EP. 42: Huvodroll's Total Path
Get Tim Lahan the $$$ (It's IKEA's world and we just live in it!! Gross?). NPCs in Autodesk's trend report. Also, Eclipses and the Social Contract of being a human on this rock.
How about a plate of HUVUDROLL, anyone?
IKEA’s latest outpost in the San Francisco mid-Market neighbourhood is also home to Saluhall, a local food market and cooking school. Saluhall’s branding has caught the attention of many current and former SF Bay Area locals who are familiar with artist Tim Lahan’s work—because their logo appears (beyond) eerily similar (literally a bad ripoff) to illustration that Tim’s done in the past.
No one from Saluhall or IKEA have come forward with a statement (expected). And the comments have been left up for others to see. It leaves us wondering whether Tim was a victim of the moodboard machine? Generative AI hoovering up Tim’s art? Or purely derivative copycatting?
What type of Autodesk design NPC are you?
We briefly walked through the floating 3D utopian-workspace that is Autodesk’s State of Design 2024 report, which touches upon some general corporate optimism and an embrace of AI. Sounds par for the course, really, but also rather vague and over-generalized. In design-land AI so far typically has been used for content generation, but we’re holding out for more practical optimizations such as building out your personalized animated Sailor Moon origin story, or auto-adjusting the beziers on your custom type projects. And though the report itself was a bit of a snooze, the graphics used to illustrate the PDF are gorgeous and unhinged, revealing a kind of uncanny Lacanian VR workplace excess so was disturbing and enticing in equal measure.
From Eclipses to Hot Springs and Southwest: the “design” of the social contract
Initiate dream sequence: We get into what eclipse experiences can be like. They are INTENSE!! Big recommend from us. Not only do they feel like a phenomenon out of your imagination, they’re also an experience that can symbolize all kinds of different things to different people. Because of our differing frameworks for understanding this miraculous solar situation, we have come up with all sorts of ways in which to celebrate a phenomenon such as this. Each, just as important (or seemingly more important from our individual perspective) as the next. With all this conflict in the path of totality, what are the ways we can this experience, and this limited space amongst each other? How do we negotiate, pull back, step up when we need to? Maybe this is less of an overt design topic, but the art of communication is a soft skill that pops up particularly when it comes to communicating the design process amidst clients / teams, so in that manner, talking about the social contract feels relevant.
We try to consider other social experiences that can be similar negotiations: hot springs (naked with strangers in tiny murky pools?), airport boarding processes (shared goals, short tempers and arbitrary rules?)—anyone know any airport boarding protocol researchers? Or, are there similar situations in which the social contract comes into play that you’d like to share? Send us an 💌 electronic mail 💌 to 40trilliondpi@gmail.com and let us know !