tl;dr 022
The one where we flexed our seasonal superposition
Swelter? Shiver?
It’s been a July. Which means the longest and hottest days of the year. Or is it the darkest and coldest nights? At LAM the answer is: both. This month, while our colleagues in the northern hemisphere sweltered, in the south, we went skiing.
To find out how this superposition on the seasons affected life, work and #vibe on the internet, read on…
#graphic-design-is-my-passion
If #graphic-design-is-my-passion, then #purposeful-communication-is-my-lover.
There's many ways to communicate graphically, a picture is worth 1,000 words and a word — well a word is worth exactly one word. It's no wonder then that we get so excited about type, and Monotype (the guys who own Helvetica) have been doing some exciting things, namely releasing Typography 3.0. For a full rundown of Typography 3.0, check this out:
This is a tl;dr, so here are our takeaways:
Purpose: Always choose type with purpose or at least knowing intent;
Inclusion: Accessible typography is a huge part of every big brand project today. It is not an afterthought, it’s the design process; and
Meta: Type has a place in a swathe of new contexts across mixed realities.
It’s clear that we’re getting more and more tools to design with, and more spaces for our work to live. But with all this potential, we need to ask ourselves some questions — does everything really need to move? To be so shiny, so chrome? Or maybe just need to ask one, what is the design challenge we’re trying to overcome? After all, as Phil says, context and constraints define our cause.
Unless all the bells and whistles serve a purposeful communication, it's just digital decoration. Let’s savour simplicity, because complexity is always possible later. Not because graphic design isn’t out passion, but because if we know the message, we can deliver it, simply.
#code-city
There were three posts in code-city this month.
Two of them were about getting custom fonts to load faster. Which yes, is important, cause default fonts are basic. But it’s hard to discuss without discussing our client’s server setups. Which weirdly, they don’t like us doing.
So that leaves us with one big idea to talk about, capitalism.
Loveandmoney.com is on the free market! (or maybe, loveandmoney·com?).
We’d be worried, if we didn’t have loveandmoney.agency locked down.
Unsure about loveandmoney.ink, loveandmoney.eurovision, or loveandmoney.wtf though.
A million monkeys at a million typewriters could come up with a lot of domains, and a lot of domain extensions, but most of them would be valueless. Which means we get to talk about one of our favourite things in the entire world:
Digital scarcity!
The internet’s a big place. An infinite place. And where this is infinite content, there’s limited attention. We’re the commodity, baby.
Meaning storytelling drives much more of the economy than people want to believe.
Because, to us, loveandmoney.agency is worth slightly more than theblurstoftimes.com.
#vibe
So, the last couple of months we’ve been moving and growing which does a lot for vibe. Not just that we’re working to preserve it, observing divisions or just generally grappling with an ever changing landscape, but more interestingly, that we can now have a more global perspective when it comes to what is and isn’t vibe. We can seek out commonalities, observe what’s getting a reaction no matter the continent, this is the Internet after all. So, without further ado, here’s what’s hot and not this month at Love + Money.
HOT RIGHT NOW
NOT RIGHT NOW
Dune
Lo-fi girl
Mr. Robot
As always, we have plenty of premonitions for the future — visions for what might be hot or not next month. We’re seeing something about popcorn, techno, bikes and clocks. Check in next week to see which side of history you’re on.
#processes-and-platforms
What is TKTKTK? Good question.
It’s LAM’s go-to placeholder copy which I (hey, Gino here) initially thought was just a bunch of random letters, but it’s actually an abbreviation used in printing and journalism for “to come”.
Wild.
Despite how cool TKTKTK is, it isn’t very cool to see it in the later stages of design or in a dispatch.
To help with our TK addiction we’ve been exploring ways to streamline our UX copy workflow and a place to manage a single source of truth for our copy.
Ditto and Frontitude are tools that integrate into Figma as a plugin that provide a one-stop shop for managing copy from design to production.
These tools allow your team to keep all your copy bits in one place, with built-in review processes and version control.
And when your copy is done you can sync everything back up with Figma through the plugin and you’re gucci.
Ditto is free, and Frontitude has a paid and free version.
Have a good TK.
tl;dr
A monthly newsletter by Love + Money.
Copyright © 2022
All Rights Reserved
Love + Money Agency
”Melbourne, VIC”
-
Love + Money acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land in which we work and pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging.