Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein were dying to make Final Destination Bloodlines, and we mean more seriously than you think. When the directing partners pitched their take on the film over Zoom, they created an illusion where, during the pitch, each was “killed” in a wild, Final Destination way. It was the spark that got them the job, and now their film is finally here. That type of innovation is to be expected from the duo, who first met as contestants on the Steven Spielberg-produced reality show On the Lot. They didn’t win, but they became friends and have since been working their way up in the industry. Since then, they’ve made films in the Dead Rising and Leprechaun franchises, an excellent subtle superhero movie called Freaks, and even the Disney film Kim Possible. But now, finally, almost 20 years after meeting, Lipovsky and Stein have their first big Hollywood release. And something tells us it won’t be their last. io9 spoke to the directors in Los Angeles last week about their long journey through Hollywood. We broke down what they were most excited about in the Final Destination franchise, what Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts had to do with it all, and, most importantly, some of the ways they took Bloodlines from a sequel that could have been easily dismissed—and turned it into what we think is the series’ best yet. Note: There are a few minor spoilers throughout the interview, especially regarding the opening and overall themes of the movie. If you’re worried, come back after you see the film. Stein and Lipovsky doing their best Sam Raimi impression – Warner Bros. Germain Lussier, io9: The first time I heard about you guys was On the Lot in 2007. Adam Stein: That’s where we met. io9: [Laughs] Yes, that’s true. You’ve made a lot of cool stuff since then. But if you guys now could talk to those guys then and say it’ll take almost 20 years to get our first big theatrical release, what would they have said? Stein: [Laughs] You know, it has been such a roller coaster navigating the industry. But it’s been amazing that we have gotten to do it together. It’s a really hard thing to try to become a director in Hollywood. And so to have your best friend there with you to bounce ideas off of and commiserate with along the way has really been—we’ve been so lucky to have that. But I would say for people who are out there, who are in the struggle themselves, it takes a lot of perseverance, it takes a lot of resilience. Zack Lipovsky: But also those ups and downs are the lessons you need to learn. Like, we couldn’t have made this movie if someone had handed it to us 20 years ago. We didn’t have the wisdom or the experience that you get from things falling apart, and failures, and trying things that don’t work, and making movies that aren’t good. And all those types of things that you have to do to kind of hone your craft and get there. io9: Tell me about the conversations you guys had when you found out this was available. I’ve heard all about the Zoom, which is so cool and I’m mad it doesn’t exist somewhere. [Both laugh] But tell me about even before that—like when you said, “My God, Final Destination 6, let’s pitch on it and figure it out.” © Warner Bros./New Line Lipovsky: Well, I think actually the first gut reaction was, “How are they gonna make another one, because the end of five is perfect.” Right? So, “Really? They’re gonna make another one? Like what could they possibly do?” And then we started to hear this idea that Jon Watts had come up with about making the movie about a family. Starting it with the origin of this family and death is coming for this bloodline. And how much that would enrich all the relationships and the stakes and all those types of things. That really made us start to lean in and go, “Okay, that’s pretty interesting.” And then from there, [we] started to work on the process of getting hired. And then, a many-year process of working with the writers and the team to just kind of bring that inherent new idea through the movie in a way to make it feel more fresh and surprising. io9: Right, the first time I heard about this, it was like “Jon Watts is doing it.” And obviously he came up with kind of the kernel idea. But how much was actually in place when you guys came on board, and how much were you able to make it your own? Stein: They had done one draft of the script based on Jon’s idea when we first got involved. And the core of it was there. The idea of the opening would take place with Iris, I think it was the 1950s originally? But in the past, and then flash forward to her granddaughter. That was there. The details of who each person was, what all the death scenes were, completely changed over the course of two years of us being involved. But the core thing of it being a family that was fractured, that then could come together in a way, even as death was chasing them. That got us really excited. That was present in the original. io9: I’ll come back to some more of that soon but just as guys who are film fans, filmmakers, film nerds, what was the most exciting thing about the freedom of, presumably having your biggest budget? Besides the food. Everyone says the food. Lipovsky: We never had time to eat food. [Laughs] I think for us, it’s working with the caliber of crew that we had. You’re suddenly working with some of the best people at their craft in the world. You have the most incredible stunt people, special effects people, makeup effects people, and incredible actors. All the toys you’ve ever wanted. You can be like, “I really need this very special lens for this one shot I want to do.” You have it. So that, as a filmmaker, is just so much fun. Now, of course, you never have enough time or money. Because as soon as you start going, “Oh we could do that too, and do this,” you max out all the ability. Stein: You build a 120-foot set, surrounded by a volume, and light it on fire, well, that costs a lot. [All laugh.] But I think as filmmakers, the thing that we really got a kick out of is Final Destination, what makes it special as a horror franchise, is that there’s no personified villain coming for the characters. There’s no guy with a knife and a mask. What comes for the characters is the filmmaking. It’s these close-up, insert shots connected to other shots that build this mouse trap in the perfect, suspenseful way. It’s really like the directors are coming for the characters. So that was so much fun to kind of relish that experience. © Warner Bros./New Line io9: Speaking of the effects, just knowing you guys, I know wanted to do practical as much as you can. So talk about when you’re coming up with the death scenes, when, you know, “Okay, this is as far as we can push the practical, and then we have to kind of finish it off with digital.” Lipovsky: Yeah, we call it “the Guillermo del Toro school of filmmaking” where you do as much as you can practically, knowing that visual effects can help with the magic trick. And then the visual effects are really removing the things that are supporting the practical element. So we have a practical body or a practical set or something like that, or even people with a whole bunch of green rods and blue screens and things around it that are making it so that that practical thing can happen right at the center of frame. And then you use the visual effects to extend the set or erase the rod or do those things so that it really becomes hard to tell at which point what’s real and what isn’t. So there’s always something real there. And then the visual effects just kind of make it magical and kind of impossible. We try to do that whenever possible. Even there’s people falling through the dance floor and they’re falling and grabbing onto things dropping 40 feet, they’re [actually] falling through a dance floor and grabbing onto things, dropping 40 feet. But then everything around them is extended and kind of beautifully done by the visual effects team. But at the heart of it, we always just wanted something real. Stein: To give you another example, there’s a character that gets torn apart in the opening sequence. And there was a full-size mannequin body of this person with puppeteers that rip it in pieces, but then you erase the puppeteers. But the real thing you’re looking at really happened. io9: What sequence changed the most during either pre-production or editing as you were thinking about the balance of the practical and digital? Anna Lore in the barbecue scene.  – Warner Bros./New Line Lipovsky: I think one sequence that changed dramatically was what became the backyard barbecue scene, which is a really great scene. It actually started as a kids’ play place, Chuck E. Cheese-type set piece with bumper cars and bowling and all that crazy stuff. But we kind of ultimately realized that the core of these movies, especially this movie, was family, and also very relatable things. And so by making it a barbecue, you can kind of do all the things that we all have in our house, which is even more terrifying. And so it kind of changed into that. io9: This film—almost more than the other ones, which I watched beforehand—really messes with you with the red herrings. And I love it so much. So how early do you have to think about that, to make sure you have all the coverage while editing to know that these are like 15 things that we’re going to use to mess with you? Stein: You plan it out way before editing, in storyboards and scripting. To plant things that come back much later or to misdirect the audience. Because the main thing we wanted to do was keep it surprising. So you have a character walking backwards into a road and everyone in the audience goes, “Oh my god, oh my god,” and then [the car] misses him. So the audience kind of knows that we’re playing with them. Death is toying with the characters, just like we’re playing with the audience. Because we always wanted you to feel on the edge of your seat, like you don’t know what’s about to happen. So we had to plan that very far in advance. We were inspired by some of the other movies—the guy in FD2 throws the spaghetti out the window, and then his house catches on fire, he almost gets his hand caught in the garbage disposal, and all this stuff happens, and he gets on the fire escape and then slips on the spaghetti. So we tried to do that kind of thing where, like, there’s something that happens with a vending machine that you kind of forget about, and then it comes back. Stefani and her mom are not having a scream. – Warner Bros./New Line io9: Oh it comes back, yes it does. Another thing that I loved about this is that it takes the formula and it tweaks it in a couple of really interesting ways. One that happens early, so it’s not a huge spoiler, is we don’t get the premonition right way. So how early was that in the process that you’re like, right from the beginning we’re making this a new Final Destination? Lipovsky: That was a designing principle which was not have the premonition working exactly the way that all the other movies had, so that fans of the franchise right away went, “Wait, this is different than I’m used to. What is going on here?” And almost worried that we’re jumping the shark