer exhibition, in a “wondrous” show for an artist who still deserves our attention. The Cuban artist died under suspicious circumstances in 1985 after falling from the window of her 34th-floor NYC apartment. She was 36. bit.ly/3RyLanV

Using sensors, algae, recycled plastic, and buoys fashioned into a barn quilt pattern, two Drake University professors have created a floating sculpture that also captures harmful nitrates from the surrounding pond in which it bobs. “It’s in the Water,” a public art installation that addresses water pollution with art, science, and community, is currently on display in Iowa by professors Emily Newman and Edward Kelley and their Parts Per Million Collective. bit.ly/4f8IuVP

AIGA Design Educators Conference: Throughlines — July 27–28, 2026, Dayton, OH. A throughline is what connects every stage of a design education — from first exposure to lifelong practice — and this gathering of educators, students, and researchers asks how we keep that line unbroken. It convenes in Dayton in two weeks; if you teach design or were shaped by someone who does, this one’s for you. educators.aiga.org/2026-aiga-desi…

What does belonging look like inside one of the most visited museums in the world? Tricia Robson on how The Met thinks about audience engagement — and why making 6.3 million people feel welcome is, at its core, a design challenge. bit.ly/4gAKrNo

A recap of the Sustainable Brands Conference 2026. There’s definitely more to talk about than when it first began 20 years ago, says Jessica Deseo in PRINT. “California continues to lead the way in environmental policy, and one of the most discussed topics throughout the event was the state’s landmark packaging legislation, SB 54,” she says. bit.ly/4ya690P