The Threadless culture has inspired a lot of innovation, but there’s also been a wash of half-baked and out-and-out lazy designs letting a square inch of embroidery substitute for an actual idea. The most recent offender? Attus Prep.

We Are the Market big-upped these polos, but they’re just standard issue catalog-wear with an “edgy” symbol—a mohawked punk, a 40 oz bottle, a stripper on a pole—stitched where the usual polo player or seagull would go.

There’s a press packet, a few choice anti-establishment quotes, and logos to spare. If they just had some clothes, they might have something.

The award for most interesting market niche so far goes to Kibsgaard, a Danish company that specializes in the inch-long metal logos affixed to the bottom of most TVs…or at least most TVs made in the 90s. It’s not an aesthetic you see a lot in the age of the iPhone, but it’s nice to know where it comes from.

It’s been brought to our attention that Esquire’s best dressed man, Kenyatte Nelson, is in fact a brand manager for Proctor & Gamble, rather than a lowly PR rep.

We’ve got a few brand managers here at Kempt, so we’ve got no snarky quips in their direction, but if Nelson’s really holding the keys to the kingdom…can he do something about the logo?

Maybe something a little less freemason-y?

Digitally swamped as we are, it’s easy to forget that all those images have to come from somewhere.

We’re a little unclear on the specifics, but ink is probably involved…

Mark Weaver specializes in a kind of light collage that’s overtaking the design world lately—with a little help from street art. Most of his print haven’t made it much farther than his flickr page, but they’re ripe for the picking in our opinion.

Anybody need a logo out there? Maybe something in a pirate tiger?

See a few of our favorites»

Branding can be a shifty enterprise. It deals in abstracts, and it can take decades to unravel whether something was a brilliant idea or just a brilliant pitch—and for the most part, no one can tell the difference.

All of which goes a long way towards explaining someone like Peter Arnell.

He’s been behind some of the more iconic images in recent memory—DKNY’s Houston St mural, ConEdison’s redesigned trucks, and the curvy new Pepsi logo—along with some of the biggest tantrums in the business, but after a disastrous Tropicana redesign, the sharks are circling. And suddenly, people are using the word “huckster” an awful lot…

We examine Mr. Arnell indepth»