➕ The Conditions 40
The Digitally Displaced, Eric Carle, D&AD Awards, What drives you as a designer...
+Issue 40
This week I wrote an article for UX Collective entitled ‘The Digitally Displaced’.
It’s an editor’s pick on their site this week. Have a read and share it with anyone you feel may be interested.
"The COVID-19 pandemic forced many, unprepared, into adopting unfamiliar digital tools. While Digital natives have thrived, The Digitally Displaced require new solutions to help them bridge the divide.”
User Experience
The difference between – Interaction design is a different kind of design. The design of the behavior of digital systems is not at all the same kind of design as visual, print, architectural, industrial, or any other design discipline. There are many similarities, but they are qualitatively different.
Material YOU had to happen this year – Every seven years people get bored with the UI status-quo.
Digital Trust
How a largely untested AI algorithm crept into hundreds of hospitals – During the pandemic, the electronic health record giant Epic quickly rolled out an algorithm to help doctors decide which patients needed the most immediate care. Doctors believe it will change how they practice.
Google’s plans to bring AI to education make its dominance in classrooms more alarming – The tech giant has expressed an ambition to transform education with artificial intelligence, raising fresh ethical questions.
The ethical use of data in artificial intelligence – Even with the best of intentions, individuals may not recognize their own biases. Here’s what must be done to make AI effective—and fair—to all.
An Insurance Startup Bragged It Uses AI to Detect Fraud. It Didn’t Go Well – Lemonade backtracked after suggesting it uses “non-verbal cues” like eye movements to reject claims. Its response raises more questions than answers.
Design
How to find what drives you as a designer
Dot Dot Dot Is the Most Influential Design Magazine You’ve Never Heard Of
How an obscure design journal from the early 2000s became the template for a generation of disaffected graphic designers (I was a big fan during my design degree back in the early 2000s)
Elliot Ulm’s graphic design memes will make you laugh and then make you think
Branding
Collins have rebranded US fast-salad chain Sweetgreen
LogoLounge have published their 2021 Logo Trend Report
Shelter reveals activism-inspired rebrand from Superunion – The brand consultancy’s update for Shelter takes the homelessness charity back to its early days of grassroots campaigning.
Obituaries
Eric Carle, The Very Hungry Caterpillar author and illustrator, has died age 91.
If you’re not already familiar, his life is worth reading about:
Born in Syracuse, New York in 1929, Carle’s mother and father were German immigrants who moved the family back to Stuttgart in the mid-1930s, when thousands were heading the other way. As Europe hurtled towards the second world war, Carle longed to return to the US. His father was conscripted into the German army and spent eight years as a Russian prisoner of war, while Carle was assigned aged 15 to dig trenches along the Siegfried line.
When his high-school art teacher saw Carle’s talent, he invited him to his house to look at reproductions of banned expressionist and abstract art – images that Carle at first found shocking. “I didn’t have the slightest idea that something like that existed,” he recalled, “because I was used to art being flag-waving, gun-toting Aryans – super-realistic Aryan farmers, the women with their brute arms. That was art.”
Ken Garland – whose designs spanned the world of toys to nuclear disarmament has died at the age of 92. His political writing and influence have influenced generations of designers. I feel lucky to have met Ken and attend talks by him.
Eye Magazine have published an essay by Ken from 2003, ‘The clarity of the innocent eye’ in which he urges designers to be ‘alert’. In an afterword, Andrew Howard explains the context.
Business
Uber Has Recognised a Union for Drivers for the First Time – Uber drivers in the UK can now collectively bargain with the company, but some in the labor movement see the deal as falling short.
Amazon Introduces Tiny ‘ZenBooths’ for Stressed-Out Warehouse Workers – The AmaZen meditation booth is a small room where employees can watch company videos about mindfulness while a small fan moves the air around.
Awards
D&AD has revealed the winners of its 2021 Awards – Libresse’s #wombstories campaign and a Mastercard credit card that allows non-binary people to use their chosen names are among the Black Pencil winners, in another year with a big focus on purpose-driven creativity
The Absolute Best in Packaging: Dieline Awards 2021 Winners Revealed
Typography
Pizza Typefaces’ latest release is an original taste called (and all about) Pleasure – Now available in 20 styles and two distinct families, the variable font boasts versatility and ambience.
The origin story of the Wingdings font – The funny font from vintage Microsoft Word has an unbelievable past and great influence on today’s culture