How Gradients Got Rough
Instagram’s logo is a rainbow. Spotify Wrapped bleeds colour across the screen. Apple’s marketing materials glow with soft pastels. Open any design portfolio in 2025 and you’ll see gradients everywhere – but they don’t look like the gradients from 2015, or 2005, or 1995.
Harajuku: When the Street Became the Studio
Shoichi Aoki stopped a girl on Takeshita Street in 1997. She wore 47 hairclips. He counted. She’d layered them across her fringe until her hair disappeared under primary-coloured plastic. Around her wrists: 23 bracelets. Around her neck: toy charms, candy necklaces, friendship bracelets stacked six deep. Her outfit wasn’t styled. It was constructed.