The only thing worse than spending millions of dollars on a logo is spending millions of dollars on a logo that makes everybody take out their pitchforks.

This year, the award for most unpopular rebrand goes to Cracker Barrel. Its attempted logo change last month—which ditched the barrel and the man leaning on it—ticked off consumers so badly that the company almost immediately reverted to its old emblem and suspended plans to remodel the interiors of restaurants, putting its $700 million rebrand in flux.

Honorable mentions include:

• MSNBC’s planned vibe-neutering switch to MS Now.
• Max’s return to HBO Max (perhaps less of a flop and more of an eyeroll).
• The fragrance brand Boy Smells’s soft-looking transition, which the company said actually juiced sales, even though die-hard fans railed against the new bottles for resembling vapes.
• Jaguar’s upcoming abandonment of its old-money style for a Blade Runner-like aesthetic.

Hall of Shame: Cracker Barrel joins the decidedly unhallowed ranks of major companies that got humiliated into undoing a rebrand:

• In 2009, Tropicana replaced the classic orange on its cartons with a full juice glass, triggering a 20% drop in sales. It brought back the orange within a year.
• Similar to the old country store, Gap hit Command + Z on a logo redesign within a week in 2010 after customers panned its lower-case style as lazy and boring. Some estimates peg the fiasco’s cost at $100 million, but it’s not clear if that’s true.
• JCPenney simplified to ‘jcp’ in 2012 under a new CEO and proceeded to lose nearly $1 billion that year amid a broader rebrand. It re-adopted JCPenney after firing said CEO the following year.

Outside of retail…redesign backlash is also common in Hollywood. After the internet treated the sneak peek of a live-action Sonic like a demon sighting, the 2020 film’s director tweaked the iconic character’s face to more closely match the video game version. Two sequels later, the franchise has grossed $1+ billion worldwide. Shrek fans are hoping to pressure DreamWorks into a similar concession after the Shrek 5 teaser deviated from the franchise’s previous animation style.—ML

The flip-phone smartphone could soon shed its reputation as the toe shoe of cellular devices, especially now that Apple is getting involved. The iPhone-maker is widely reported to be releasing its first foldable phone next year, capitalizing on a niche trend right as it’s gaining momentum.

Similar to the Galaxy phones you always see advertised but rarely encounter IRL, Apple’s foldable iPhone (code-named V68) will open like a book, transforming from a phone to a small tablet, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Since The Information broke the news about Apple’s origami foray last year, multiple analysts have predicted that it’ll launch in September 2026 for ~$2,000.

Androids greased the wheels. Apple’s foldable would come seven years after Samsung’s and Motorola’s respective first attempts, and three years after Google’s. Foldables—which now represent 1% to 2% of the smartphone market—have made major strides since the early, clunky days:

• Samsung’s new Z Fold 7 (pictured above) launched this year to the best types of reviews a foldable can ask for—it reportedly feels just like a regular smartphone, but with more screen.
• A fast-growing Chinese smartphone manufacturer, Honor, just released the world’s thinnest book-style smartphone—it’s 0.1mm slimmer than the Z Fold 7.

Sign of the times: First-week sales for Honor’s Magic V5 in Western Europe and the UK roughly doubled that of its previous iteration, the company said, suggesting that the world may finally be warming up to foldables.

Where there’s opportunity, there’s Apple: The iPhone-maker isn’t afraid to be a follower. It pulled the rug out from Pebble, Garmin, Fitbit, and Samsung and ended up leading the global smartwatch market with a 20% share. But the wait-and-release tactic doesn’t always work—Apple reportedly slashed production of its Vision Pro headset after realizing barely anybody wanted a wildly more expensive version of the Meta Quest.—ML

Every year, the Pantone Color Institute examines global, cultural, and psychological trends to select a color that accurately reflects “the mood of the global zeitgeist,” according to Pantone Color Institute VP Laurie Pressman in an interview posted on the Pantone website. It’s a real hue’s hue for the coming year.

Sometimes, the company selects two colors, like in 2015 and 2021. The picture above shows the winner(s), going back to 2015.

Pressman said the 26-year tradition is a good way to remind companies that color is an integral part of how consumers view their brands, and that the wrong shade can be the difference between someone buying their product or not. Coincidentally, the Pantone Color Institute offers consulting services on that very thing.—BC

You try to stay young by keeping up with trends and technology, but then, you get into a car that has a computer screen where the volume knob should be, and you immediately turn into Clint Eastwood. Despite wariness from drivers (and safety experts), auto manufacturers have embraced screens as a major design feature.

Screening process: Display screens are useful for reversing and helping you find that new donut shop, but most drivers are less impressed by the 12-tap routine it takes to turn down the AC. According to research released last year by What Car? magazine, 89% of drivers prefer physical buttons to screens.

Yet 97% of cars released after 2023 had at least one screen, according to S&P Global Mobility. There are a few reasons why carmakers are more bullish than drivers, Wired reports:

• Display screens are cheaper to install.
• Automakers can use the same tech across multiple car models.
• They’re practically essential for pushing software updates.

But there’s a safety reason to embrace tradition over modernity: Using a touchscreen while driving is more dangerous than toggling physical controls. In fact, it slows drivers’ reaction times more than alcohol (up to the legal limit), cannabis, and texting, according to a study by the independent consultancy group TRL.

Some automakers have gotten the memo. Volkswagen, Subaru, and Hyundai say they’re working to incorporate physical buttons back into at least some of their models. And Euro NCAP, which assesses the safety of cars in Europe, also said it’s going to start considering touchscreens when rating vehicles.—BC

Phantom funerals, a deathwatch beetle, and a gray condo with sans-serif house numbers can all be equally frightening omens about your living situation. “Gentrification design,” a style that touches home aesthetics from paint colors to font styles, has been slammed for homogenizing once-vibrant neighborhoods by beige-ifying everything in its path.

So, what does gentrification look like? The term “gentrification font” can be used to describe any sleek, sans-serif font, but it most commonly refers to Neutraface, which was introduced by House Industries in 2002. (You might recognize it from Shake Shack’s logo.) The description can be traced back to 2019 meme pages, but likely popped up as a way for people to make fun of multimillion-dollar apartments even earlier than that:

• The clean design is popular among developers and landlords looking to court high-income renters who tend to favor a minimalist, quiet-luxury aesthetic.
• For similar reasons, a gray exterior has been heralded as the official hue of rising rents. By the 2020s, half of the top 10 exterior house paint colors were all different shades of gray, according to Sherwin-Williams.

Realtors and HGTV are partly to blame for the style’s ubiquity, but the copy-and-paste feeling of gut renos or new builds also comes from tight zoning laws, expensive building costs, and even HOAs that demand a muted-looking street.

But the sleekness may not always mean what it used to. Because gray cubes are often the easiest and cheapest kind of home for developers to erect, even low-income housing has been looped into “gentrification style.”—MM