Happy Monday, creatives!

This past month design changed. Between AI graphics and disco ball logos, brands explored new directions for better… or for worse.

AI branding is no longer theoretical. It is here.

All around my small town there are flyers, logos, signs on buildings, menus, and social posts. And as a designer, it is pretty easy to spot that these are all AI generated.

So the question is: is this actually bad?

Your gut reaction might be yes. AI branding takes work away from designers. And sometimes, that is true. But I want to play devil’s advocate for a second:

Most small businesses were not hiring a professional designer in the first place. Before AI, they were using Canva templates, Fiverr, Vistaprint logo generators, and random online logo makers.

I remember getting hired as a young designer to vectorize a friend’s local business logo because they had made it through Vistaprint. They did not hire me to design the logo. They hired me after the fact because the logo was unusable.

A lot of small business branding has always been rough. AI did not invent quick logos. It just made the quick logos look better. Honestly, some of the AI branding I’ve seen looks pretty good and to most people, you can’t tell a difference.

I’ve seen two different local businesses in my town launch with branding that looks clearly AI generated, but they also look put together. They look like real businesses and they are growing. So part of me has a hard time getting mad at that.

Where it starts to get questionable is when big brands do it.

When a massive brand uses AI, it’s harder to defend. They have the budget, the teams and the resources to hire real artists, designers, illustrators, photographers, animators, and production studios.

But having worked the 9 to 5 creative life, I can also tell you what is probably happening behind the scenes. Somewhere inside the company, there is a mandate to “explore AI.” Marketing teams are being encouraged to test it to stay on top of new technology.

Whether that is good or bad, one thing is obvious: AI graphics are becoming normal.

What do you think? Hit reply and let me know.

This past month, the internet broke over Spotify’s viral app icon change. It was only a temporary change to celebrate their anniversary, but that did not stop everyone from having the most dramatic design reaction possible.

And then brands started following the trend, turning their own logos into disco balls .

But I think there is a bigger conversation here than whether or not the Spotify icon looked good.

The interesting part is that it was skeuomorphic, detailed design. That alone is a pretty drastic shift from the flat design world we’ve been living in for the last decade.

For years, app icons and brand identities have been getting flatter, cleaner, simpler, and more minimal. Every rebrand felt like the same instruction: remove the personality and make it scale better on a phone screen.

But lately, it feels like the pendulum is swinging back.

I made a whole video about how minimalism and flat design might finally be dying, and the Spotify disco ball feels like a perfect example of that shift.

A major brand took a swing on something fun, temporary, and visually loud. And in a world where most brand systems feel like they were designed to offend absolutely no one, that is refreshing. I loved it because it showed a willingness to be different.

At the end of the day, there is no such thing as bad publicity when everyone is voluntarily reposting your app icon, so I imagine we will see more brands experiment with temporary icons, playful campaigns, and weird visuals after the success of this Spotify change.

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This month’s featured creative is Nam Hoang. Nam created the piece above and said:

If you’d like to be featured in a future issue, share a creative project you’re working on. Click here to submit!

I always try to keep up with the latest design trends, here are my top 6 to keep you cool this summer!

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