COLLINS

Happy 25 (+1) to The Sims! We couldn’t be happier to have helped reimagine their brand as they celebrate this milestone. Did you catch the 25-Hour Livestream? If not, there’s still time to join the fun and grab some new in-game items (yes, including that goatee your Sim’s been yearning for). We’ll be sharing more about our work together soon—after we finish celebrating, of course.

THURSDAY The Moore College of Art has invited COLLINS to their campus as the 2025 Graphic Design Department’s visiting artists. Everyone here is insanely honored. Design Director Morgan Light will be joined by Senior Designer Lorena G. Ortiz for a lecture hosted in partnership with the good people at AIGA Philadelphia. It couldn't be better timed. Here's why. First, Morgan doesn’t design. She builds. At our office in New York, she works to turn brands into forces. Most recently, working with our friends at Target she helped lead the transformation of their $3 billion value brand, up&up. 3 years of work. She also (somehow) found time to work with us on Guild. For her, it’s only about making things real. Because real designers ship. Morgan’s journey started with a one-way ticket to New York after high school. She studied at the School of Visual Arts, treating her education like an Olympic sport, stacking 14 internships and freelance gigs before she even graduated. From Apple to COLLINS, she has worked with some of the world’s most influential brands, honing a commitment to craft, strategy and clarity. Her time in California widened her perspective, but I suspect her return to the city plugged her back into the energy she was destined for. It can be relentless here. New York refuses to let you settle. Which, conveniently, is exactly how she works. Her inspiration? Anywhere but the interwebs. Her exploding collection of vintage art and design books, helps. Her advice for aspiring designers? "Be a self-starter. Don’t wait for the future to come to you. Seek it out. Don’t hesitate." Morgan ain’t waiting for anyone. Lorena? Lorena just wants more. Different. So we invited her from spectacular, sunny Barcelona, Spain to freezing, rainy NYC. And we’re lucky she did. She arrived like a meteor—dazzling and impossible to ignore. A classically trained designer and art director, she turns philosophy into strategy and strategy into something you can actually see and feel. Lorena’s interests? Food and music and judging people who don’t care about food and music. Her restaurant map is so rigorous, it might qualify as urban infrastructure. She can jump from avant-garde Japanese composers to 1970s reggae, in seconds. Hobbies? She can weaponize a to-do list. Seriously. Meticulously. She puts TO-DO lists on TO-DO lists for the sake of crossing them off TO-DO lists. The best part for Lorena? Seeing her ideas come to life. Because she doesn’t just want to post to Instagram—she wants to create new worlds. She quoted my COLLINS partner Nick Ace to me: “If our idea gets approved too fast, we played it too safe. Take risks. Do the unexpected. Make it matter.” Morgan and Lorena do just that. Every. Single. Day. And now, on Thursday night. February 6 6:00 Reception 7:00 Lecture Moore College of Art & Design Graham Auditorium This event is free and open to everyone. Register here: https://shorturl.at/lQkuC Put it on your TO-DO list. Lorena did.

In the fierce battlefield of private label retail, Target’s up&up line isn’t just surviving—it’s thriving. With $3 billion in sales and over 2,000 SKUs, this private label powerhouse has transformed from a cost-cutting alternative into a brand consumers love, offering premium products at 10-30% savings versus national brands. When Target reformulated 40% of up&up’s products and expanded into new territories—including pet grooming, moving supplies and oral care—they worked with us to solve a paradox: How do you make a value brand feel more valuable? Our solution: a new, vibrant design system that adapts to each category’s quality cues. Beauty products now feature premium aesthetics, while household essentials maintain functional clarity—all unified by a new brand logotype. Category-relevant palettes and enhanced navigation cues strengthens overall shelf presence, while color blocking creates amplified shelf pop. Beyond new visual design, occupational therapists helped improve packaging form and functionality, particularly for frequently-used items like body lotions and household cleaning products. The redesign also advances Target’s sustainability goals by reducing plastic usage and incorporating paper alternatives where possible. IMPACT Guests report they can more easily navigate up&up products across its many categories. The evolution has strengthened shoppability, recognition and up&up brand preference. In fact, everyone here swears by the new up&up Ocean Breeze & Bergamot Hand Soap. You can try it, too. It’s all over our offices. You can see the full case study of our work together, here: https://lnkd.in/esak-pbC COLLINS Morgan Light Antonia Lazar Oilang Maui Daniel Ferro Oliver Dell Barney Stepney Xinle Huang Rohan Rege Jaeyou Chung Mason Lin Kristine Lim Jing Qi Fan Megan Bowker Arielle Kroloff L.A. Corrall Beth Johnson Alex Athanasiou Michelle Brandemuehl Kevin Chao Sean Danz — Target Creative Team — 3D Pedro Veneziano — Photography Mari Juliano

