Blueprint — page 8 | The Gradient

Omnicom Shrinks. WPP Cuts. Publicis Grows.

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Omnicom Shrinks. WPP Cuts. Publicis Grows.

At Warsaw’s The Poster Festival, a new school of artists emerge alongside an overlooked history of graphic design

Part of the festival was a whopping eight-hour conference bringing together a wealth of designers from across Europe, from Switzerland’s ‘atelier’ Kolly Gujer and Graphic Matters to institutions such as the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and the International Poster Biennale. The discussions, talks and panels reached topics such as ‘is the poster dead?’

AI Search Is Nothing Without SEO & It Knows It

As AI summaries compress traditional organic space, referral traffic to publishers is being squeezed, creating a world where search is more used than ever, but the search interface is also retaining users for longer, where it has historically acted like a switchboard. The outlook from publishers is pessimistic, with traffic expected to halve in the

Inside Electronic Art’s bet in-game ads can out-earn CTV

Gaming is the next big ad medium after social, CTV and retail media. That’s according to Electronic Arts’ vp of advertising and sponsorship, Alex Dao, who’s building out their ads business. The unit launched last month and covers brand partnerships and gameplay integrations, ad units in 3D sports simulations, enhanced targeting and measurement capabilities as

Off to college? These dorm room deals suit every type of student

Beth is Creative Bloq’s Ecommerce Writer and has the fun job of finding you the very best prices and deals on creative tech. Beth kicked off her journalistic career writing for Digital Camera World and has since earned bylines on TechRadar and PetsRadar too. With a Master’s degree in Photography, Beth loves getting to tinker

Where Clicks Go, What Agents Skip, Who’s Leaving Bing

Welcome to the week’s Pulse: Google’s explanation for lost clicks was tested; a case study showed why Core Web Vitals fixes target the wrong element; a report measured how agents handle pricing pages; John Mueller weighed in on agent access; and a longtime Bing leader announced his retirement. Here’s what matters for you and your

Compilation 35

This gallery presents a selection of illustrations, mixing geometric shapes, psychedelic colors, and bold, clean linework. Each piece reflects my signature style?vibrant, detailed, and influenced by European graphic design.

Lighthouse Fails Your Llms.txt Without Markdown Links

Chrome’s new Lighthouse Agentic Browsing audit treats your .txt file as a markdown document. If your llms.txt does not use markdown link syntax, you fail the audit, even when every link in the file is accurate and works. I ran the audit on nohacks.co. Two of six audits passed. Three came back not applicable. One

Stop adopting AI and start solving problems

AI was supposed to make marketing faster, smarter, and more efficient. In theory, it does. But in practice, many teams are moving so quickly to adopt AI that they’re using it reactively instead of strategically. Instead of streamlining work, they’re creating new friction. I’ve watched clients adopt an AI tool because everyone else is, without

The Weekend With Rene Matić

The youngest Turner Prize nominee to date, artist Rene Matić’s work spans photography, film and sculpture, often weaving through themes of identity, nationality and belonging, as well as feminism and queerness. The artist has just been awarded the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize for their project As Opposed to The Truth – a powerful, layered

Google Ends Cache-Served AMP Pages In Search

Google Search now routes searchers to the domain’s own AMP host pages. Google will no longer use the AMP viewer, AMP Cache, or signed exchanges for AMP serving. AMP content will continue to rank like any other web page. Google Search now takes searchers directly to a domain’s AMP host pages, ending the viewer/cache serving

Bose is building an entertainment company

Bose Studios launched last month. But the music company’s entertainment division is the culmination of a strategic shift that has been years in the making. It already accounts for one-third to 40% of the brand’s marketing, CMO Jim Mollica told Digiday at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity last week. He expects that to reach

What the Lego x Olivia Rodrigo collaboration teaches designers

Lego has launched a five-set collection built around Olivia Rodrigo; the first time the company has dedicated multiple sets to a single musician. The range, launching globally on 1 August, includes a vinyl display, a guitar-shaped storage case, a concert moon scene, a dual acoustic-and-electric guitar build, and a personalised entry into Lego’s Botanicals range.

Google’s Mueller Flags A Case On Why LCP Fixes Miss the Target

Google Search Advocate John Mueller highlights a new case study explaining why certain Largest Contentful Paint improvements often fail to produce results. In a layout that varies by store, the browser may focus on the wrong element, causing all subsequent optimizations to target something that was never the LCP in the first place. The case

Fox News and MS NOW Share the Spoils

This is TVNewser’s basic cable network ranker and cable news report for the week of June 22, 2026. Fox News and MS NOW concluded the week with some positive momentum as they recorded individual wins in total viewers during total day and the Adults 25-54 demo during total day, respectively. All networks were down in

The Devil Wears the PESO Model®: Why Most Companies Fake Integration

Most brands think they’re running the PESO Model. They’re not. Aquila Mendez-Valdez shares 3 signs that separate real integration from a very expensive costume. The post The Devil Wears the PESO Model®: Why Most Companies Fake Integration first appeared on Spin Sucks.

Your Younger Audience Is Declining Faster Than It Looks

Last week, I argued that habitual publisher traffic – direct and branded – has been eroding for years, and that the under-35s are leading the charge. Not directly provable, but a theory. Now that I am no longer part of that cohort, it’s easier to pin the blame on them. Which is entirely what I

FREE! The email subject line rules that don’t hold up!

Email marketers have spent years following the same advice: use power words, personalize subject lines, avoid ALL CAPS, and keep punctuation to a minimum. A new study suggests some of those rules may be hurting performance instead of helping it. Researchers at the University of Helsinki analyzed 31,812 marketing email subject lines sent a combined

Mindy Seu invites us to uncover our erotic relationship with the internet

Cyberfeminism Index creator, designer, researcher and educator Mindy Seu joined us on the Nicer Tuesdays stage in Los Angeles to introduce us to A Sexual History of the Internet, a compendium-cum-performance-piece of our erotic relationship with the visual history of sex. Her talk came along with a slideshow interactive via Are.na all about teledildonics, cybersex

Google AI Overviews Study Finds Lost Clicks Weren’t Lower Quality

The extra outbound clicks that websites get when Google’s AI Overviews are removed seem to be of similar quality to the clicks with the AIOs still included. This finding comes from an updated, randomized field experiment, which showed a 39.8% decrease in organic clicks when the summaries are shown. Researchers Saharsh Agarwal and Ananya Sen

‘Surveillance pricing’ laws are coming for publishers’ subscriptions

Google threatens to cut publishers out of new AI partnerships, New York Times amends lawsuit against OpenAI, and more. WTF is “surveillance pricing”? Publishers may advertise a single subscription price on their websites, but in practice subscribers pay a range of prices due to promotional, introductory and retention discounts. Now some of the tactics behind

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