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Say what you will about business and media mogul Kim Kardashian, but if theres one thing she undoubtedly excels at, its building a personal brand so recognizable that all of her ventures scream Kim. Shes done it once again with her new energy drink brand Update, which looks like it couldve organically spawned in the walk-in fridge of her sleek Los Angeles home.Update is a four-year-old energy drink brand founded by CEO Daniel Solomons. On February 24, the brand revealed a full packaging and design overhaul and introduced Kardashian as a cofounder in its new era. In an interview with Fast Company, Solomons said that Kardashian had been a steady customer since 2023 and began offering feedback on the brands formula and packaging, which ultimately led to her formally joining the team. In addition to Kardashians sign-on, Update also announced a 4,000-store distribution deal with Walmart, which will begin on March 1.[Photo: Update]This isnt just a celebrity brand endorsement. Since joining Update, Kardashian has worked closely with the team to completely rethink Updates branding, taking it from what Solomons describes as a masculine tech bro look to a can that feels perfectly natural in Kardashians hand. This shift taps into the refined personal brand that Kardashian has built over the past several yearsone thats perhaps most exemplified by her ultra-successful apparel company Skims, which embraces simple, minimalist shapes; a color palette of neutrals offset by pops of pastels; and a futuristic yet grounded ethos.For Kardashian, Update is essentially Skims in a can: a drinkable version of the aspirational aesthetic thats at the core of all of her business ventures.Onboarding the right agency for the jobDesigning a modern energy drink is no small task. The energy drink aisle is notoriously crowded, and its only getting busier as functional beverages take off among wellness-focused young consumers. According to the agency Grand View Research, the global energy drinks market was estimated at $79.39 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $125.11 billion by 2030. To design a beverage that would actually stand out on shelves, Update turned to an agency with a healthy background in thinking up breakout brands for saturated markets: Day Job, the design wizards behind brands like Fly by Jing, the adaptogen drink Recess, and the viral protein bar brand David, which recently exploded in popularity in no small part due to its ultra-minimalist, refined look. The lesson we take from the success of naming and branding David is that a brand doesnt need to be your friend, says Rion Harmon, Day Jobs executive creative director. It just needs to be very, very good. People want excellent products. And its okay for your branding to reflect that.For Update, that meant leaning into Kardashians tonal, minimalist aesthetic that aspirational shoppers are already familiar with, rather than attempting to design an energy drink for the everyman. [Photo: Update]Designing a drink that “feels like Kim, without saying Kim”Updates original branding included a palette of bright (almost neon) metallic hues, paired with a stenciled wordmark and some highlighted nutrition info. The overall look was akin to a beverage one might expect to see in the Tron universe or in a gamers streamneedless to say, it was far off base from something Kardashian might design.Previous branding for Update. [Photo: Update]“The category of energy drinks is extremely loud,” Harmon says. “Lots of color, lots of neons, lots of overlapping graphics, lots of chaos.”But, according to Harmon, Kardashian had a vision for the brand as soon as she joined the team. She wanted it to express a clean, premium futurism to reflect the innovative approach to energy, he says. (Updates formulation relies on the ingredient paraxanthine, a molecule that the body naturally converts into caffeinewhich the brand says gives its products a less jittery feeling.)Day Job took this concept and spun it into a variety of different cans, all totally different in their approach to logo, layout, type, and color. Kardashian then selected her top cans and provided the team with specific notes for each.She was very involved, from initial vision to minor refinements, creative directing all along the way, Harmon says. She has a very sharp eye, her feedback is always clear, she has real aesthetic vision, but shes collaborative as well.[Image: kimkardashian/Instagram]The final design brings together a palette of muted metallic blue, pink, maroon, and yellow, all of which look like they could star in the next NikeSkims collection. As it did with the packaging for the protein bar David, Day Job minimized any text on the cans to the barest of bones, leaving only subtle notes on flavor, calories, and sugar content. They replaced the techy logo font with a bolded sans serif. Harmon calls it a nearly non-logosomething simple and default, but with a reflective materiality to evoke futurism.In sum, Update is a beverage that would look perfectly natural next to a pair of ballet-core joggersor nestled in Kim Kardashians expertly manicured hand.Kims body of work has a recognizable quality, and thats something we wanted to inform the brand identity, Harmon says. It needed to feel like Kim, without saying Kim. We wanted to find the line between something that fits in her fridge, and the fridges of Walmart.”
