Salvador Dalí designed the Chupa Chups lollipop logo

Salvador Dalí’s collaborations with fashion designers

Dalí was known to dabble in the world of fashion and formed a bond with the bold Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli. Their collaborations birthed iconic designs like a bureau-drawer suit and a lobster dress.

Who was Salvador Dalí?

Salvador Dalí reshaped modern art with surrealism, symbolism, and eccentricity. This snapshot covers his rise from Spanish prodigy to global icon, his Surrealist break, and his fascination with dreams and celebrity.

Dalí partnered with Hallmark to design surreal Christmas cards

Dalí pursued commercial work throughout his career. In 1948, Hallmark released a set of Christmas cards designed by the artist. A decade later, he created images for additional holidays, including Valentine's Day, Easter, and Mother's Day.

Was Dalí an artistic genius or a marketing whiz?

Punk poet John Cooper Clarke and art historian Professor Dawn Ades explore Dalí's enthralling life and decipher whether he was an artistic genius, a marketing genius, or both. Listen to the full podcast here.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

The theory behind Dalí's 'Un Chien Andalou'

The 16-minute "Un Chien Andalou," or "an Andalusian dog," was shocking for 1929, when it was released and remains unsettling today. This brief video essay explores how the film sought to disrupt standard conceptions of art and meaning, making it an essential example of surrealism.

Leonard Lauder, one of Estée's sons, invented the slant on a tube of lipstick

Leonard Lauder was known for being an innovator, both in business and in product. He's credited with creating the now-standard slant of a lipstick tube, slicing the top off a then-bullet-shaped lipstick to better fit women's lips. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Mid-century modern graphic designers like Milton Glaser and Eric Carle found success with children's books

Glaser was famous for creating the "I Heart NY" logo, the DC Comics logo, and an iconic Bob Dylan poster for CBS Records, but he naturally transitioned to illustrating children's books like "The Smallest Elephant in the World" and "If Apples had Teeth." Carle, author of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?," began his career in advertising. Scholars say mid-century modern's preference for clean lines and bold colors was a natural fit for kids' books.

Sugar skulls are more than a sweet snack

The colorful candy combines Indigenous traditions with European confectionery techniques. Its symbolization reminds celebrants that death can be “sweet.”

The Coca-Cola bottle was designed to be recognizable even when shattered

The contour bottle, which was designed and patented to prevent copycats in its distributed bottling system in 1915, would soon become one of the most identifiable shapes in commercial culture. The designers also made sure it could be easily identified even in the dark.

MoMA hosted 1962's 'Symposium on Pop Art,' which made the term 'pop art' official

MoMA's history with pop art and its conceptual roots extends to its early origins, and its collection of works includes iconic works like Warhol's "Campbell's Soup Cans" and Lichtenstein's "Drowning Girl."

The first Cannes Lions winner

The first Cannes Lions award went to the German toothpaste brand Chlorodont for the ad “Il Circo,” a surreal short film featuring dancers, a wild animal, and a snake charmer—all constructed from Chlorodont’s product.

How Netflix's sound logo 'Tudum' was designed as a key sonic differentiator

The Netflix sound logo—called by the company "Tudum!"—debuted in 2015 and has become one of the world's most iconic sound symbols, designed to provoke anticipation. An immense amount of creative work went into designing this three-second sonic marker, which is heard daily worldwide by millions. Key players in its existence weigh in on its creation in this absorbing episode.

Conversation candy hearts were originally message-free medicinal lozenges

In 1847, a Boston pharmacist invented a machine that automated the production of his pharmacy's medicinal lozenges and then formed the New England Confectionery Company, which later became part of the company now known as NECCO. By the late 1800s, they were producing cookies with Valentine-themed messages and eventually brought the romantic messages to their smaller lozenges, which they later called Sweethearts.

Pop Mart is the company behind the viral Labubu toy craze

Labubus, the Chinese collectible toys, are being heralded as the next Beanie Babies. Pop Mart, the company behind the Labubus, is using a few psychological tools to keep the Labubu economy booming.

The famous image of Che Guevara was captured by accident

Alberto Korda wasn’t aiming for Che Guevara when he snapped one of the most reproduced photos in history. This longread traces how that fleeting moment became a global icon—later commodified across pop culture, fashion, and advertising.

Apple's first logo was a portrait of Isaac Newton sitting under a tree

Before the minimalist image of an apple with a bite taken out of it, Apple's logo depicted the fruit dangling above the physicist, likely a nod to the anecdote about his epiphany regarding gravity.

Gustav Klimt featured a lot of gold leaf in his art

Austrian artist Gustav Klimt's most iconic image, "The Kiss," can be seen today printed on tapestries, t-shirts, mugs, and more. The painting comes from a decade in his career where gold held a prominent place. Klimt's family business of goldsmithing, in tandem with inspiration from Byzantine churches, coalesced in his obsession with gold.

Wikipedia's puzzle globe logo was developed by a 17-year-old

In 2003, the site held a contest for its users to submit designs for a new logo. Paul Stansifer submitted the winning design, which used the incomplete puzzle as a symbol for the encyclopedia being a work in progress. Symbols and letters would later replace text within Stansifer's colorful design.

Raymond Pettibon designed Black Flag's iconic logo

Pettibon’s brother, Greg Ginn, was the guitarist for a new band in search of a logo. Pettibon delivered an image that would become one of the defining icons of punk: four black bars, meant to symbolize a waving flag.

David Ogilvy once called WPP Founder Martin Sorrell ‘odious’

WPP acquired Ogilvy & Mather, David Ogilvy’s agency, in 1989. Ogilvy later offered Sorrell a rare apology letter, which Sorrell kept framed in his office.

LA's oldest Mexican restaurant pioneered the burrito in America

El Cholo Spanish Cafe opened in 1923. It was among the first to serve several now-common Mexican dishes, including burritos in the 1930s, guacamole in 1955, and nachos in 1959.

The history behind New Orleans' drive-thru daiquiris

New Orleans attracts millions of annual visitors with its freewheeling drinking culture, reaching its apex during the weeks-long Mardi Gras celebration. But even the most intemperate tourists might be confused by the city's drive-through daiquiri stands. This resource offers a brief history of the quirky staple and explains how it has survived changes in the law.

Visualizing Ben & Jerry's legendary flavors

This delightful data visualization breaks down all the flavors of Ben & Jerry’s across the globe, exploring every possible combination of base flavors and mix-ins.

Dom Pérignon was a 17th-century French monk often inaccurately credited with inventing Champagne

You’ve probably heard of Dom Pérignon the brand, but what do you know about Dom Pérignon the man? He is often credited with inventing Champagne—which is why the iconic (and expensive) Champagne house is named after him—but the truth is he simply pioneered many methods for manufacturing it.

See the early concept art for 'Star Wars'

George Lucas asked artist Ralph McQuarrie to create reference images to help prospective producers understand his vision for the "Star Wars" universe, and drafted early versions of Darth Vader, Chewbacca, and other characters. You can check out a gallery featuring dozens of the images below.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often assumed to be sexual, though the artist claimed she was simply interested in highlighting the beauty of flowers that most people neglect

When caught in the mouths of cardinal fish, seed shrimp release glowing, bioluminescent chemicals, which alert predators of the cardinal fish, prompting the shrimp's ejection.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.