or breaking the rules or doing something wrong. But then, slowly, as the movie continues on and you realize what’s going on, you realize, “Oh, this does fit within the canon. It obeys all these rules that we’ve come to love.” But it was, like Adam was saying, it was building on that idea that as early as possible, we wanted people to not know where this was going next. And it’s really difficult with a Final Destination movie because there’s basically a formula. It’s something that you know what’s going to happen. But that makes for a boring movie. And so you have to figure out ways to still be true to it, but also keep it fresh io9: And you guys crushed that. Another thing I loved about it is, I love lore. Star Wars, Marvel, I love all that. And here the whole thing is lore, basically, right? So how early on was it decided that all the other movies are kind of the baby of this one? Stein: I mean, I think that was kind of a fun aspect of having this character, you know, Grandma Iris, who’s been in this cabin for decades, who’s been researching all the ways that people have died in the other movies. And it was actually inspired by FD1 how Alex in that movie, Devon Sawa’s character, traps himself in the cabin and is opening tuna cans with oven mitts because he knows death is coming. Well, we always loved that scene. And we thought, “Okay, what if you did that for decades? How would your life be? What would you know? What would you be researching?” And so Grandma Iris’s book with all the lore from all the other movies, that’s how that came together. Lipovsky: We even put an Easter egg in there where in FD1, he says, “I see you, you fuck” to death. And then Iris says the same thing in her cabin. © Warner Bros./New Line io9: One thing we haven’t seen now in six movies, though, is, death always wins but something is giving them the premonition. Something is battling. Stein: Yes. We have a theory. io9: Okay. I would love to hear your theory but I was just wondering, is that something you think could be introduced into a future movie or would that ruin kind of the formula? Stein: There have been lots of fan theories about some force of good that’s providing the premonition. I mean, we don’t want to piss people off and that is very valid theory. Lipovsky: And we don’t have a canon answer, but we have theories. Stein: Our own personal answer is that it’s death is bringing the premonitions because death, you know, he gets bored. He wants to have fun. So he does this thing, gives them enough clues that they could escape it if they’re paying attention, knowing that he’ll get them in the end in an even more fun way later. Tony Todd with the cast and crew of Bloodlines. – Warner Bros./New Line io9: I like that and I think fans will like that. Before I finish, I have to ask about Tony Todd. The fact that he passed is obviously horrible, but having him with this role in your movie it gives it this aura and this heart that is totally unexpected. So tell me about like first shooting with him. It was like when you found out? Lipovsky: Yeah. Well, we knew from while we were developing, we knew that he was sick. So it was developed with that in mind with him. You know, at first we were worried that he wouldn’t want to be in it or he wouldn’t be able to be in it. But he was so excited to be in the movie. Stein: And he’s like, “Don’t write me out of this movie. I have to do this.” Lipovsky: And we were very grateful that we could write the movie with that in mind, knowing that at the very least, this would be probably his last Final Destination movie, maybe his last movie ever. But we didn’t know that for sure. But that this would be saying goodbye to Bludworth. And that was designed from the beginning and worked very closely with him. And then even beyond that, when we shot that scene that day he was full of so much joy. It was just this electric feeling of seeing him do what he does so well. And then when it came to doing that last moment where he says goodbye, even with all the preparation we had done, we just said, “Tony, just throw it all away and speak from the heart about what this has all been about and what’s on your mind.” And, you know, his own mortality was on his mind. And he just spoke about how precious life is and how to take advantage of it. And that’s what he had shown us all day on set. He had done that. And it really comes through on screen when he he’s just he says that. Stein: Yeah, he’s speaking directly to the audience there. And I think takes a lot of people by surprise how much emotion they feel in that moment. © Warner Bros./New Line io9: It’s wonderful. Now that your first studio movie is in the books, and I hope there are many more, but what do you say the biggest lesson you guys took out of it? Lipovsky: The biggest lesson… I think the biggest thing that we learned was just that you don’t ever want to lose that same enthusiasm you had when you started making small movies and trusting your gut on the things you think that the audience will love. And just kind of trying to ignore the studio-ness of it all and just make that movie for yourself who’s the fan and bring that to life. And hold on to that, that joy of cinema and making a movie with your friends in your backyard and just trying to do that with cooler toys and amazing actors. Io9: One last stupid final question. The little kid at the beginning. You hate him so much. Stein: By the way, I love the theater reaction in that moment. The first time we screened it for a test audience and we had someone jump up in their seat and pump their fits when [he dies]. So you’re on the right track. That was really fun. io9: But since that was in the premonition, did we ever see him die again in real life? Lipovsky: There is a there is a newspaper article on the wall and if you look for the headline, I think it says “Pickpocket hit by piano moving van.” Final Destination Bloodlines is now in theaters. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

Here's what we looked at this week:French company Cyclauto revives a modular cargo bike design from the 1930s. The Rivian R1T's brilliant "seamless tailgate" design feature provides a way better UX for unloading.Škoda's futuristic Slavia B electric motorcycle concept. Joe Doucet's OLO Table, made with Polygood Oyster, gives new life to old refrigerators, keyboards and computer mice.This Aura Triple Boost Pro adds three unfolding screens to your laptop.At the German Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka, an interesting twist on the sunken living room (though that's not what it's supposed to evoke).Automatic photo timestamp/location-stamp apps for keeping track of projects.Laurids Gallée's Tralucid Stools are both crisp and blurry.The forgotten trade of the patternmaker: How metal objects used to first be made out of wood.The origins of the first mass-market tool chest, by H. Gerstner & Sons.Peter Ivy's gorgeous Rokkakei hand-blown glass pendant lamps.Acrobatic artist Bastien Dausse's low-tech wall-walking invention. I bet there's a fun commercial application for this.Hozo designs a better cordless ultrasonic cutter, with both UX and safety improvements.The Bzigo Iris is an in-room mosquito tracking device that lets you easily kill them.All 17 components of Freitag's Mono[PA6] bags are completely monomaterial and recyclable.For the Boat Life crowd, fun floating furniture by Bote.Design opportunity: Create a better portable tufting frame.The Pivotal Helix: A cute, goofy-looking personal electric flying machine.Industrial design case study: Tactile helps Milwaukee develop their digital level.

About UsProfitable Painter CPA is a fast-growing U.S. CPA firm serving over 175 painting contractors. We recently launched Automation for Painters—a service line helping painting businesses streamline operations using HighLevel, Zapier, Notion, and other tools. We're looking for a technically skilled and dependable automation specialist to support both our internal team and our painting clients.What You’ll DoBuild and manage Zapier and HighLevel automations to streamline sales, follow-ups, scheduling, and adminSet up custom dashboards and documentation in NotionTroubleshoot automation issues across client accounts and internal systemsAssist painting contractors with their HighLevel and Zapier setupsWork with our ops and accounting teams to automate tasks and reduce manual workCommunicate clearly and professionally in English with clients and team membersMust-Have QualificationsAbility to work U.S. Eastern Time hoursStrong spoken and written English skillsProven experience with Zapier, HighLevel (GoHighLevel), and NotionFast learner who enjoys solving problems and improving systemsDetail-oriented with strong follow-throughReliable internet and work-from-home setupBonus Points ForFamiliarity with CRMs, scheduling tools, QuickBooks, or GustoBasic API understanding or ability to read technical documentationExperience working with U.S. small businesses or trades (painting, plumbing, etc.)Ability to make short Loom videos to explain systems to clientsWhy Work With UsWork remotely with a mission-driven, U.S.-based teamHelp real small business owners eliminate chaos and growStable, long-term role with clear KPIs and growth opportunitiesFriendly, performance-driven culture rooted in Accountability, Collaboration, and Excellence

Spotify announced earlier this month that podcast creators and listeners would get a new data point: how many plays an episode has gotten. The idea, according to Spotify, was that listeners could discover new shows they hadn’t heard of, enticed by this new public measure of fandom.Podcasters did not see it that way.Since the announcement, podcasters, especially those with smaller audiences, have been upset at the new public play count. The chief complaint was that some podcasters actually don’t want listeners to know how many people are listening to their podcast, because it might have the opposite effect: it could turn people off to know a show only has a few dozen plays. Some Spotify users in the chorus of opposition also noted that plays would only show a slice of listenership, since people use platforms besides Spotify.The sustained backlash evidently hit a nerve: on Friday, Spotify announced it was partially rolling back the feature. Now it will only publicly display plays once an episode crosses the 50,000 plays threshold. When an episode hits that benchmark, it will get a “50K plays” marker instead of an exact count; the marker will update when an episode crosses other milestones, like 100,000 and 1 million plays. Podcasters will still be able to see exact play counts in their private analytics dashboards — but will be spared the embarrassment of having those figures broadcast publicly. The company is also vague about how exactly plays are counted, saying only that the metric represents “how many times people actively tried your content.”Podcasting historically has been hard to quantify: a download doesn’t necessarily mean a listen. There are public charts, but those tend to favor the biggest shows. Across mediums, there’s the awkward growing stage for content creators just starting out: you have to post as if you have a million followers even if it’s just for your 10 actual fans. Is displaying podcast plays something nobody asked for? Absolutely. But also, the jokes write themselves, unfortunately.See More:

Monster Closet Games is a small studio with big ambitions – and the experience to match. Most of the core team has been in the industry for 20-plus years, and they’ve worked on a number of gaming’s biggest franchises, from Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia to Far Cry and Halo. They’re currently developing an online multiplayer title codenamed Project Shrine, with plans to launch on PC and current-gen consoles.“High-level, it’s a third-person co-op dungeon raider,” says Monster Closet CEO Graeme Jennings. “You and your group get together, build synergies between your characters, and raid dungeons for treasure. It’s about working together as a team.”Teamwork is at the heart of Monster Closet’s approach to game development, and the studio plans to stay tight-knit and focused. “I’d rather have 40–50 developers who love working together, who love the way we work, and who build great games because of that,” says Jennings. “I have a genuine belief that great teams, with the right tools, can build great games.”Monster Closet’s artists and developers are used to working with a powerful tech stack of proprietary solutions. Starting over from scratch meant this wasn’t an option, so in the first few months, the team carefully curated a toolchain that would scale with their ambitions.For Project Shrine, Monster Closet is accelerating production with Unity’s engine-agnostic DevOps solutions and automations, including Unity Version Control for source control and Backtrace for error tracking. We interviewed Monster Closet’s lead online programmer, Patrice Beauvais, and CTO, Thomas Félix, to learn about what they’ve been creating and how they built a tech stack designed to scale.What did you consider when you started building your tech stack?Thomas Félix: A few of us have had different experiences with live games, and we wanted to have a solid DevOps foundation that could support that in the long term. Even though GAAS [games as a service] is not at the core of our game, we wanted to make sure we had a powerful tech stack that would help us release and iterate quickly.We all had experience with Perforce, but we’re not necessarily big fans – it works well enough, but we had been doing things that weren’t really meant to be done with it. We were also looking at Git as a solution, but then we found Unity Version Control.On paper, Unity Version Control mixed the great approach you get with something like Git, but also something much more powerful like Perforce to manage data. We were seduced by Unity Version Control’s task branch workflows; after about six months of evaluations, we decided to give it a try. At that time, we were around six or seven people. Because the team was growing slowly, it was a nice, smooth ramp-up. We’re now at around 43 team members, and so far, so good.What was your process for testing this version control system?Patrice Beauvais: For us on the tech side, we didn’t want to have half our project on Git and half on Perforce. We know how much of a burden it is to have to use and maintain two different source code management tools – it’s common with live service games where the online systems and game data aren’t necessarily fully integrated.And a team of your size just couldn’t support that type of approach – the fact that Unity Version Control can facilitate both of those workflows is helpful?Patrice Beauvais: Totally.What kinds of problems have you encountered previously using two different version control systems?Thomas Félix: In game development, you always need to build customizations for the tools you use, no matter how good they are. Unity Version Control is a great example – even though it works well, we still found ways we wanted to tailor it to our workflows. If you have to support two source control systems, you double that work, which is always painful. Someone who’s good with Git might not be as familiar with Perforce, and vice versa. Training people takes twice as long.Patrice Beauvais: For me, the worst part is integrating data between two different version control systems. If you’re using Perforce but your data library is stored in Git, that data will need to go back into Perforce, so the two need a way to interface. Even though there are many solutions, these interactions aren’t really meant to happen, and sometimes you lose the project history. A bigger team can make it work, but I’m not going to spend six months building a solution to migrate data from Git to Perforce.It sounds like your team has used many different version control systems over the years. What are the benefits and challenges of some of the solutions you’ve explored?Thomas Félix: Let’s start with Perforce – it’s super resilient, it manages data very well, and it’s not that complex for nontechnical team members. You don’t find that anywhere else, really, except with Unity Version Control. On the other hand, the big monorepos you see in Perforce aren’t really suitable for game development – fast integration, multiple branches, that kind of thing. You can manage with Perforce, but it’s far from ideal, especially if you want to build a robust CI/CD pipeline.Patrice Beauvais: Git’s UI is great for programmers, but I probably wouldn’t ask an artist to work with it. It’s not ideal for managing large files and data, and it doesn’t support locks natively very well, yet.Thomas Félix: Unity Version Control is a better solution in many regards – the UI is tailored for content creators, so it’s great for usability. We see Unity Version Control as the perfect marriage of Git and Perforce.Programmers usually want to be in Git, and you can get pretty much the same workflows in Unity Version Control. For nontechnical content creators, it’s easy to submit their data, which solves one of the biggest problems teams run into with source control.Data loss is the worst thing that can happen to us. Code is easy to handle in every source control solution, but data is always tricky. We cannot afford to lose work, and each mistake made on the data side means paying for it a thousand times later on. We try to be very, very careful with that. With Unity Version Control, it’s a win for both our programmers and content creators.Do you have any best practices you can recommend for maintaining build integrity?Thomas Félix: For a small company like ours starting out, we knew we couldn’t afford to have broken builds because we submitted bad data or code to the main branch.With Unity Version Control, we never work in the main branch. We’re always in control of it, it’s always stable, and the mergebot actually does most of that work for us. That really resonated with us when we were trying it out, and it’s one of the first things we put in place, even when we were just five people working on the main build. It’s worked really well: The main branch is almost never down, and it’s been like that for almost two years now.How does Unity Version Control handle speed when working with large files and switching between branches and workspaces?Thomas Félix: In terms of task branches and switching back and forth, that works well, too. It takes a bit of time for people to get used to this workflow – task branches are a new concept to many people, and it’s maybe not as fluent immediately for artists as it is for programmers.That being said, every week – not every day – we do catch small problems through mergebots and our CI/CD processes, but they never enter the main branch or break the build. It takes a bit of time to get used to, but working in one branch will always be quicker than working across two – not by much, but if you step back and look at your pipeline as a whole, you start to realize it’s a much, much better way of working. At least for us, as a small-to-medium-sized company, it’s perfect.So there’s a culture and learning change you have to make to move to continuous deployment, but it seems like you’re saying you’ve already caught a lot of bugs or other potential issues before they even hit main.Thomas Félix: Totally. I would never go back to one-branch development. A team like us just can’t afford to spend days debugging or fixing problems that hit main.When we interviewed Apocalypse Studios, they discussed the “culture shift” that task branch workflows can require. They were using Perforce before Unity Version Control and talked a lot about branches versus streams. What’s your take on that?Thomas Félix: Branches and streams are quite different to me. If Unity Version Control didn’t exist, we could probably build something around streams and try to get the same thing going, but it would be complex and error-prone. In Unity Version Control, it’s much easier and much safer, because branching is what it’s built for.In Perforce, streams are the equivalent of tasks. If you’re super technical, you can make it work, but I would never put that in the hands of artists. With Unity Version Control, currently we have more than 1,000 branches – most of them are archived, and we have about 10–15 open at any given time. I’m not sure I’d like to have 1,000 project branches in Perforce.What challenges do you anticipate as you move further along in development? What challenges have you faced already?Patrice Beauvais: As we mentioned, people aren’t immediately used to the task branch way of working. For artists, it’s really new to them, so we’re careful to explain how it works and why we’re doing it.Thomas Félix: That’s true. People weren’t resistant to it or anything, but it’s definitely a cultural switch. Anyone looking to switch to Unity Version Control, like we did, needs to take that into account. It’s a better way of working, but you have to be willing to think outside the box. We started fresh, from pretty much nothing – no office, no infrastructure, and a very small team – so it was a little easier for us than it might be for other studios. Building your infrastructure in the cloud sounds cool, but it comes with challenges in terms of iteration time, costs, setup, security…. In the end it’s a win, but it took us some time to get a reliable workflow up and running.You’re also using another of Unity’s engine-agnostic solutions: our verified solutions partner, Backtrace. Can you tell us what your error tracking pipeline looks like?Thomas Félix: We use Backtrace to track every single bug in most of our applications – the first ones, obviously, being the game and the Editor. We mentioned before that we built some tools around Unity Version Control – Backtrace is integrated there, too.It didn’t take long to set it up, and it gave us access to some top-class tools, dashboards, and workflows. We were able to get a lot of the things we had in place at previous companies up and running pretty easily. After being operational for around six months, we already had visibility on all the crashes in the game, the Editor, and our tools. It wasn’t something I expected to get so early when starting a new studio, to be honest.Patrice Beauvais: It’s a super good tool. At Ubisoft, I worked on a proprietary solution like Backtrace