Category:
E-Commerce
When I worked a corporate job, I was often in charge of purchasing decisions. At one company, my team had inherited a lot of homegrown solutions. I saw the limitations of these products and was quick to replace them if the budget allowed. In corporate settings, “build vs. buy” is a well-known decision framework. Companies weigh the cost of developing something in-house against purchasing an outside solution. Its often simple math: how much time and resources does it take to maintain this internally versus what does it cost to buy or outsource? Solopreneurs face the same decision constantly. However, the stakes are a lot higher when it’s your own time and own money as decision factors. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/work-better-1.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/work-better-mobile-1.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Work Better\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn\u0027t suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.workbetter.media\/\u0022\u003Eworkbetter.media\u003C\/a\u003E.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91457605,"imageMobileId":91457608,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} Knowing when to DIY and when to hire out is one of the most important operational decisions a solopreneur makesand one thats hard to figure out until youve been through it a few times. When to DIY Not everything needs to be outsourced. Some tasks or projects are worth learning yourself, even if the learning curve is steep at first. The strongest case for DIY is when you’ll repeat the task often, and it touches a core part of your business. Updating the basics on your own website or maintaining your project management toolthese are things you’ll do over and over. If you outsource them, you’ll either keep paying someone else or find yourself stuck when you need to make a quick change. There’s also value in the learning itself because figuring something out makes you a better operator. An example of this might be understanding your business’s financials. Even if you pay a bookkeeper to prepare them, you still need baseline knowledge about your numbers. If you outsource and dont take the time to understand the output, youve created a blind spot in your business. And sometimes, the budget just isn’t there yet. That’s a valid reason to DIY, especially when you’re starting out. But it helps to set a time limit, especially for one-off projects. If you’ve spent a few weeks trying to make something work and you’re no closer to a result you can actually use, that’s a signal to stop and reassess. When to hire it out When I first started my solo business, I created all kinds of assets in Canva. Banners, social graphicsyou name it, I made it. But eventually I realized that Id hit the limit of my design abilities. There was no easy way for me to learn those skills, nor were they a core part of my regular business. So I hired someone to do a design overhaul and create everything for me. Hiring help is a trade. You’re exchanging money to gain back your time (and, quite possibly, your sanity). Often, for a better result than you’d produce on your own. The clearest case for hiring is one-time, high-skill tasks where quality matters. In addition to design, you might hire for legal contracts or tax setup. These aren’t things most solopreneurs will do repeatedly, and the cost of getting them wrong can be higher than the cost of hiring a professional. It’s also worth hiring when a poor DIY result could cost you credibility or clients. A clunky website or an amateur-looking proposal might turn away the exact opportunities you’re working to attract. Here’s a quick filter you can use. Ask yourself:How often will I do this? Does quality matter a lot? Could I earn more in the time it would take me to learn? If the answer to that last question is yes, hiring almost always makes sense. The real cost of I’ll just figure it out When you’re solo, your time has a direct dollar value. Every hour you spend learning website design or wrestling with accounting software is an hour you’re not doing client work. That’s a real cost, even if its not reflected in your businesss financials. Of course, solopreneurs sometimes can’t afford the upfront cost to hire. That’s a very real consideration, especially in the early days. There’s no universal right answer to DIY versus hiring. But being intentional about the decisionrather than defaulting to “I’ll just figure it out”is what separates solopreneurs who stay stuck from those who move their businesses forward. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/work-better-1.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/work-better-mobile-1.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Work Better\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn\u0027t suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.workbetter.media\/\u0022\u003Eworkbetter.media\u003C\/a\u003E.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91457605,"imageMobileId":91457608,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
Being a freelance designer has its perks, but pay transparency is not one of them. Designers are constantly forced to second-guess themselves: Should you charge a day rate or a project fee? Are you earning as much as your peers? Is AI taking work/jobs away from you? Today were launching a new, data-driven effort in partnership with the American Institute of Graphic Arts to help you answer those questions and more with confidence. Its called the Design Pricing Transparency Project, and its dedicated to helping freelance designers understand how much they should be charging for their work. Were asking designers across the industrygraphic designers, UX professionals, art directors, and othersto help us gather information by taking a short survey. We want to know what kind of projects youre working on, how you price that work, and how youre feeling about the general state of freelancing in 2026. If youre a full-time or part-time freelance designer (yes, even if you have a full-time job!) we want to hear from you. And we know that getting paid is not a one-way street. Thats why were also asking companies that hire freelance designers to tell us what they pay, what theyre projecting for the coming year, and how AI factors into all of it. Our goal is to create a detailed snapshot of the freelance financial landscape. Well share the results later this year in a special report. You can take the survey here.
Category:
E-Commerce
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