tl;dr #014
That Time Joe Returned for Dog's Birthday
We welcomed in a new timezone in the Northern Hemisphere, and Dog turned 53. The Internet huh? What a phenomenon.
As usual, there were graphic designs, a couple of codes, a punchlines, jokes, a think-piece on WFH. Heck, we even shipped a website. For everything else, here’s the tl;dr.
#graphic-design-is-my-passion
The LAM graphic design chat has had some absolute cracker contributions this week (more on that later), but none more substantial than the infamous ‘Baking In x Lasagna Analogy’.
What does that mean? We asked Brig, the Intern, to try and explain. As the newbie, she’s swimming in a sea of analogies in an attempt to explain the inner workings of the agency. When she asked what ‘Baking In’ meant someone was obviously pretty hungry;
“Baking In is the equivalent of cheese already being in a lasagna.”
Let’s unpack that.
Baking In, in any medium, means something is inseparably included or unremovable, just like cheese in a lasagna. You don’t have to ask for it as an extra, it’s already in there. If you really hated cheese, it would be hard and weird to take it out. Just order something else?
First coined by Walter Wriston in the late 70s, it can be used in a variety of spaces. In the same sense that eggs are baked in to a cake, it can also describe location tracking services that are an integral part of Google Maps. Kind of interchangeable with ‘native’, but more niche.
Anyway, if you’re lactose intolerant, here’re some graphic design related links that were posted this week:
Gucci Burst released a dynamic game for their new ‘Gucci Basket’ Sneaker. It’ll rival anything you played on Mini-clip as a kid.
Sick of the tension between you, and using Comic Sans in your branding projects? We got Chu. Or Pangram Pangram do with a new site of their own.
So do Metis Foundry
Want the ultimate uncanny-valley experience? Here. Enjoy.
#code-city
You’re at a dinner party. Lane (a developer at Love + Money Agency) approaches, decaf espresso martini in hand, and casually asks you what you thought of the Next.js 12 release.
He seems like a cool guy, you’d like to impress him with your extensive knowledge of JavaScript, but you’re lost for words. You anxiously look around, trying to remember the entire list of ‘hawt new features’ he posted. Overcome by the paradox of choice, you decide to completely change topic.
You lead by telling him that you recently learned how physical the internet really is. Fascinated by the proposed tangent, Lane leans in. You continue…
“It’s easy to forget that the internet is a physical thing. When you load a page, you don’t really think about your computer sending a request to server somewhere in the world. It’s hard to imagine that when you post a photo on Instagram, that (in some senses) you are physically sending the data to the US. And yet a physical transfer occurs.”
He tells you that, basically, all of NZs internet comes through one cable in the Auckland port. A cable “about the thickness of a human hair”. The whole internet.
You are baffled. You enthusiastically get out your phone and show a picture of a data centre in Spain. You tell him that it’s difficult to imagine that a website might be stored on multiple servers so as to minimise the affect of physical distance on loading speed. The very notion that physical distance could have anything to do with a page’s load time in 2021 seems crazy.
In 1858, the first transatlantic telegraph took 17 hours. That’s easier to believe.
#processes-and-platforms
Lāne ended up doing his job really well this week and was rewarded by researching the next best tool for Affiliate marketing. First he had to find out what Affiliate marketing was in the first place because he’s a nerd developer not a slick marketer or trendy influencer like Adnaan. Stretch goals, aspirations, gotta have ‘em.
Like any good student, Lane went to Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia (an unintentionally cool rhyme), to get learning.
According to da wikis:
“Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate's own marketing efforts.”
Basically it’s like those free promo codes that Youtubers or TikTokers give out to their audience to sign up and get 3 months of Skillshare for free, and depending how many people actually sign up with those promo codes that content creator/ influencer will receive a small percentage of the profits. Concordantly, everybody gets to eat the cake, even if it’s just crumbs. Eventually you’ll have enough crumbs to make an entire cake.
(Transitioning into first person now), specifically I was looking for some kind of SaaS tool that would integrate products from Shopify but also work well with our Headless/ JAMstack architecture (being React/Gatsby, Sanity, Shopify, Gatsby Cloud) that we use here at LAM.
A good place to start looking was on 1800-D2C. Sorting tools by the advertising category, I had a few to look into within minutes. In the end it boiled down to these 4:
Why these specifically, I don’t hear you asking but I’ll tell you anyway?
Well because they offer integrations with your Shopify store and products and also have an API. It’s important when working with a headless website that there are either existing plugins/ widgets that work well with your stack, or an API that you can use to create custom integration with. So that’s the next step I’ve done my research. Now I need to choose which one will work best for our clients needs. No pressure, got any thoughts?
#vibe
In light of The Kid Laroi’s recent split from the comfy bosom of dad-ager Scooter Braun, this week we explore the Western Sydney hip-hop scene from which yung Laroi rose.
For those unfamiliar, Western Sydney music has been brewing in bedrooms over the last decade. More recently, it has become an integral part of the local soundscape and as with almost everything, the @Internet has helped the scene gain momentum globally, with groups such as ONEFOUR being linked with the likes of ASAP Mob, so that's nice.
The Kid Laroi is the poster child for Sydney music world domination, but the scene is far deeper than “his punky melodic flow”. Behind the music is a tight-knit group of artists, rappers, singers and producers whose sense of community mirrors that of an Amish village. Everyone supports each other.
The sound sits somewhere between drill and Drake, and while it may not always compete with the high production value and autotune of the US music industry, it’s also not NOT good, you know?
So it raises the age-old question: if Wu-Tang is for the children, who is Western Sydney rap for?
Well for starters, Western Sydney is a colourful place. It's an amalgamation of First Nations and Pacific Island communities, as well as being diaspora-dense. It's a place where the food is well-spiced and speaking two languages at home is the norm.
Diversity is the thread that ties the area together, and the music reflects this. The songs tell stories of what it's like to grow up on the edge of mainstream. There are parallels to be made with the London drill scene; they both allow gritty insight into the realness of their cities. And in the same way Ed Sheeran doesn’t represent the kids of the London flats, Amy Shark doesn’t represent the kids of Western Sydney. That's where Blessed and Manu Crooks come in. So whether you love or loathe the sound, the key here is representation and representation is a #vibe.
Mona loves The Used.
tl;dr
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