24th April 2021

‘What Working From Home Looks Like Around The World. Rest of World has used photos and text to create simple vignettes of nine people who have turned their homes into their offices during the pandemic. The stories include a florist in Tehran, a chef in Bangkok, a ranchera singer in Mexico and a fashion designer in Saudi Arabia.

Advertisers now have the technology to insert new product placement into old films. For example, they can put new labels on the champagne bottles in Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca, add different background neon advertising signs to Ocean’s 11, or get Charlie Chaplin to promote a fizzy drink. And then a few weeks, months or years later the added products can be easily switched to different brands… How Product Placement May Soon Be Added to Classic Movies.

Love this. The Design Museum’s ‘Essential’ Shop. ‘There was a lot of frustration in the sector when the UK government announced that commercial galleries and non-essential retail could open a month before galleries and museums. So the Design Museum turned itself into a supermarket selling toilet rolls, washing up liquid and other essential items, allowing people to shop end experience art – an essential to many.
(3 min read)

Our musical choices change depending on which city we live in. This interactive from The Pudding allows you to see what the most popular song is in each city around the UK and the rest of the world. Get Out of Your Geographic Musical Bubble.

The Wisdom of Water: 12 ways to use blue spaces to improve your health and happiness.

Worth noticing how this lands with you. An exploration combining illustration with photography/photo-manipulation. ‘It was heartbreaking (especially as a native New Yorker) to see NYC endure such crippling loss and confusion. Yet despite everything, I still saw people striving with unshakable resilience and strength. This series depicts creatures of hope walking through different parts of New York City as an embodiment of the NYC-spirit I saw everyday.’ This is Hope in the streets of NYC.

The river that turns immediately to snow – also called frazil ice – which happens below Yosemite Falls. 

Marketoonist on customer service. ‘And if they still want to buy from us….’

Itsme is an app that helps you create a lifelike but virtual avatar. ‘With the rise of deep fakes, privacy concerns, and AI scraping public sites for images of real people, these kind of services could become far more important to people.’ (HT @neilperkin)

And finally, please see here a link to a mindfulness newsletter (Selected Mindful Moments) I have started curating, first edition out last Thursday (on Earth Day). I plan to do a new release about twice a month. If it takes your fancy, there is a link to subscribe at the bottom of the newsletter (where it says ‘share’)  .