Design | The Verge The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts. 2026-09-08T13:32:08+00:00 https://www.theverge.com/rss/design/index.xml https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1 Robert Hart <![CDATA[Why AI food looks like that]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=989376 2026-09-08T09:32:08-04:00 2026-09-04T07:00:00-04:00 A collage of AI generated food that is disgusting and a person in the center who is disgusted

There is a torrent of unappetizing slop coming from restaurants, cafes, and brands that are increasingly turning to AI to generate images promoting their food. The resulting horror show includes donut shrimp, Reubens from the deep, wormlike noodles, and noodle-like pastries and stringy chicken. There's also construction material masquerading as ice cream, ice cream masquerading as brains, and other masonry-adjacent cuisine. I don't even know how to begin describing this monstrous attempt of a burger, and the less said about the trypophobic burrito from hell, grubs and all, the better. There are lumps. And holes. So many holes.

"Diffusion mo …

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]]> Antonio G. Di Benedetto <![CDATA[This 14-inch laptop has a screen that unrolls to 17 inches]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=989477 2026-09-03T12:25:26-04:00 2026-09-03T12:00:00-04:00 The rollable Lenovo ThinkBook Project Swan concept laptop sitting on a table with its screen expanded to 17 inches.
ThinkBooks, roll out! | Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Lenovo's latest rollable concept, announced at IFA 2026, is the ThinkBook Project Swan: a business laptop with a screen that expands horizontally from 14 to 17 inches.

Rollable screens are nothing new for Lenovo. The company has shown off several concepts and even launched a real one last year (and it was pretty great). But Project Swan seems a little more restrained than that wild vertically expanding ThinkBook Plus Gen 6.

Rolling from 14 to 17 inches.
@verge

The Lenovo Project Swan transforms from work to Netflix machine -- by literally rolling out a wider 17-inch 16:9 aspect ratio screen horizontally. It follows Le …

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]]> Jess Weatherbed <![CDATA[Ikea’s Xbox collection includes a giant thumbstick stool]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=984869 2026-08-26T07:06:50-04:00 2026-08-26T06:00:00-04:00 The Ikea Xbox Yxstaby collection.
Some pieces in the Yxstaby collection are more obviously Xbox-inspired than others. | Image: Ikea

Ikea has teamed up with Microsoft to launch a new assortment of gaming-inspired furniture and home accessories, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the first Xbox console. The nine-piece Yxstaby collection (good luck pronouncing that) includes a TV stand, laptop stand, side table, lounge chair, and multi-functional toolbox, with standout products like a stool, cushion, decorative platter, and mirrored display box being specifically designed around recognizable Xbox controller motifs.

The Yxstaby range makes it easier to "bring play into a room and tuck everything away afterwards," according to Ikea's press release, with each piece creat …

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]]> Jess Weatherbed <![CDATA[This is Instagram’s new logo]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=979583 2026-08-13T16:03:29-04:00 2026-08-13T11:00:38-04:00 The updated Instagram wordmark.
It’s certainly… different. | Image: Meta

Instagram has unveiled a new wordmark, moving away from the recognizable cursive typeface it's used over the last decade. The updated wordmark is a strange mix of half-cursive, half-print that's somehow less legible than its predecessor. Like, that totally says "Instagzam," right?

"The wordmark at the top of the app hasn't changed in 10 years, so it was time for a refresh," Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced on his account. "Cleaner and more modern, with references to the original and the simplicity and craft that's always made it Instagram."

A before and after comparison of the Instagram wordmark.

Mosseri is seemingly aware that this will be a controversial change, because he also posted it …

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]]> Terrence O’Brien <![CDATA[Google is open-sourcing its 3D emoji]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=967606 2026-07-18T12:40:55-04:00 2026-07-18T12:40:55-04:00 Google’s 2D blob thumbs up emoji next to a wire frame model and the new 3D model.

Now, if you want to, you can use Google's 3D emoji in your own creations. The company shared some details about how it went about designing the little pictograms and why, as part of World Emoji Day on Friday. Things you might not necessarily worry about in a 2D illustration suddenly become very important when you're talking about a 3D model. Is a smiley face a sphere? A mask? A flat disc?

