Meanwhile #216
Authentic twiddling in the dark forest.
Adobe have launched a new content authenticity app, perfect for adding creator credentials to your photo of a stable door closing behind a bolting horse.
In this week’s Things I Don’t Understand Or Need: the new Ableton Move. I totally get the tactile appeal of synths – we are the generation that grew up watching people twiddle colourful knobs on spaceships and now it’s our go but the future arrived and it’s all flat and glass and boring. Let us twiddle.
Volume are crowdfunding Margaret Calvert: Woman at Work, the first book dedicated to the work of a pioneer of design for public service, a groundbreaking typographer and recipient of this year’s New York Type Directors Club Medal.
This week in science: redheads feel less pain.
Some wise words Austin’s typewriter interview with Chase Jarvis:
Most photographs fail to connect with the viewer because they are too complicated/they have too much going on, Capturing a single subject in a simple story in a single frame is (or ought to be) the goal. But most people don't capture or compose their images with this in mind – and so the results, story, and intended outcome rarely lands. … Another surprising thing is that photographic competence has very little to do with technology or gear. A photo is a is a single frame: story that simply relies on 3 key elements: composition, connection, and light. If you focus (pun intended)on these 3 things you'll be surprised at how quickly your photography improves.
New work by yours truly for The New York Times, illustrating some pretty horrifying witness reports from doctors, nurses and paramedics in Gaza.
Threads knows it has an engagement bait problem … the main one being Meta not engaging with all the people shouting LET US HAVE CHOOSE FOLLOWING AS DEFAULT. Seriously, it’s underminging the whole platform, not least because it discourages genuine engagement. I like asking the mob for advice/wisdom/opinions (especially now that search engines are going down the pan), but doing so will almost certainly be met with a dismissive Rockatansky.
Thirtieth anniversary edition of Green Day’s Dookie is being released on obscure, obsolete and inconvenient formats – including toothbrush, wax cylinder and Teddy Ruxpin. Yeah it’s a gimmick, but given that half the people who buy vinyls don’t even have record players, sure, why not, physical media is physical media.
The White House briefing room has been taunting us with hilarious kerning and three upside-down Hs since 2007 and it must be stopped. End this madness.
That is all.
Perhaps some of Britt’s theory have been addressed by the many films and tv shows that have appeared since he wrote it in 2012 … or perhaps not? The only instance of literacy I can think of is the appearance of the sacred Jedi texts in The Last Jedi, and they’re almost immediately torched by Yoda, who even mocks Luke for letting them gather dust. Pile, to be read, hmm? or something along those lines. ↩
