“The small plastic LOVE signs that began popping up on telephone poles around town this spring put a smile on many faces in the Crescent City. Though they occupied the same space as grassroots street advertisements, they didn’t seem to have anything to sell. Because they are generically designed and commercially produced, they didn’t look like conventional graffiti or street art. Because they are rather small and seek to share such a universally upbeat message, they are difficult to dislike … even if they are illegal.”
Tag: 06.25.14
The Way To Comfort A Depressed Friend (‘Cheer Up!’ Ain’t It)
The power of negative validation.
The Twee Aesthetic Is Taking Over (Fear It!)
“Is Twee the right word for it, for the strangely persistent modern sensibility that fructifies in the props departments of Wes Anderson movies, tapers into the waxed mustache-ends of young Brooklynites on bicycles, and detonates in a yeasty whiff every time someone pops open a microbrewed beer? Well, it is now.”
Russian Pianist Wins Utah’s Gina Bachauer Competition
“Andrey Gugnin, 28, was declared the winner of the 16th Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition on Wednesday night, capping two weeks of competition that brought 37 pianists, ages 19 to 32, to Salt Lake City from 14 nations.”
How Corporations Like GE Are Becoming Serious Publishers
“GE has used sites like The Economist and Quartz for native advertising to promote itself as a supporter of innovation. But its biggest and most visible effort to date came in March with the introduction of Pressing, a policy news hub that pulls in content from millennial-aimed Vox, where Pressing made a splash as a launch sponsor.”
When Meditation Goes Bad
A psychiatrist and researcher at Brown University is studying an aspect of (now-trendy) mindfulness practice that most in the field avoid: the people for whom meditation leads not to serenity or increased focus, but terror, severe depression, or, occasionally, a psychotic break.
John Lithgow On The Single Greatest Challenge Of Playing King Lear
“[It’s] modulation. For Lear, the first half of the play contains four titanic temper tantrums of near bipolar intensity, and the second half tips over into dementia, bottomless grief and (spoiler alert) death. In rehearsing these opening scenes, I need to constantly remind myself how far I still have to go, like a marathoner husbanding his resources.”
Touchscreens Are Shaping The Ways Our Kids Interact With The World (And A Design Revolution Awaits)
“As the touchscreen itself increasingly merges with its environment, and embedded technology goes mainstream, this raises questions around design for the next generation of digital experiences and services. Designing for Generation Moth is going to require very different skillsets and ways of thinking beyond what we do now.”
Fight To Save A Failed Architectural Masterpiece That Went Terribly Wrong
“It was going to be a shopping mall and hotel on a scale never seen before, where people could drive right up the sides of the building to their destination, whether it was the swimming pool, the heliport, or even the top dome designed by Buckminster Fuller.”
Data’s In: Technology Is Widening The Education Gap, Not “Leveling The Playing Field”
“While technology has often been hailed as the great equalizer of educational opportunity, a growing body of evidence indicates that in many cases, tech is actually having the opposite effect: It is increasing the gap between rich and poor, between whites and minorities, and between the school-ready and the less-prepared.”