In addition to offering a behind-the-scenes look at Google's design process, it also announced that it would be completely open-sourcing the emoji set:

We're handing over raw .OBJ files to the community so they can use them to build immersive VR worlds, …

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]]> Jess Weatherbed <![CDATA[Figma now has AI motion graphics and shader tools]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=955831 2026-06-24T13:42:58-04:00 2026-06-24T12:15:00-04:00 A collection of images showing the product updates announced at Config 2026.

Figma has revealed some new design and coding product updates at its annual Config conference that aim to help creatives "push their ideas further" and automate tedious tasks with AI. Part of this is a reimagined canvas that's now optimized for full-stack development, according to Figma, bringing teams, AI agents, tools, and materials "together in one place."

Notable callouts include coding layers that let you tweak the code of your projects without leaving the Figma Design canvas, and AI-generated motion graphics effects, which allow you to make animations and transition effects by simply describing them to Figma's chatbot interface. You c …

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]]> Jess Weatherbed <![CDATA[Photoshop and Premiere now have AI assistants]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=952099 2026-06-18T08:08:31-04:00 2026-06-18T09:00:00-04:00 The new AI assistant in Adobe Photoshop.
Photoshop is one of several Adobe Creative Cloud apps to receive new conversational editing capabilities. | Image: Adobe

Adobe's plan to stick AI assistants into all of its Creative Cloud suite is now fully underway, with new chatbots now rolling out to its biggest editing and design apps. As part of a public beta launching today, Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign, and Frame.io now each have a bespoke AI Assistant that can be used to organize your work and automate app-specific tasks.

While the AI assistants are all powered by Adobe's "conversational creative agent," they work independently and operate "as a specialist" within each Creative Cloud app, according to Adobe's announcement. That means the Premiere AI assistant is fine-tuned for tasks like …

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]]> Jess Weatherbed <![CDATA[Adobe’s redesigned AI studio remembers what your creations look like]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=952104 2026-06-18T07:59:54-04:00 2026-06-18T09:00:00-04:00 The new Elements feature for Adobe’s Firefly AI studio.
Give your characters, objects, and backgrounds a name to easily replicate them without changing the design. | Image: Adobe

Adobe is introducing some new capabilities for its Firefly AI assistant, alongside a "reimagined" AI studio that lets you edit and generate new designs from a single interface. The new Firefly experience launching today in private beta is designed to give you "persistent context, reusable assets, and organized workflows" across your projects, according to Adobe, making it easier to go from ideation to production-ready designs without switching between apps.

This is the latest of several design overhauls to Adobe's all-in-one Firefly AI hub since it was first launched in September 2023. In addition to the UI updates, the new Firefly AI studi …

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]]> Terrence O’Brien <![CDATA[NASA will wear high-tech Prada long johns to the Moon]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=945540 2026-06-07T18:16:41-04:00 2026-06-07T18:16:41-04:00 Rear view of the Axiom Space and Prada LCVG base layer.

We've seen Axiom Space and Prada's collaboration on the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit. Now the company has revealed the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment (LCVG) that astronauts will wear underneath it when Artemis IV returns humans to the Moon in 2028.

The LCVG is the all-important base layer that will keep the crew cool and comfortable while inside the AxEMU and on spacewalks. Cold water is circulated through tubes embedded in the suit to whisk heat away from astronauts' bodies. And, should the primary system fail, there is a backup, unlike older cooling suits. The LCVG also houses the ventilation system that su …

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]]> Abigail Bassett <![CDATA[How Ferrari bungled the design of its first EV]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=939226 2026-05-29T10:57:05-04:00 2026-05-29T10:00:00-04:00 Ferrari Luce

For nearly 80 years, Ferrari occupied a unique cultural space where its cars were aspirational, even for people who resented those who could afford them. The price, the exclusivity, and the opacity of the buying process allowed Ferrari to sail above ordinary criticism. You might not be able to afford one, but you still wanted one.

With the launch of the all-electric Luce this week, however, the company fell down to earth, drawing the ire of the internet in the form of derision, mocking memes, and AI slop. People compared it to a vacuum, a Magic Mouse, and, most insultingly, a Nissan Leaf.

The Luce has arrived in a moment where wealth in …

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