TODAY. The United Nations General Assembly designated January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time to remember the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the millions of other victims of Nazi persecution. Today we are witnessing an alarming rise of antisemitism around the globe. So it is more important than ever for us to recognize the critical lessons of Holocaust history as we commemorate the victims and honor the survivors, thank the liberators, and renew a shared commitment to human freedom, dignity and justice. Never again. Never again is today.

Look for the heroes. Then help them. Many are now appearing in the middle of this nightmare. Today, two members of our team in Los Angeles have been safely evacuated by some. Other friends are now evacuating as I write this, tonight. Tragically, several other friends have lost their homes, but they are all safe. Each video, each photograph I now see is more shocking than the next. The flames are ten stories high. They are driven by winds raging up to 90 miles an hour. Homes, churches, temples, supermarkets, libraries, museums, schools, neighborhoods gone. All beyond heartbreaking. All unfathomable. The firefighters, police officers and the Los Angles DPW are doing backbreaking work to try to fight this tragedy, everywhere. More heroes. Tonight I am thinking of all my friends there. My heart is with all of you. Please stay safe. And hold on. ..... For those of us outside the city, here’s how we can help, right now: • THE CALIFORNIA FIRE FOUNDATION The organization helps support victims of wildfires in California. It also provides support for firefighters battling the wildfires and for the families of fallen fighterfighters. Donate here: https://lnkd.in/g7ec5Key • CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION The California Community Foundation has been working to strengthen Los Angeles County since 1915. The organization's Wildfire Recovery Fund targets the most underserved and hard to reach communities in the region, with the goal of helping provide long-term recovery relief. Donate here: https://lnkd.in/gaB6PghQ • WILDFIRE RECOVERY FUND California’s Wildfire Recovery Fund is used to help with the intermediate and long-term impacts of wildfires, helping communities recover after attention has shifted away from the disasters. Donate here: https://lnkd.in/gaB6PghQ • WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN The nonprofit global food relief organization founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, is already on the ground in Southern California to aid first responders and evacuees. Donate here: https://bit.ly/3DYpqdV So choose one you like. Send them something. Anything. Be a hero to someone today, too. .

THIS FRIDAY NIGHT, IT'S EVERYTHING 5 good speakers, including the graphic, product and environmental designer I deeply admire. My friend Jennifer Morla is the recipient of the highest honors a designer can receive in the United States, including the AIGA Medal and the National Design Award given by the Cooper-Hewitt/Smithsonian Design Museum. Two years ago, The Massachusetts College of Art & Design granted Jennifer its Distinguished Alumni Award. The college recognized her rare accomplishments and the lasting impact she has made in design and as a leader and educator in our community. Those are some serious achievements. And a tough lesson to the on-tend style ponies who have hijacked so much of design lately. Designers ask themselves, at the outset of a big, challenging project, a question: “Are they going to let me do what I want?” Jennifer Morla never asked that question. Instead, she asks: “Who’s going to stop me?” Thankfully for all of us, and for over four decades, the answer has been the same: No one. You don’t just look at something Jennifer Morla creates. You practically hear it. It announces itself. You’re pulled into dialog with a revelation. Because she's always known that being a designer is much more than being a professional who works with color, form, image, words and typography—it is a calling to a life that gives a bold voice to a truth. If anyone was born with a voice to do that, it’s Jennifer. She’s always had the gift of speaking the languages of both art and commerce. Fluently. So, naturally, her work often leaves me speechless. Every piece talks directly to its moment in time and yet also whispers to a larger ideal outside of time—whether it’s a poster, a book, furniture, a film, a web site or an environment, all of which I’ve watched her create. Sometimes, up close. Which, if you join us on this Friday night, you can, too, because she's joining us at "Behind the Scenes." "Behind the Scenes" is an event we produce at COLLINS where we (insanely confidentially) talk about failures, fuck-ups and triumph. And everything in between. We tell the stories our case studies and portfolios don't tell. Or can't tell. Or won't tell. And you are invited to join us this Friday night in San Francisco as we host everyone in collaboration our good friends at molly. We’ll have plenty of drinks, music and, importantly, pizza. For free. RSVP here, spots are limited: https://lu.ma/adzl6fyd And remember to bring a good, messy, story. Leland Maschmeyer Alex Athanasiou Eron Lutterman Marvin Schwaibold‎