for two or three years. Backtrace is really feature-forward – it’s even faster than what I was working on, and was easy to implement. Again, we did add our own customizations for custom data, and worked to integrate it with our server, which is on Linux.Thomas Félix: We were quite impressed by the time it took to set up Backtrace. Two or three days and we were already receiving crashes, so we decided to move forward.What did you do to ensure the process of implementing Unity Version Control went smoothly?We’ve shipped a lot of big games, and we try to use that experience to think about how we can apply it in new contexts. That’s why we ended up going with Unity Version Control, and with Backtrace as well. The tricky part is making sure we don’t invent problems we don’t have – we’re not a 1,000-person studio anymore!We’re always trying to find a balance between how we leverage our experience while reminding ourselves that we’re not trying to build the next big AAA game. We still want to make something great, and to do that, we need the best workflows – and Unity Version Control fits perfectly.What was your process for testing this version control system?Thomas Félix: The tricky part was making sure we could put it in the hands of artists, both in terms of the UX and data integrity. We worked with several artists on the team to make sure they understood how to use it. It was really important to us to nail data management for our project. The more people we added to the team, the better the feedback we got – people were happy, and we knew we were onto something.How are you using Unity Version Control’s Gluon workflow for artists?Thomas Félix: We do use Gluon, but for something else, what we call the raw data – data that’s not tied to the engine. Let’s say you’re an artist and you’re modeling a mesh: You’re using the raw data, the source file, in something like Blender. This doesn’t have to reach the engine; only the data you export from it does. This data is managed in a task branch, but we manage the source files in Gluon.These files can be really heavy – character artists using tools like Zbrush can generate files that are 2, 3, 4 GB per asset, if not more. You don’t want programmers having to sync 1 TB worth of original character meshes, so we manage those in Gluon using partial workspaces. Character artists only synchronize character files, modelers will only synchronize model files, and it’s the same for audio, textures, and so on. It’s all stored in a separate repository, away from the task branch workflow.So, to recap, you’re using Gluon for scenarios where you’re working with huge files so someone doesn’t have to download the whole repo – they can just use a partial workspace.Thomas Félix: Exactly. It’s an archived version of the original data, so we don’t use task branches for that. We don’t need to have a task branch for those materials, as long as creators submit their latest work every once in a while.What advice do you have for smaller studios looking to scale up and tackle ambitious projects, like you’re doing?Thomas Félix: That’s a good question. From day one, you need to know where you want to go. For us, we started with a small team, and we knew we wanted to grow, but we didn’t want to scale to 1,000 employees – even 200 isn’t our goal. We made many decisions – decisions that we’re really happy with! – that we might not have made if we had different ambitions.Building your infra in the cloud does make it easy to scale – just be careful, because it can cost you an arm and a leg. Always try to be in control of your workflow. If something doesn’t work, do the work to understand why. Make sure you have strong foundations, basically.Looking to optimize your game development pipeline? Get started with Unity DevOps, built to work with any engine.

Tech New audio tech could let you listen privately without headphones With acoustic metasurfaces, researchers bend sound waves to their will Scientists are developing technology to deliver private audio directly to a listener’s ears out in the open so that others nearby can’t hear it. PETER CROWTHER By Ananya Palivela 36 seconds ago Controlling sound has long been a staple of science fiction and fantasy. In Dune, the cone of silence allows characters to converse privately, even in open spaces. The eerie billboards of Blade Runner 2049 whisper advertisements into the ears of those passing by. In the real world, quirks of architecture, intentional or not, can direct where sound goes. In the U.S. Capitol’s hall of statues, for example, a whisper can travel silently across the room from one spot to another. The sound waves interact with curved surfaces to focus the audio. Now, scientists are looking to precisely control sound, perhaps one day resulting in a world without earbuds, but directing sound waves is a challenge. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

Macworld At a glanceExpert's Rating Pros Outstanding performance Good display Useful battery life Bright display with anti-reflective coating Excellent build quality Cons High price for 5G No OLED No camera flash Few innovations since 2022 Our Verdict While we’d have liked to see the inclusion of an M4 chip instead of the M3, Apple’s new iPad Air is well worth a recommendation, offering an excellent display and strong performance for years to come. Paired with a good keyboard case, it could even replace your MacBook. Our only caveat is that the previous model with the M2 chip, which you can find at a lower price, might be an even better buy. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: iPad Air 11 Zoll (M3, 2025) New Refurbished Retailer Price €648 View Deal €669 View Deal €669 View Deal €673 View Deal €630.2 View Deal 629,00 € View Deal 634,60 € View Deal 638,90 € View Deal 644,00 € View Deal 648,00 € View Deal 648,00 € View Deal 660,05 € View Deal 679,99 € View Deal €680.38 View Deal 699,00 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide View more prices Product Price iPad Air M3 11 (2025) 7. Generation 128 GB – WLAN – Blau €649 View Deal Price comparison from Backmarket The iPad Air has consistently been the best choice for most users, and this remains true of the new version, which offers the best balance of price and features among Apple’s tablets. Thanks to its new M3 chip, it has become significantly more powerful than the previous M2 model. However, this is otherwise quite a minor update. Surely you would expect a new iPad to boast the very latest chip (the M4 is currently available on the iPad Pro), a new design and some cool new features? Regardless of expectations, the iPad Air has remained visually unchanged for three years; this one looks exactly the same as the models from last year and 2022. Apple hasn’t even given the Air any new colors for 2025. The iPad Pro, by contrast, was given a more innovative, thinner design last year, higher performance and an impressive OLED display. The Pro models bring in the most money, which might suggest deliberate neglect of the Air models. Still, the iPad Air could be back next year with a new design. For now, let’s see if the new M3 Air is the right tablet for you. Design and build quality: Superb The iPad Air is an elegant device with first-class workmanship. The tried-and-tested aluminum frame makes the tablet solid and attractive, and iPads can generally be relied upon to remain presentable even after several years of intensive use. Externally, you won’t notice any difference from the previous model. Even the dimensions are exactly the same, down to a tenth of a millimeter; only the weight of the 11-inch model has fallen by 2g. The color options are again Space Gray, Starlight, blue, and purple. The colors are significantly less gaudy than those of the 11th-gen iPad and struck us as very subtle: even blue and purple look “grown-up” and the Starlight finish is barely distinguishable from silver. The 11-inch model in particular feels light and sturdy at the same time. With a weight of 460g, this can be used with one hand, while the 13-inch model is significantly heavier at 616g. However, even the large model is just half the weight of a MacBook Air. The Air has an appealing and successful design.Eugen Wegmann Benefits of the M3 chip The most important new feature of the iPad Air is the M3 chip, but you shouldn’t expect too much. On its website, Apple promises a significant increase in performance. The new Air, it says, is “nearly 2x faster than the iPad Air with M1 chip.” That’s not wrong, but it’s also a little misleading; the M1 model came out back in spring 2022. The comparison with the M2 model from last year, by contrast, is less flattering: in our tests the performance leap was rarely noticeable in everyday use. So we should think of this as a small refresh for the iPad Air, a kind of “speed bump.” For a proper speed boost, Apple would have needed to install the M4, and it’s pretty obvious why the company didn’t. The performance gap between the Air and the expensive top model has to be maintained. Still, while it doesn’t represent a startling improvement on the M2, don’t entirely write off the benefits of the new chip. Not only does it have a higher clock rate, it also offers new features such as support for hardware ray tracing–an important consideration for certain high-end games. The new media engine of the M3 supports higher resolutions and can now play HEVC videos up to 8K and H264 videos up to 4K, as well as using the ProRes and ProRES RAW formats. AV1 decoding is also supported, which could be very useful if you want to edit videos on the iPad. Performance: Moderate improvements The iPad doesn’t feature the same M3 chip that Apple used in the MacBook Air, and which was available in two versions (8-core CPU and 8-core GPU, and 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU). Instead, the iPad Air gets a third version of the M3 with an 8-core CPU and a 9-core GPU. Graphics performance therefore sits between the two earlier versions. The M3 brings a solid performance leap in single-core performance, since the M3 chip is clocked significantly higher than the M2. In the Geekbench 6 benchmark the M3 iPad scored 3,019 points to the M2 iPad’s 2,584 points. That’s almost 15 per cent more performance, which is available for tasks such as web surfing or Apple Intelligence. In the multi-core test, the M3 scored 11,749 points to the M2’s 10,074, an improvement of around 17 percent. This higher multiprocessor performance is helpful for more complex apps, such as image and video editing. The Geekbench 5 benchmark illustrates the current models’ improved performance.Foundry But when it comes to GPU performance the new chip offers far less improvement. In the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme test, the M2 scored 6,443 points and the M3 managed just three points more at 6,446. In the Geekbench GPU test, things were a little better, at 46,007 points vs 41,902, but still below a 10 percent increase. However, the performance remains excellent in comparison with other iPads. The iPad (A16), which was launched at the same time, is less than half as quick in terms of graphics performance and scored just 20,123 points in Geekbench’s graphics benchmark. We