Did you have to learn cursive writing in school? Depending on your age, it was either required, you’ve never done it at all, or you fell into a grey area and you learned a little, but not enough to really be proficient (that’s us!) Despite its general decline in usage, recent legislation in states like California and New Hampshire is reintroducing cursive into school learning curriculums, sparking a debate within the design community about its relevance in branding and consumer engagement. Some designers see it as obsolete and a relic of the past, while others see potential in its intrinsic human-ness, and the fact that it’s almost the antithesis of “digital”. What do you think?
It’s hard enough making museum-worthy art, but museum worthy ads would be on an entirely different level! But that’s exactly what the 2024 AICP Awards challenged their entrants to do. Submissions were due on March 12th, so it’s too late to enter, but the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (that’s what the AICP stands for) had a special twist on the prize for the winners of this year’s competition: the winning work will be included in the film archive at MoMA! Not only is the prize fabulous, the commercial advertising is nothing short of incredible, as it should be. So check it out, and be sure to check black and see if the winner of the prize lives up to the hype!
It’s 2024, and that means it’s an Olympics year! With the games right around the corner (seriously how is this year flying by so fast?!), the Olympic Committee has released a new poster hyping up the global competition, and it takes inspiration from an unlikely source: Where’s Waldo! Local Parisian artist Ugo Gattani was tapped to create these intricate designs, and instead of a singular character like Waldo to be on the lookout for, the viewer is instead encouraged to look closely at the intricate detail the artist put into these posters, which took a reported 2000 hours to complete. We believe it!
The humble 404 page: a page you never want anyone to see, but a page you absolutely have to have on your website, or your site will suffer the SEO wrath of Google. So since you have to have it, it might as well be well-designed! 404s.design is a collection of some of the best 404 pages out there, from the best looking, to the quirkiest, to the funniest, to some that are just great examples of clean design, this simple site is sure to give you a boost of inspiration if you’re stuck trying to make your 404 page stand out!
And what would happen if we didn’t bother having them? Good question. CNN is here with a beautifully designed explainer on why we have these calendar quirks, where their origin was, who’s harebrained idea they were, and what the future holds for them.
The 2024 Pritzker Architecture Prize winner has been announced, and architect Riken Yamamoto is the lucky winner. Inspired by the relationship between architecture and community, Yamamoto uses design to connect his buildings to the very human communities in which they sit. Buildings that aren’t just fancy glass monoliths, but that also serve the people that live around them, like fire stations, housing, and city halls.