We are hiring! As someone who has done this job for quite a while, I must say it was one of the most head-over-heels spinning-whirling-twisting-and-shouting experiences of my life, and I loved every day of it. So, who wants to go next? :)

At COLLINS, we experiment and build—every single day. But none of that happens without a rock-solid foundation. We have a key opening on our team to be just that. The role: an Executive Assistant to anchor our executive operations, and support co-founder Brian Collins and our team at the highest level. This isn’t your typical EA role. You’ll be the one who ensures we are prepared to deliver at the top of our game—day in and day out. From day one, you’ll be managing ever-shifting priorities, schedules, meetings, working with leaders across COLLINS and acting as a key turning point for our team. You may find yourself in far-flung places (Bhutan) or nearby (Brooklyn) diving headfirst into both familiar and uncommonly unfamiliar experiences. If you can anticipate needs, have a meticulous attention to detail, a knack for hosting anything and everything and find reward in being the anchor within a whirlwind creative storm, we want to hear from you. Just ask Eron Lutterman, Antonia Lazar, and Katya Watkins—they all began in this role and 3, 7 and 9 years in, they’ve all grown into pivotal leadership roles with outsized impact here. Interested? Apply here: https://lnkd.in/ettQiiuJ Know someone perfect for this? Send them our way. Help us build new futures with our clients - from our offices in New York and San Francisco to projects in Rio, Lisbon, Rome, London, Singapore, Stockholm, Paris, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Seoul and Framingham, Massachusetts. Universal Electric Adaptor, required.

CANADA My co-founder, creative partner and CEO of COLLINS, Leland Maschmeyer just flew up to Canada this morning. (And he was joined by a few COLLINS colleagues, too.) And there, outside of a country where we just flipped the future, Leland will be talking about hope and building new and better futures. He’s giving a keynote at the best design conference in North America, Design Thinkers. And I can’t think of a better time or place to do just that. Join them in Toronto on Thursday. But, tonight, join them for something even better. Join them for “Behind The Scenes,” our oddly and insanely popular informal events where creative people of all stripes - designers, coders, engineers, writers, art directors, filmmakers, producers, musicians, architects, painters and more - share stories of failures, flubs and fuckups that they never do. That they never can. No cameras, no video, no iphones, no bullshit, no ego, no press. Signup link, below. https://lnkd.in/eMSEXuFD And, if you see my colleagues up there, please be sure encourage them to return to the United States. As crazy as it may seem. We’re going to need them back. .

HOPE I got up early to walk to work today. The sun was up early, too. And as I walked, over 20 fearful, worried, text messages came in from my family and friends. With some good reasons. So today seems to be a good day to talk about hope. Not the poetic Emily Dickinson kind of hope, that "thing with feathers…” No. I mean the writer Rebecca Solnit‘s kind of hope: that thing with teeth. Because hope is dangerous. It is the opposite of fear. It is the act to make a bet on tomorrow. It is to make a bet on the possibility that even a broken heart with an open mind is better than a surrender to despair. I say all this because, as Rebecca explains, hope is not “like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky.” She continues. “It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” Design itself - what I do with my colleagues every day - is not even possible without many forms of (even insanely irrational) hope. In fact, over half of those gifted creative colleagues are from overseas themselves, having shaped their lives in the United States on the hope it embodies. Such hope is never passive. Nick Cave calls it “the warrior’s tool.” It lays waste to cynicism. And hope now calls for all of us. Because, unless we believe tomorrow can be better, it’s unlikely that we will take the actions needed for making it so. I assume there is a preference for freedom. I assume there is a preference for liberty. I assume there are many ways to shape the future for the better. But that’s my assumption. My choice. That choice is up to you now, too. And I hope you can join me here. Lord knows, we’ve got so much work to do, ahead. But if someone now says to you “but hope is not a strategy!” Just say, “I agree.” Hope is an axe. And it's time to start swinging. .