also test how long a CPU can sustain top performance. (Performance levels often drop rapidly when the device heats up, as iPads have to cope without a fan.) According to our APSI test running 20 minutes of full load, the Air’s throttling remains within acceptable limits at 86.57 percent. Note that the new iPad Pro is better at 90.62 percent, and the 11th-gen iPad, with its far less powerful A16 CPU, heats up even less and performs even better with 93.94 percent. The Air supports the fast new Wi-Fi 6E standard, whereas the iPad A16 still has to make do with Wi-Fi 6. If you pay extra for cellular connectivity, which adds $150 to the price, then you can enjoy 5G support via eSIM. Storage performance: Nowhere near the iPad Pro The M3 gets the headlines, but don’t underestimate the importance of the iPad’s internal SSD when it comes to performance. Our 1TB model in the test delivered what we’d regard as adequate performance, achieving 1,646 MB/s when reading and 1,380 MB/s when writing. But this doesn’t come close to the performance of an iPad Pro M4, where we measured 3,362 MB/s and 2,017 MB/s for reading and writing respectively. It’s also possible to connect an external SSD via USB-C. As an experiment, we transferred some large video files between the iPad Air and a Lacie Thunderbolt SSD. We saw speeds of up to 700 MB/s via the Files app, which puts the Air somewhere in the iPad midfield: the 11th-gen iPad managed only 37 MB/s in the same test, but the iPad Pro M4 achieved 2,200 MB/s. Display: Lacking some Pro features As usual, the biggest difference between the iPad, iPad Air and iPad Pro product lines is the screen. With the iPad Air, you get a good 11- or 13-inch panel with IPS technology, which is still common among tablets and laptops. The resolution is 2360 x 1640 pixels (11 inches) or 2732 x 2048 (13 inches). At 600 nits, the 13-inch model is brighter than the 11-inch model, which only reaches a maximum of 500 nits. However, both displays are bright enough to work with outdoors. Compared to the cheaper 11th-gen iPad, the display scores points with a useful anti-glare coating, which means it reflects significantly less than the basic iPad. More advanced technologies such as OLED (and previously mini-LED) are unfortunately reserved for the Pro models, which support HDR content better as a result. An OLED display can also be considerably more frugal in terms of battery consumption. In addition to the sRGB color standard, the iPad Air supports the larger P3 color space, which is primarily used in the video sector. A matte display is only available as an option for the iPad Pro, and ProMotion is a Pro exclusive too. Gamers would certainly appreciate a faster display, but will have to make do with 60Hz on the Air. For most users, however, the lack of ProMotion is not a big deal. Size: Should you get the 11-inch or 13-inch model? For a long time, if you wanted a big 13-inch screen, you had to go for the iPad Pro. But since last year, the Air has also been available with a 13-inch screen too, and buyers are spoilt for choice. Ultimately, every buyer has to decide for themselves which form factor is better for them. Bigger doesn’t always mean better: the 11-inch model is easier to handle, especially if you’re using it on the move. It’s also significantly lighter. In my opinion, there are two main arguments in favour of the 13-inch Air. If you often use the device with an external keyboard, you’ll probably be more productive with the larger model. Managing several apps with Split View or Stage Manager is also more practical at this size. In my opinion, Stage Manager only really makes sense with these larger displays. On a 13-inch model, a single Safari window in full-screen mode is simply too large. With Stage Manager, you can have several apps open and work with Word, Mail, and Safari at the same time, just like on a Mac. In addition, an iPad with a 13-inch display is ideal as an external Mac display. If you use a small iMac as your main device, you can integrate the iPad as an additional display if required. While an 11-inch iPad is a little too small for this role, a 13-incher is really useful. My take is that the 11-inch model is better for consumption, and the 13-inch model is better for work. Battery life: Solid Battery life has hardly changed compared to the previous model. According to Coconut Battery, the battery of our (13-inch) test unit had a capacity of 9782 mAh, and this offers enough power for a day of office work and web surfing. Apple promises up to 10 hours of web browsing over Wi-Fi or video playback, but bear in mind that the company bases that figure on testing with a screen brightness of just 50 percent. In our tests we use maximum brightness, which is a lot more demanding. In our video test, where we let a current movie run in a continuous loop, the 13-inch Air lasted six and a half hours, which is a good result. In our second test, where a website is called up at rapid intervals, the Air lasted almost eight hours. This is all fine, but the unflattering comparison with the iPad Pro illustrates the drawbacks of an IPS screen: thanks to its efficient OLED display, the iPad Pro M4 lasted three hours longer in the surfing test and twice as long in the video test. The M3 chip can consume a lot of battery power when it’s at maximum load, for example when gaming or using 3D apps. This is a clear difference from iPads with a slow CPU such as the 10th-gen iPad. Having a slow CPU has plenty of drawbacks, but it reduces battery consumption. Keyboards, cases, and other accessories Apple has introduced a new keyboard alongside the new iPad Air, and this has led to a somewhat confusing range of accessories to choose from. Apple still sells a version of the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Air M2 (from $299 for the 11-inch version), in either black or white. But now there’s a new Magic Keyboard for the iPad Air M3, which is only available in white. The price for the 11-inch version is $269/£269, while the 13-inch version costs $319/£299. Apple has improved the keyboard compared to the previous version in a number of ways. For example, there’s a set of function keys, while the trackpad is larger. And it’s important to note that, rather confusingly and contrary to what its branding might suggest, this new accessory is compatible with the iPad Air M2 (and indeed the 4th- and 5th-gen Airs) as well as the iPad Air M3. However, there are a few compromises compared with the iPad Pro’s Magic Keyboard; only the Pro version offers a glass trackpad and backlit buttons. It’s rather annoying that if you ever switch from the iPad Air to the iPad Pro, you’ll also have to factor in the (not inconsiderable) cost of a new keyboard if you want to get the full benefit of the upgrade. This keyboard is missing a few features from the Pro Magic Keyboard.IDG There are no new Smart Folios, but Apple has dropped their prices. Most third-party cases for the previous iPad Air models will also be suitable for the new model, such as the Logitech Combo Touch. Finally, like its predecessor, the iPad supports both the USB-C Apple Pencil and the more advanced Pencil Pro. Older Pencils can no longer be used. External display: A handy option The M3 Air offers support for an external display with a resolution of up to 6K at 60Hz, compared to a maximum of 4K on the 11th-gen iPad. Don’t underestimate the value of this option. If you connect your iPad to an external display via USB-C with a mouse and keyboard connected, the Stage Manager display option is automatically activated. You can then also use the mouse and keyboard and more efficiently edit long texts or videos. Photo and video: Better at video chats than stills photography The iPad isn’t an obvious choice as a photographic companion, but the new Air, as usual, is equipped with cameras on the front and back. These don’t compare with current iPhone cameras, especially when taking photos indoors: images quickly become noisy. And unfortunately you have to do without a flash, which would have been useful when taking photos of documents. The front-facing camera is positioned on the long edge as has become standard practice for Apple, which is the ideal position for video conferencing. Plus the Center Stage feature allows you to choose between auto-zoom or a wide-angle image. The Air is well equipped for video chats. Video recordings with the main camera are still possible at up to 4K and 60fps, and the Air gets video image stabilisation. Finally, here’s one area where the Air outperforms the iPad Pro: its rear camera module barely protrudes, which is more practical in everyday use. Audio setup: Impressive quality I was impressed by the sound quality of the two speakers located on the sides, which remains strong even at higher volumes. This is not only useful for music and videos, but also for presentations and video calls. In most situations there’s no need to add external Bluetooth speakers. Two integrated microphones ensure good recording quality during video conferences. The iPad Pro offers even better sound quality thanks to its four speakers and five microphones, but the Air is already at a high level in this area. Summary: The sweet spot Overall, the iPad Air is convincing. The iPad Pro is even better, but far too expensive. The iPad A16, on the other hand, is significantly slower and has a poorer display. This feels like a sweet spot. For most users, in fact, the iPad Air is the ideal choice: fast, ergonomic, and equipped with a good display. Our only caveat is that there’s hardly any reason to buy this model rather than the cheaper previous model with an M2 chip, which is barely less powerful; what’s more, there are some excellent deals out there. The M2 Air is, therefore my personal recommendation. Whether you choose the 11- or 13-inch model is up to you. Tech specs iPad Air (M3, 2025)11 inches13 inchesPrice (base model, Wi-Fi)$599$799Price (base model, cellular)$749$949Display11-inch Liquid Retina13-inch Liquid RetinaResolution2360 x 1640, 264ppi2732 x 2048, 264ppiDisplay technologyLED, fully laminated, anti-reflective coatingLED, fully laminated, anti-reflective coatingColor spaceWide color gamut (P3), True ToneWide color gamut (P3), True ToneBrightness500 nits600 nitsChipApple M3Apple M3CPU8-core CPU: 4 performance and 4 efficiency8-core CPU: 4 performance and 4 efficiencyGraphics9-core GPU9-core GPUNeural Engine16-core16-coreMedia EngineHardware accelerated H.264 and HEVC, AV1 decodingHardware accelerated H.264 and HEVC, AV1 decodingMemory8GB8GBStorage capacity128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB128GB/256GB/512GB/1TBCameras12MP wide-angle, f/1.812MP wide angle, f/1.8Front camera12MP landscape format, Center Stage, f/2.012MP landscape format, Center Stage, f/2.0Speaker, microphoneStereo speakers in landscape format, 2 microphonesStereo speakers in landscape format, 2 microphonesSensorsTouch ID in the power buttonTouch ID in the power buttonConnectionsUSB 3 (up to 10 Gbit/s), Smart ConnectorUSB 3 (up to 10 Gbit/s), Smart ConnectorPencil (optional)Apple Pencil Pro, Apple Pencil (USB-C)Apple Pencil Pro, Apple Pencil (USB-C)Wi-FiWLAN 6E (802.11ax) with 2×2 MIMOWi-Fi 6E (802.11ax) with 2×2 MIMOBluetooth5.35.3Mobile data5G/LTE/UMTS/HSDPA5G/LTE/UMTS/HSDPASIM cardeSIMeSIMColorsSpace Gray, Starlight, purple, blueSpace Gray, Starlight, purple, blueBatteryLithium polymer, 28.93 WhLithium polymer, 36.59 WhSurfing Wi-Fi10 hours10 hoursMobile surfing9 hours9 hoursDimensions (W/H/D)178.5 x 247.6 x 6.1mm214.9 x 280.6 x 6.1mmWeight460g (Wi-Fi); 460g (cellular)616g (Wi-Fi); 617g (cellular)Table: Thomas Armbrüster

