The Name Is the First Lease You Sign
Diversified Partners broke ground at 7501 E. McCormick Parkway three days ago.
Business · September 28, 2026News & notes.
Working opinions on brand, marketing, and the tools we build with.
Hiding the Building Is Not a Plan
Peoria’s council has directed staff to rewrite a data center code that is more than twenty years old, written back when the term of art was “telecom hotel.” AZBEX reported the direction on September 23. The proposed package pulls data centers out of by right approval in industrial zones and into special use permits, and adds a 500 foot minimum setback, a 50 foot landscaping buffer, a power demand study, a third party noise assessment, and a requirement that equipment be concealed from public view.
Architecture · September 28, 2026Google Took the Wheel. Your Brand Controls Are What's Left.
September 1 was not a warning. Google's AI Max auto-upgrade window ran September 1 through September 30, and any Search campaign still using Campaign-level Broad Match or legacy Automatically Created Assets got migrated in place.
Marketing, Web Design · September 28, 2026Nobody Books a Collection
IHG launched its 21st brand in February, a conversion play called Noted Collection aimed, by its own announcement, at 2.3 million independent rooms globally. Hilton’s Outset Collection, unveiled last October, is the eighth brand inside its lifestyle portfolio alone.
Brand · September 28, 2026You Are Now a Row in Someone's Feed
On August 27 Google switched on hotel booking inside AI Mode. You describe the trip in plain language, it compares rooms, you pay with Google Pay, and the reservation is done without you opening anybody’s website.
AI · September 28, 2026Honest Ads Are a Product Decision
Dove turned fifty unfiltered Reddit reviews of its own products into advertising and took six Cannes Lions for it. Burger King retired the mascot it had leaned on for years and put customers in the frame instead.
Marketing · September 9, 2026Fix the Shoot, Not the Photo
Buyers have a word for it now. “Housefished,” the thing that happens when you drive across town to a showing and the room in front of you is not the room in the photo.
Film & Photography · September 9, 2026Your Drone Is Flying Too High
The Commercial UAV Expo has been running at Caesars Forum since Tuesday and wraps tomorrow. Commercial UAV News reported roughly 3,100 comments filed on the FAA’s Part 108 proposal, the rule that would normalize flight beyond visual line of sight, with a reopened comment window earlier this year on the most contested provisions.
Drone · September 3, 2026The Sidewalk Is Part of Your Building
Downtown Phoenix Inc. and the Phoenix Revitalization Corporation are installing six shade canopies on Washington and Jefferson by the end of this year, three on each street.
Architecture · September 2, 2026Nobody Approves a Project With a Code Name
AZFamily reported that on August 26 the Pinal County Board of Supervisors voted four to one against rezoning land south of Eloy for a data center campus. The developer, Vermaland, had already cut the proposal from 59 buildings to 11.
Construction · September 2, 2026The Logo Is the Last Ten Percent
Most rebrands start in the wrong room. Someone pulls up a mood board, the logo goes on the wall, and forty minutes later a group of smart people are arguing about a serif.
Brand · September 1, 2026AI Made Production Cheap. Judgment Got Expensive.
Not long ago, a sixty second animated spot with a custom voice, custom art direction and a real edit meant a real production budget and a real timeline. Last month we produced one for about six dollars.
AI · August 25, 2026Every Project Looks the Same in a Rendering
Sit through enough development pitches and they blur together. Golden hour.
Real Estate · August 18, 2026“You Are Now a Row in Someone’s Feed” previews the new article layout. Other articles open on the current site.