3 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
Skip to main content

Design

Design is more than how it looks — it’s how it works. The Verge brings you the best of design from the web, the home, the software world, and architecture.

Why it’s so hard to make a ‘safer’ football helmet

The Schutt F7 Pro is being adopted fast, but that’s not usually the case for the NFL.

Dvora Meyers
Ikea’s most Ikea product everIkea’s most Ikea product ever
Jess Weatherbed
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
The FolderDrive puts your files in your pocket.

Inspired by the folder icon in macOS, David Delahunty originally teased their concept design for the FolderDrive on X a few weeks ago, but there was enough positive feedback for them to partner with Super Fantastic to make it a real thing.

Pricing isn’t known but the first run of the FolderDrive, featuring 128GB of storage and a USB-C port on the bottom, will be limited to just 100 units.

<em>There are no pricing or performance details yet for the FolderDrive, but it will feature 128GB of storage.</em>
<em>Super Fantastic is using 3D printing to manufacture the FolderDrive’s unique design.</em>
<em>The first run is being limited to just 100 units.</em>
1/3
There are no pricing or performance details yet for the FolderDrive, but it will feature 128GB of storage.
Image: Super Fantastic
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
We finally have an update for...PNG?

Launching 22 years after its last major update, the latest PNG spec now includes native support for HDR, APNG animations, and Exif metadata for embedding information into image files. W3C PNG Working Group chair Chris Blume says Chrome, Safari, Firefox, iOS, macOS, and Adobe Photoshop already support the new standard, and that upcoming updates will improve compression and dynamic range support.

PNG is back!

[programmax.net]

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
What’s with that RabaT4Xl logo?

When I first saw the Robotaxi wordmark, I assumed someone had already vandalized the car like a Waymo caught in a protest. The creative experts consulted by Fast Company are even more critical of the cyberdork aesthetic:

“A good logo always tries to convey the brand promise,” says type designer and Hoefler & Co. founder Jonathan Hoefler. “And this one definitely foreshadows the tragic collisions ahead.”

A vehicle Tesla is using for robotaxi testing purposes on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, US, on Sunday, June 22, 2025.
A vehicle Tesla is using for robotaxi testing purposes on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, US, on Sunday, June 22, 2025.
Photo: Tim Goessman/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Jony Ive is pivoting to museums.

The ex-Apple designer, now working on AI hardware for OpenAI, just joined the British Museum’s board of trustees. The London museum is going through a huge redevelopment, ominously dubbed “The Masterplan,” and it sounds like Ive will give guidance on how tech could be a part of that. No word yet on who he thinks should have the Parthenon sculptures.

How to build the best keyboard in the world

Ryan Norbauer spent half a decade and several hundred thousand dollars reinventing the keyboard. It worked.

Nathan Edwards
Norbauer Seneca review: a $3,600 luxury keyboard for the keyboard obsessed0

An elegant weapon, from a more civilized age.

Nathan Edwards
This is what it looks like to be colorblind

Apparently, the very idea of colorblindness is hard to visualize. Take a shot at looking through my eyes.

Andy Baio
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Lexon turned Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog sculptures into functional art.

The collaboration between Koons and Lexon Design sees the artist’s most iconic creation turned into a wireless speaker with touch controls delivering 360-degree sound and a lamp that uses tubes filled with color-changing LEDs to recreate the appearance of neon lighting.

Pricing isn’t known, but both will only be available in limited quantities later this month and hopefully be much cheaper than the 10-foot Balloon Dog sculpture Koons sold in 2013 for $58 million.

<em>You can <a href="https://manage.kmail-lists.com/subscriptions/subscribe?a=TgyUTU&g=XnRJBg">sign up through the Lexon Design website</a> to be notified when the lamp and speaker are available.</em>
<em>There are 10 drivers in the Balloon Dog Speaker, and it can be controlled through a smartphone app.</em>
<em>The lamp’s color-changing LEDs can set a mood or just brighten up a space.</em>
1/3
You can sign up through the Lexon Design website to be notified when the lamp and speaker are available.
Image: Lexon Design
Victoria Song
Victoria Song
Say Drake...

I hear you like your Nokias... blung? Listen, it’s early and I’m not Kendrick. However, behold this iced-out Nokia phone and wallet chain that jeweler Alex Moss made for Drake’s Some Sexy Songs 4 U album. Hypebeast has the details but apparently this project took four months to complete and has over 150 carats of diamonds.

I think this counts as a wearable.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
Go deep down the Animal Well.