In my experience, most UX teams find themselves primarily implementing other people’s ideas rather than leading the conversation about user experience. This happens because stakeholders and decision-makers often lack a deep understanding of UX’s capabilities and potential. Without a clear UX strategy framework, professionals get relegated to a purely tactical role — wireframing and testing solutions conceived by others. A well-crafted UX strategy framework changes this dynamic. It helps UX teams take control of their role and demonstrate real leadership in improving the user experience. Rather than just responding to requests, you can proactively identify opportunities that deliver genuine business value. A strategic approach also helps educate stakeholders about UX’s full potential while building credibility through measurable results. Strategy And The Fat Smoker When I guide teams on creating a UX strategy, I like to keep things simple. I borrow an approach from the book Strategy and the Fat Smoker and break strategy into three clear parts: First, we diagnose where we are today. Then, we set guiding policies to steer us. Finally, we outline actions to get us where we want to go. Let me walk you through each part so you can shape a UX strategy that feels both practical and powerful. Diagnosis: Know Your Starting Point Before we outline any plan, we need to assess our current situation. A clear diagnosis shows where you can make the biggest impact. It also highlights the gaps you must fill. Identify Status Quo Failures Start by naming what isn’t working. You might find that your organization lacks a UX team. Or the team has a budget that is too small. Sometimes you uncover that user satisfaction scores are slipping. Frame these challenges in business terms. For example, a slow sign‑up flow may be costing you 20 percent of new registrations each month. That ties UX to revenue and grabs attention. Once you have a list of failures, ask yourself: What outcome does each failure hurt? A slow checkout might reduce e‑commerce sales. Complicated navigation may dent customer retention. Linking UX issues to business metrics makes the case for change. Map The Aspirational Experience Next, visualize what an improved journey would look like. A quick way is to create two simple journey maps. One shows the current experience. The other shows an ideal path. Highlight key steps like discovery, sign‑up, onboarding, and support. Then ask: How will this new journey help meet our business goals? Maybe faster onboarding can cut support costs. Or a streamlined checkout can boost average order value. Let me share a real-world example. When working with the Samaritans, a UK mental health charity, we first mapped their current support process. While their telephone support was excellent, they struggled with email and text support, and had no presence on social media platforms. This was largely because volunteers found it difficult to manage multiple communication systems. We then created an aspirational journey map showing a unified system where volunteers could manage all communication channels through a single interface. This clear vision gave the organization a concrete goal that would improve the experience for both users seeking help and the volunteers providing support. This vision gives everyone something to rally around. It also guides your later actions by showing the target state. Audit Resources And Influence Next, turn your attention to what you have to work with. List your UX team members and their skills. Note any budget set aside for research tools or software licenses. Then identify where you have influence across the organization. Which teams already seek your advice? Who trusts your guidance? That might be the product group or marketing. You’ll lean on these allies to spread UX best practices. Finally, consider who else matters. Are there policy owners, process leads, or executives you need on board? Jot down names and roles so you can loop them in later. Spot Your Constraints Every strategy must live within real‑world limits. Maybe there’s a headcount freeze. Or IT systems won’t support a major overhaul. List any technical, budget, or policy limits you face. Then accept them. You’ll design your strategy to deliver value without asking for impossible changes. Working within constraints boosts your credibility. It also forces creativity. With the diagnosis complete, we know where we stand. Next, let’s look at how to steer our efforts. Guiding Policies: Set the North Star Guiding policies give you guardrails. They help you decide which opportunities to chase and which to skip. These policies reflect your priorities and the best path forward. Choose A Tactical Or Strategic Approach Early on, you must pick how your UX team will operate. You have two broad options: TacticalYou embed UX people on specific projects. They run tests and design interfaces hands‑on. This needs a bigger team. I like a ratio of one UX pro for every two developers. StrategicYou act as a center of excellence. You advise other teams. You build guidelines, run workshops, and offer tools. This needs fewer hands but a broader influence. Weigh your resources against your goals. If you need to move fast on many projects, go tactical. If you want to shift mindsets, work strategically. Choose the approach with the best chance of success. Define A Prioritization Method You’ll face many requests for UX work. A clear way to sort them saves headaches. Over the years, I’ve used a simple digital triage. You score each request based on impact, effort, and risk. Then, you work on the highest‑scoring items first. You can adapt this model however you like. The point is to have a repeatable, fair way to say yes or no. Create A Playbook Of Principles A playbook holds your core design principles, standard operating procedures, and templates. It might include: A design system for UI patterns; Standards around accessibility or user research; Guides for key tasks such as writing for the web; Templates for common activities like user interviews. This playbook becomes your team’s shared reference. It helps others repeat your process. It also captures the know‑how you need as your team grows. Plan Your Communication Strategy fails when people don’t know about it. You need a plan to engage stakeholders. I find it helpful to use a RACI chart — who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. Then decide: How often will you send updates? Which channels should you use (email, Slack, weekly demos)? Who leads each conversation? Clear, regular communication keeps everyone looped in. It also surfaces concerns early so you can address them. With guiding policies in place, you have a clear way to decide what to work on. Now, let’s turn to making things happen. Action Plan: Bring Strategy To Life Actions are the concrete steps you take to deliver on your guiding policies. They cover the projects you run, the support you give, and the risks you manage. Outline Key Projects And Services Start by listing the projects you’ll tackle. These might be: Running a discovery phase for a new product. Building a design system for your marketing team. Conducting user tests on your main flow. For each project, note what you will deliver and when. You can use your digital triage scores to pick the highest priorities. Keep each project scope small enough to finish in a few sprints. That way, you prove value quickly. Offer Training And Tools If you choose a strategic approach, you need to empower others. Plan workshops on core UX topics. Record short videos on testing best practices. Build quick reference guides. Curate a list of tools: Prototyping apps, Research platforms, Analytics dashboards. Make these resources easy to find in your playbook. Assign Stakeholder Roles Your strategy needs executive backing. Identify a senior sponsor who can break through roadblocks. Outline what you need them to do. Maybe it’s championing a new budget line or approving key hires. Also, pin down other collaborators. Who on the product side will help you scope new features? Who on the IT team will support user research tooling? Getting clear roles avoids confusion. Manage Risks and Barriers No plan goes off without a hitch. List your biggest risks, such as: A hiring freeze delays tactical hires; Key stakeholders lose interest; Technical debt slows down new releases. For each risk, jot down how you’ll handle it. Maybe you should shift to a fully strategic approach if hiring stalls. Or you can send a weekly one‑page update to reengage sponsors. Having a fallback keeps you calm when things go sideways. Before we wrap up, let’s talk about making strategy stick. Embedding UX Into The Culture A strategy shines only if you deeply embed it into your organization’s culture. Here’s how to make that happen: Build awareness and enthusiasm Run regular “lunch and learn” sessions to showcase UX wins. Host an annual UX day or mini-conference to boost visibility. Create a monthly UX salon where teams share challenges and victories. Make UX visible and tangible Display personas and journey maps in office spaces. Add design principles to everyday items like mousepads and mugs. Share success metrics and improvements in company communications. Embed UX into processes Establish clear UX policies and best practices. Review and update procedures that might hinder a good user experience. Create a healthy competition between teams through UX metrics. These tactics transform your strategy from a document into an organizational movement. They foster a culture where everyone thinks about user experience, not just the UX team. Remember, cultural change takes time — but consistent, visible efforts will gradually shift mindsets across the organization. Implementing Your UX Strategy: From Plan To Practice We started by diagnosing your current state. Then we set policies to guide your efforts. Finally, we laid out an action plan to deliver results. This three-part framework keeps your UX work tied to real business needs. It also gives you clarity, focus, and credibility. However, creating a strategy is the easy part — implementing it is where the real challenge lies. This is precisely why the book Strategy and the Fat Smoker carries its distinctive title. Just as someone who is overweight or smokes knows exactly what they need to do, we often know what our UX strategy should be. The difficult part is following through and making it a reality. Success requires consistent engagement and persistence in the face of setbacks. As Winston Churchill wisely noted, “Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” This perfectly captures the mindset needed to implement a successful UX strategy — staying committed to your vision even when faced with obstacles and setbacks.

