The Dice — 005

Street photography, designing on Linux, minimalism’s cost for designers, annual reports still exist, trading Slack for Messages, and Alamo Drafthouse goes to Japan.

Inspired by the article in Noméa magazine, I’ve been thinking about the idea of “rewilding” this week and how to apply it to life. The idea is to “restore healthy ecosystems by creating wild, biodiverse spaces.” What kind of ecosystem should I aspire to build that will rewild my imagination and creativity? There are obvious answers that relate to eating, sleeping, and reducing social media. For me, I think it also means spending regular, dedicated time spent analog, nowhere near a screen. And time spent in a way that promotes the brain to wander, as it does when doing something like taking a shower. If you’re working on this too, I’d love to hear what you’ve found that works for you.

Also, you have to listen to the opening story I shared with Brett on this week’s episode of The High Five podcast. I hope you’ll subscribe and rate the show, but at least listen to this week’s opener.

Wise and powerful product designer Naz Hamid shares his experience moving team communications from Slack to Apple Messages with great results — “I contend that as long as search is reliable and well-executed, this is all you need. Everything else is just feature bloat, tailored to the needs of the enterprise segment.” He’s spot on and the full post is worth reading and sharing.

Somewhat related: Nintendo, Xbox, and PlayStation have all now abandoned Twitter integration. Yet another nail in the bird’s coffin.

I fired up Monocle Radio to catch the latest episode of The Stack and learned of a new magazine dedicated to street photography called Framelines. Very intrigued, I went to their website and immediately ordered a few issues and joined their community, Street Assignments. This is exactly the post-Instagram experience I have been waiting for.

A different subject matter — CNN published a feature story on storm chasing with incredible photos from Krystle Wright that is worth a few minutes of your time.

One of the few things I miss about living in Austin, Texas is going to the movies at the Alamo Drafthouse. No matter what the big chains try to do to attract an audience they’ll never beat the complete movie buff experience at Alamo Drafthouse. So I was super, gosh darn excited to read that Sony Pictures purchased the company and is making plans for expansion. As a lifelong fan of all things Sony this is the best combination of brands and experiences.

Also, If your brain was left scrambled by the movie TENET, like mine, then this explainer will help. Your mileage may vary.

As you all know by now, Apple gleefully joined the ever-expanding roster of technology companies hell-bent on turning our world to shit with AI, no matter what they call it. Meanwhile, Adobe announced new terms of service that say your design files will be used to train their software, oh, but only if you use the AI features they are pushing so hard. I know I’m not alone thinking Linux might be the last platform to design on without AI interference or privacy infringement. While comparable tools exist, designing on Linux sounds like it needs improvement.

“I could not get more than halfway through without wanting to share my inspiration from the discussion found there about self-imposed restrictions, experimentation, influences, inspiration, environment, and your own personal drive to create in a foundational manner.” Luke doesn’t write as often as I like, but when he does it’s worth sharing. In this case, his thoughts inspired by a conversation on Swiss design.

Related: Graphic designers have always loved minimalism. But at what cost?

Even more design! Print magazine posted the winners of their annual competition. I’ll take this kind of design work over digital all day long, especially the new (to me) category on social impact. I’m surprised annual reports are still around, but I’m glad they are. Check it out, fantastic work all around!

Have a great week. For those on the east coast, stay chill.

Published in Tacoma, Washington while listening to Prokifiev: Peter and the Wolf, Lieutenant Kijé Symphonic Suite

Originally published on the non-award winning Brilliantcrank.