One of 2024’s best — and most cryptic — games, is getting a big ol’ design book courtesy Lost in Cult. It’s not releasing until next summer, but the publisher promises that the tome will be “a deep dive into the intricate world of Animal Well.” Pre-orders open later today.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
When 10 billion pixels isn’t enough.

How about 108 billion instead? Following up the previous 10 gigapixel scan of Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring painting is a new version that ups the resolution significantly, while also letting you explore the art in 3D. It’s so big there’s even a minimap to help you navigate.

A closeup of the painting Girl With a Pearl Earring.
That is a pearl earring.
Image: Hirox
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
This brutalist machined aluminum keyboard is still beautiful.

Serene Industries is following up on its massive wedge-shaped Icebreaker keyboard with a smaller, lighter alternative called the Cleaver. Available for preorder now for $850 it’s also cheaper, but by no means cheap.

Machined from a single block of aluminum, the Cleaver features Hall effect switches and swappable aluminum keycaps perforated with holes to allow LED backlighting to shine through. It’s USB-C only, and available with Windows or Mac layouts and clear or black anodized finishes.

<em>The Cleaver is available for preorder and will go into production a few weeks after launch.</em>
<em>You can order the Cleaver without the matching aluminum keycaps if you want to use your own, dropping the preorder price to $650.</em>
<em>The Cleaver offers no wireless connectivity, but the lack of an internal battery helps keep its design slim.</em>
1/3
The Cleaver is available for preorder and will go into production a few weeks after launch.
Image: Serene Industries
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
This $395 mirror turns your reflection into a Microsoft Paint masterpiece.

Depending on your age, there’s a good chance Microsoft Paint was your first introduction to creating digital art. The app’s capabilities have improved over the years, but Drought’s new MS Paint Mirror captures the charm of the limited toolset included in the Windows 95 version — just supersized and a lot easier to use.

A person holds a mirror in a dry, desert-like area in two different side-by-side images.
Drought’s MS Paint Mirror is made from wood, glass, MDF, and features a “full-color printed design.”
Image: Drought
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
A long time ago, in a toy bin far, far away…

Available for preorder today for $59.99 and shipping on May 1st, 2025, Lego has announced a 700-piece buildable version of the iconic Star Wars logo created by graphic designer Suzy Rice.

The black support structure supporting the yellow lettering is covered in detailed Lego greebling, while inside the letter T you’ll find a tiny hidden Star Destroyer pursuing the Tantive IV.

1/4Image: Lego
Marina Galperina
Marina Galperina
Dalí-inspired “hot garbage.”

Google recently showed off “a cinematic vision so surreal, so ahead of its time, that it proved impossible to produce.” Giraffes on Horseback Salad was originally conceived by Salvador Dalí for the Marx Brothers, but was too weird (and not funny enough) to be actually made. Using Veo 2 and Imagen 3, an ad agency and a museum were “finally capable of transforming surrealism into film.” (Unlike... Luis Buñuel? David Lynch?)

The result, so far, is just this trailer. It’s an eye-searing, sloppy montage of what this ArtNet breakdown by critic Ben Davis calls “chintzy sub-sub-Surrealist imagery has little to do with Dali’s original vision.”

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
This mechanical watch was inspired by a transforming ‘80s wearable toy.

One of the more obscure toys of the ‘80s was a line of digital watches from Japan’s Takara called the Kronoform that could transform into vehicles, creatures, and even a robot. Hautlence’s modern take trades digital timekeeping for a self-winding mechanical movement featuring a tourbillon to improve accuracy.

The Retrovision ‘85 is also made from 3D-printed titanium instead of plastic, and since just eight are being made, you can expect a steep price tag.

<em>The Hautlence Retrovision ‘85 watch can be removed from its strap and transformed into a tiny robot.</em>
<em>The timepiece is made from 3D-printed titanium and has a power reserve of 72 hours, but also features a self-winding mechanism extending its run time while it’s worn.</em>
1/2
The Hautlence Retrovision ‘85 watch can be removed from its strap and transformed into a tiny robot.
Image: Hautlence
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
The clever engineering and design of two-liter plastic soda bottles.

Doing what he does best, Bill Hammack, AKA The Engineer Guy, spends an enlightening 13 minutes explaining not only how two-liter plastic soda bottles are made, but also how their seemingly simple design incorporates some ingenious engineering.

From the manufacturing process where bottles are inflated like balloons to eliminate seams that could split under pressure, to the hemispherical curves on the top and bottom of each bottle that increase its strength.