40 Christmas Fonts that are ‘Santa-Approved’ In this article:See more ▼Post may contain affiliate links which give us commissions at no cost to you.As a designer with a serious case of Christmas spirit, I can’t help but get giddy when it’s time to dust off those magical Christmas fonts. There’s something absolutely enchanting about the way the right Christmas typography can transform ordinary designs into winter wonderlands that make viewers feel like they’re stepping into a snow globe. Whether you’re designing holiday cards, party invitations, social media posts, or packaging for that perfect Christmas gift, the font you choose sets the entire mood. From elegant script fonts that whisper of cozy fireside moments to bold, playful fonts that shout “Ho ho ho!” from the rooftops, Christmas fonts have the power to make your designs feel as magical as Christmas morning itself. In this comprehensive guide, I’ll unwrap the secrets behind choosing the perfect Christmas fonts, showcase the most festive typefaces of 2025, and help you create designs that’ll make Santa himself want to add them to his nice list. So grab your hot cocoa, queue up those holiday tunes, and let’s dive into the wonderful world of Christmas typography! 👋 Psst... Did you know you can get unlimited downloads of 59,000+ fonts and millions of other creative assets for just $16.95/mo? Learn more »The Most Festive Christmas Fonts of 2025 Not all Christmas fonts are created equal, folks. Some manage to capture that perfect balance of holiday magic without looking like they’ve been dunked in a vat of glitter. Here are my absolute favorites for 2025: Christmas This script and handwritten font embodies the festive spirit of Christmas. It features playful letterforms with a whimsical touch, perfect for creating merry and cheerful holiday designs.Christmas Cove Christmas Cove is a decorative serif font with a touch of holiday magic. Its intricate details and symbolic elements make it ideal for creating wonderful and festive designs for the holiday season.Christmas Mozart This Christmas serif font combines elegance with festive charm. Its refined letterforms and subtle holiday touches make it versatile for both Christmas and New Year’s designs, offering a sophisticated seasonal aesthetic.Get 300+ Fonts for FREEEnter your email to download our 100% free "Font Lover's Bundle". For commercial & personal use. No royalties. No fees. No attribution. 100% free to use anywhere. Christmas Lovers Christmas Lovers is a bold serif font with a blackletter twist. Its dramatic strokes and decorative elements create a powerful and festive impression, perfect for eye-catching holiday designs.Christmas – Christmas Cheers This serif font radiates Christmas cheer with its jolly letterforms. It captures the warmth and joy of the winter season, making it ideal for creating inviting holiday greetings and designs.Last Christmas Wishes Last Christmas Wishes is a joyful serif font that embodies the spirit of the season. Its playful and cheerful character makes it perfect for expressing heartfelt holiday wishes and creating festive designs.Christmas Elegant This sophisticated serif font brings elegance to Christmas designs. Its refined letterforms and subtle holiday touches make it ideal for creating classy posters and upscale seasonal branding.Christmas This decorative font captures the essence of Christmas with its festive design. Its ornate letterforms and holiday-inspired elements make it perfect for creating eye-catching seasonal graphics and typography.Christmas Chances Christmas Chances is a decorative display font that brings a playful touch to holiday designs. Its whimsical letterforms and festive elements make it ideal for creating fun and engaging Christmas-themed graphics.Christmas Romantiko This script font adds a romantic and elegant touch to Christmas designs. Its flowing letterforms and delicate details make it perfect for creating dreamy and merry holiday greetings and invitations.Christmas Frosty Christmas Frosty is a decorative serif font that embodies the crisp winter atmosphere. Its icy details and festive elements make it ideal for creating frosty and cheerful holiday designs.Welcome Christmas This font combines decorative and script styles to create a warm holiday welcome. Its mix of serif and handwritten elements makes it versatile for various Christmas design projects, from cards to banners.Merry Christmas This script font captures the joyous spirit of Christmas with its flowing letterforms. Its playful and elegant design makes it perfect for creating heartfelt holiday greetings and festive typography.Christmas Comeback Christmas Comeback is a bold serif font that brings a fresh twist to holiday typography. Its strong letterforms and festive touches make it ideal for creating impactful Christmas designs with a modern edge.Christmas Melody This decorative font captures the musical spirit of the holidays. Its playful design incorporates calendar-inspired elements, making it perfect for creating festive graphics and Christmas-themed layouts.Groovy Christmas Groovy Christmas is a fun and quirky serif font with a retro vibe. Its cute and display-worthy letterforms make it ideal for creating playful and nostalgic Christmas designs.AL – Christmas Scriptty This script font brings a touch of elegant calligraphy to Christmas designs. Its flowing letterforms and festive details make it perfect for creating sophisticated holiday invitations and greetings.Christmas Holiday This handwritten script font captures the warmth of the holiday season. Its casual and friendly style makes it ideal for creating personal and inviting Christmas cards and designs.Christmas Spark Christmas Spark is a decorative display font that adds a touch of magic to holiday designs. Its sparkling details and festive elements make it perfect for creating eye-catching Christmas headlines and graphics.Bright Holiday This cheerful serif font brings brightness to Christmas typography. Its festive typeface design makes it ideal for creating joyful holiday greetings and merry seasonal branding.Winterberry Winterberry is a decorative serif font that captures the essence of winter holidays. Its intricate details and berry-inspired elements make it perfect for creating elegant and festive Christmas designs.Christmas Journey This script font takes you on a festive journey with its flowing letterforms. Its playful and adventurous style makes it ideal for creating whimsical Christmas stories and holiday-themed designs.Christmas Holiday This script font brings a touch of winter wonder to holiday designs. Its snowflake-inspired details and flowing letterforms make it perfect for creating dreamy and festive Christmas typography.Hello Christmas Hello Christmas is a decorative font that greets the holiday season with cheer. Its playful letterforms and merry details make it ideal for creating fun and inviting Christmas designs.Christmas Wishes This script font captures the spirit of holiday wishes with its elegant letterforms. Its flowing style and festive touches make it perfect for creating heartfelt Christmas greetings and cards.Christmas Winterfall Christmas Winterfall is a serif font that brings a collegiate touch to winter designs. Its bold letterforms and seasonal elements make it ideal for creating festive campus-inspired holiday graphics.Christmas Kitchen This script font adds a homey touch to Christmas designs. Its warm and inviting style makes it perfect for creating cozy holiday recipe cards, menus, and kitchen-themed seasonal graphics.Christmas Ornaments This decorative font transforms letters into festive ornaments. Its unique design makes it ideal for creating eye-catching Christmas headlines and adding a touch of holiday magic to any design.Christmas Font This script font embodies the merry spirit of Christmas with its playful letterforms. Its cheerful and festive design makes it perfect for creating joyful holiday greetings and seasonal typography.Christmas Holiday This decorative font brings a touch of winter wonder to Christmas designs. Its snowflake-inspired elements and festive letterforms make it ideal for creating magical holiday graphics and typography.Christmas Grinch Christmas Grinch is a decorative font with a mischievous twist. Its old-style charm and quirky details make it perfect for creating playful and slightly naughty Christmas designs.Classic Christmas This decorative display font brings timeless elegance to Christmas designs. Its classic letterforms and festive elements make it ideal for creating sophisticated and traditional holiday typography.Perfect Christmas This script font adds a touch of perfection to Christmas designs. Its elegant flowing style makes it ideal for creating beautiful holiday invitations, cards, and festive typography.Christmas Candy Christmas Candy is a sweet decorative font that brings a playful touch to holiday designs. Its candy-inspired letterforms make it perfect for creating fun and merry Christmas graphics for children and the young at heart.Father Christmas This script font captures the warmth and generosity of Father Christmas. Its autumnal touches and flowing style make it ideal for creating cozy and inviting holiday designs.Christmas- Twinkle Squiggle This playful serif font adds a twinkling touch to winter designs. Its quirky squiggles and festive elements make it perfect for creating fun and eye-catching Christmas typography.What Makes a Font Feel “Christmassy”? Ever wonder what gives Christmas fonts their holiday sparkle? It’s not just throwing snowflakes on letters and calling it a day. The best Christmas fonts tap into our deepest associations with the season through