Burger King and McDonald’s are locked in an eternal battle for market share in the fast-food, burger-and-fries industry. Earlier this year, both released dramatic new looks at key parts of their global visual identity.

Burger King has fully rebranded, with a new logo and design style that nips and tucks their original logo in a fresh, vibrant, and engaging new design language. McDonald’s, meanwhile, have introduced new global packaging that also leans into a fresh, bold, colourful direction. Let’s take a look at what’s going on in both.

To be used, digital interfaces need to be designed.

This is true on both a graphic level — colour; layout; interactions — as well as on a system level — flow; navigation; outcomes. The explosion in digital product design for mobile apps and web applications has been the key growth area of the last 10-15 years, but it doesn’t operate in a vacuum.

To be enjoyed, digital interfaces need to be art directed.

Art Direction may not be as common a phrase, but it’s every bit as important as Design, because it adds something that graphic and UX design alone, in all of their pursuits on clarity and usability, miss as a guiding light: emotion.