Signal of the week

Rebrand / refresh · 12 stories, +9 vs last week

Rebrand / refresh: 12 stories in seven days, +9 on the week before.

A New Identity for New Energy LogoLounge

Apple Music’s ‘miserable’ new logo is giving mixed messages Creative Bloq

Latest

Core77Core77 Weekly Roundup (10-13-26 to 10-16-26) Here's what we looked at this week: To build a low-cost EV, Citröen dusts off the 2CV. ID firm Layer develops corrugated plywood that's strong and lightweight. Poka-yoke: Idiot-proof design.

10.18

Core77The International Lineman's Rodeo: The Olympics for Lineworkers In a fairground in Kansas this week, a number of utility poles have been sunk into a field. This is for the International Lineman's Rodeo & Expo , an annual competition where the folks who keep…

10.18

Core77Tesla Unveils Bonkers Flying Car Last night in Texas, Tesla assembled group of fans, influencers and journalists to witness the unveiling of their new Roadster . "We need an audience to prove that it's not AI," Elon Musk said.

10.18

Yanko DesignThis 3D-printed film camera can manipulate perspective for perfect skyscraper shots Point your phone at a tall building and snap a photo, then look at it. The whole thing is leaning back like it’s trying to dodge a punch, and that effect has a name: converging verticals.

10.18

Yanko DesignLego’s 5,682-brick Venice set has canals, a clocktower, and a tiny piano that actually plays Venice sits on roughly 118 small islands stitched together with bridges, which makes it the one city where a flat LEGO base feels almost historically accurate.

10.18

Elle DecorELLE Decor Checks In: Le Grand Mazarin The Martin Brudnizki-designed retreat is like an art museum—with croissants.

10.18

Yanko DesignA 120-Square-Foot Tiny Home Sleeps Two Without a Loft I’d rather fold out a sofa than climb a ladder at bedtime. The Traveler, a tiny home designed and built by Backcountry Tiny Homes, makes that preference its organizing idea.

10.18

AbduzeedoBest of the Week: Custom Serifs, Fluted Glass, and Print

10.18

Fonts In UseBordello A Parigi at Noorderlicht, ADE 2026 Contributed by Blaze Type Parade Studio . License: All Rights Reserved . As Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) approaches, record label Bordello A Parigi takes over Noorderlicht on October 24, featuring…

10.18

発見, hakken: a finding. This is a record of what one designer notices in a week.

I grew up beside the Arakawa, in Adachi, and spent five years in a Ginza studio drawing identities for companies you have used without once thinking about them. That work teaches you to read a city as a page. A vending machine is set type. A rice bag is a packaging problem somebody solved in the eighties and nobody has improved on since. A good deal of the best design in Japan is like that: already in the street, unsigned, waiting to be looked at properly.

So this magazine watches the street as well as the feed. Around fifty sources come in through the day, ten of them Japanese, and what the world's studios are arguing about is counted and plotted so you can watch it move. Every third day I write about one thing I actually stood in front of.

What you get for a story is a headline, a short excerpt, one picture and the way out to the people who reported it. Never the article itself, and never the photograph as though it were ours. A story written in Japanese stays in Japanese here, headline and excerpt both, because that is how its author set it down.

Everything is also published in Japanese at hakkenmag.com/ja/.

— Ren Arakawa, Tokyo

One letter a week, starting soon.

Signal of the week

Rebrand / refresh: 12 stories in seven days, +9 on the week before.

A New Identity for New Energy LogoLounge

Apple Music’s ‘miserable’ new logo is giving mixed messages Creative Bloq

Latest

Core77Core77 Weekly Roundup (10-13-26 to 10-16-26) Here's what we looked at this week: To build a low-cost EV, Citröen dusts off the 2CV. ID firm Layer develops corrugated plywood that's strong and lightweight. Poka-yoke: Idiot-proof design.

Core77The International Lineman's Rodeo: The Olympics for Lineworkers In a fairground in Kansas this week, a number of utility poles have been sunk into a field. This is for the International Lineman's Rodeo & Expo , an annual competition where the folks who keep…

Core77Tesla Unveils Bonkers Flying Car Last night in Texas, Tesla assembled group of fans, influencers and journalists to witness the unveiling of their new Roadster . "We need an audience to prove that it's not AI," Elon Musk said.

Yanko DesignThis 3D-printed film camera can manipulate perspective for perfect skyscraper shots Point your phone at a tall building and snap a photo, then look at it. The whole thing is leaning back like it’s trying to dodge a punch, and that effect has a name: converging verticals.

TypewolfDaylight

TypewolfHeart & Soil

TypewolfDirty Vine

Yanko DesignLego’s 5,682-brick Venice set has canals, a clocktower, and a tiny piano that actually plays Venice sits on roughly 118 small islands stitched together with bridges, which makes it the one city where a flat LEGO base feels almost historically accurate.

Elle DecorELLE Decor Checks In: Le Grand Mazarin The Martin Brudnizki-designed retreat is like an art museum—with croissants.

Yanko DesignA 120-Square-Foot Tiny Home Sleeps Two Without a Loft I’d rather fold out a sofa than climb a ladder at bedtime. The Traveler, a tiny home designed and built by Backcountry Tiny Homes, makes that preference its organizing idea.

AbduzeedoBest of the Week: Custom Serifs, Fluted Glass, and Print

Fonts In UseBordello A Parigi at Noorderlicht, ADE 2026 Contributed by Blaze Type Parade Studio . License: All Rights Reserved . As Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) approaches, record label Bordello A Parigi takes over Noorderlicht on October 24, featuring…