several key design elements: Decorative Flourishes and Ornaments Christmas fonts often feature intricate swirls, curlicues, and decorative elements that mirror the ornate decorations we love during the holidays. Think of these flourishes as typographic tinsel – they add that extra festive flair that makes letters feel special and celebratory. Winter-Inspired Elements Many Christmas fonts incorporate subtle nods to winter imagery. Icicle-like serifs, snowflake accents, or letterforms that seem dusted with snow all contribute to that cozy winter feeling. These elements work on a subconscious level, triggering our associations with the season. Script and Handwritten Styles Handwritten Christmas fonts evoke the personal touch of holiday cards written by loved ones. They feel intimate and warm, like a letter from grandma or a child’s note to Santa. This personal quality is what separates great Christmas fonts from generic decorative fonts. Bold, Celebratory Weight The holidays are a time of joy and celebration, and many Christmas fonts reflect this with bold, confident letterforms. These fonts don’t whisper – they sing Christmas carols at full volume, capturing the exuberant spirit of the season. Best Uses for Christmas Fonts Christmas fonts are incredibly versatile, but knowing where to use them can make the difference between magical and overwhelming. Here are the best applications for these festive typefaces: Holiday Cards and Invitations This is Christmas font territory par excellence. Whether you’re designing family Christmas cards, party invitations, or corporate holiday greetings, the right Christmas font sets the tone for the entire message. Script fonts work beautifully for elegant affairs, while playful fonts are perfect for family gatherings. Social Media Graphics In our digital age, Christmas fonts help holiday posts stand out in crowded social feeds. They’re perfect for Instagram stories, Facebook covers, Pinterest graphics, and any other platform where you want to spread Christmas cheer online. Event Signage and Decorations From “Welcome to Our Christmas Party” signs to menu boards at holiday markets, Christmas fonts help create immersive festive environments. They work especially well for banners, posters, and directional signage at Christmas events. Product Packaging Christmas fonts are marketing gold for seasonal products. They instantly communicate “limited edition,” “holiday special,” or “perfect for gifting.” From wine labels to chocolate boxes, the right Christmas font can make products irresistible. Gift Tags and Wrapping Personal touches matter during the holidays, and Christmas fonts help create beautiful, custom gift tags and wrapping paper designs that show you’ve put thought into every detail of gift-giving. Where to Avoid Christmas Fonts While Christmas fonts are magical, they’re not appropriate for every design situation. Here’s where you might want to think twice: Year-Round Business Communications Unless you’re a Christmas tree farm or holiday decoration store, using Christmas fonts in your regular business communications can feel gimmicky and unprofessional. Save them for your actual holiday marketing. Serious or Formal Documents Legal documents, medical forms, or official communications should steer clear of decorative Christmas fonts. Keep it professional, even during the holiday season. Accessibility-Critical Text Christmas fonts are often decorative and can be harder to read, especially at small sizes. For important information that needs to be easily digestible, stick with clear, legible fonts. How to Choose the Perfect Christmas Font Selecting the right Christmas font is like choosing the perfect ornament for your tree – it needs to fit your overall aesthetic while adding that special festive touch. Here’s my process: Consider Your Audience Are you designing for families with young children, elegant corporate clients, or hip millennials? Your audience should influence your font choice. Playful, cartoonish Christmas fonts work well for family audiences, while sophisticated scripts appeal to more upscale demographics. Match the Mood Christmas can evoke different feelings – cozy and intimate, grand and celebratory, whimsical and playful, or elegant and sophisticated. Identify the mood you want to create and choose fonts that align with that feeling. Test Readability Always test your chosen Christmas font at the size it will be used. What looks beautiful in a large display might become illegible when scaled down for body text or small applications like gift tags. Consider Pairing Christmas fonts often work best when paired with simpler, more readable fonts. Use the Christmas font for headlines and key messages, then pair it with a clean sans-serif or readable serif for body text. Christmas Font Alternatives Sometimes you want that holiday feeling without going full Christmas font. Here are some alternatives that capture festive vibes more subtly: Elegant Script Fonts Fonts like Great Vibes or Dancing Script can feel festive without being overtly Christmas-themed. They’re perfect when you want elegance with a hint of celebration. Serif Fonts with Character Classic serifs like Playfair Display or Libre Baskerville can feel formal yet warm, perfect for sophisticated holiday communications. Hand-Lettered Fonts Fonts that look hand-drawn, like Amatic SC or Kalam, can evoke the personal touch of the holidays without being explicitly Christmas-themed. Common Christmas Font Questions What’s the most popular Christmas font? While preferences vary, fonts like Mountains of Christmas, Dancing Script, and Lobster Two consistently rank as favorites for their perfect balance of festive flair and readability. Are there free Christmas fonts? Absolutely! Google Fonts offers several options like Mountains of Christmas and Merienda that work perfectly for holiday designs. Many independent designers also offer free Christmas fonts for personal use. Can I use Christmas fonts commercially? It depends on the font’s license. Always check the licensing terms before using any font in commercial projects. Many fonts require you to purchase a commercial license, while others are free for all uses. What’s the best Christmas font for logos? For logos, you want something that’s both festive and readable across all sizes and applications. Consider more subtle Christmas fonts or modify existing fonts with holiday elements rather than using heavily decorative options. The Evolution of Christmas Typography Christmas fonts have evolved tremendously over the decades. Early Christmas typography was heavily influenced by Victorian decorative styles, with elaborate serifs and ornate flourishes that reflected the era’s love of ornamentation. The mid-20th century brought a shift toward more playful, cartoon-inspired Christmas fonts, reflecting the growing commercialization of the holiday and the influence of advertising design. Think candy cane letters and fonts that looked like they belonged on toy packaging. Today’s Christmas fonts blend the best of both worlds – the elegance of classic typography with modern design sensibilities. We’re seeing more hand-lettered styles, subtle seasonal references, and fonts that feel festive without being overwhelming. Expert Tips for Using Christmas Fonts After years of working with Christmas fonts, here are my top tips for making them work beautifully in your designs: Less is More Christmas fonts are powerful, so use them strategically. One well-placed Christmas font in a headline often has more impact than using them throughout an entire design. Color Matters Christmas fonts work beautifully with traditional holiday colors – deep reds, forest greens, and metallic gold. But don’t be afraid to experiment with unexpected color combinations for a more modern look. Size for Impact Christmas fonts are often designed to be show-stoppers, so don’t be shy about sizing them up. They work best when they’re large enough to showcase their decorative details. Mind the Spacing Many Christmas fonts have unique character spacing needs due to their decorative elements. Pay attention to kerning and adjust as needed to ensure your text looks balanced. Conclusion: Making This Christmas Typography Magical Christmas fonts are more than just pretty letters – they’re emotional triggers that can transport viewers straight to their favorite holiday memories. Whether you’re going for elegant sophistication or playful whimsy, the right Christmas font can transform your designs from ordinary to extraordinary. Remember, the best Christmas font is the one that perfectly matches your message, audience, and brand. Don’t just choose a font because it looks festive – choose one that enhances your overall design and helps you connect with your audience on an emotional level. As we head into 2025, Christmas typography continues to evolve, blending classic holiday charm with contemporary design trends. The fonts showcased in this guide represent the best of both worlds – they honor Christmas traditions while feeling fresh and current. So go forth and spread some typographic Christmas cheer! Whether you’re designing for Santa’s workshop or Fortune 500 companies, these Christmas fonts will help you create designs that truly capture the magic of the season. After all, the right font choice can make even the Grinch’s heart grow three sizes. Riley Morgan Riley Morgan is a globe-trotting graphic designer with a sharp eye for color, typography, and intuitive design. They are a color lover and blend creativity with culture, drawing inspiration from cities, landscapes, and stories around the world. 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