tl;dr #028
We skipped March, oops, here's to April baby!!
Tis’ the Season (of Travel & Change)
Greetings and welcome to April’s instalment of TL;DR!!
With the recent arrival of Spring (or Autumn, depending on which hemisphere you're in - sucks to suck Southern Hemisphere), we're reminded of the inevitable passage of time and the continuous cycle of change that surrounds us, which is why we like to be always in Beta here at Love + Money.
Like the changing of the seasons, we also welcome our beloved 3D-Queenie-of-Houdini, Jacqui who has made the trip from Australia to be a permanent fixture at our HQ in London! As the days grow longer (or shorter) and the temperatures begin to rise (or fall), we can feel a sense of renewal and rejuvenation in the air.
Whether you're eagerly anticipating the colourful blooms of spring or the cozy comforts of autumn, this season is a time to reflect on the transformations happening all around us and to embrace the beauty of change. So sit back, grab a cup of your favourite seasonal beverage, and enjoy our latest updates and insights.
#graphic-design-is-my-passion
Hey! Jacq here, resident Houdini Queen here at LAM ✨ Unfortunately, graphic design is not my passion, but 3D Design is. So I thought I’d give you a glimpse into my world this week.
Let me preface by saying that it’s not all shit-hot, shiny and smooth renders. 80% of my job is just figuring it out, failing, clicking and panning around, deep-diving in documentation and swimming around software crashes.
But, the 20% that the world sees I am SUPER proud of, and it usually ends up a complete, happy accident. That’s what I love about it all - trial and error, and the space for research and development.
I’ve gotten into the habit of keeping my RND renders, it’s like a scrapbook to reminisce on of how I got to the final product. Anyway, enough chat. Here are some end products and RND renders that I’m really proud of.
Let’s start with Bluescope Steel, for the Bluescope X campaign. I absolutely loved the process of this. Our work was heavily influenced by the existing brand, but we also found a way to extend the system such that we can speak to the potential of collaborating towards a better material future. My approach to this was using steel-esque objects and textures, that also had a fluid, liquid style capacity to them. We also really pushed the metal material into something more futuristic, while still keeping its’ original properties.
Next one’s an oldie but a goodie. CMC Masterbrand. We did a pretty meaty rebrand with a heavy emphasis on 3D. We wanted to create a world where 3D could live with the graphic and visual language, and help answer the question ‘How do we make the intangible, tangible’? Below are some cool things we landed on and experimented with, on the theme of derivatives (represented by particles), and Candlemap stocks (represented by blocks/solid objects).
Last but not least - I LOVE the opportunity to do a super clean, natural light, dreamy looking set design style render. For Karst, the opportunity arose! As we explored how the Karst brand would exist in tangible space.
#rubber-duck
[A developer topic written by a non-developer, let’s see how this goes. Given the history of this Substack, I may or may not be a sentient being but I’ll let you conduct your own Turing Test to find out 😉 - Patrick (apparently)]
Anima has changed significantly since it came out, huh? Remember when versioning Sketch design files was a thing? Neither, Figma has clogged my neural network. Though it does raise the question - If using ChatGPT and Copilot to help write code is cool and fun, why is something like this, which is seemingly doing a similar job, met with apprehension?
What else have I deeply learned this month?
Netlify thinks they are on par with Pink Floyd, interesting.
Command-line access to ChatGPT exists. Though you can produce the same result using Raycast if you are like me and are in fact not a developer, nor sentient.
Are you convinced I’m real? Nice.
#vibe
We interrupt your scrolling to bring you a special vibe report from us here at:
🚨 🚨 🚨 The LAM News Network 🚨 🚨 🚨
Rendering intensifies in London, as our favourite non-mac user makes the move from Melbs. Our correspondent (and 3D designer), Jacqui is on the ground, providing updates on the latest developments as her situation unfolds. Over to you Jacq:
TRAVEL HACK (but don’t actually do this): Don’t sleep for 48 hours before you arrive so you skip the jet lag and your body clock is on London time! (Again – do NOT do this)
Spent an entire week in the office which was an adjustment in itself. Being around people again is great – even made a 3D artist friend.
The internet over here is fast as HELL
Late night calls happen often! Not a vibe.
The AU/NZ team goes to sleep when I’m starting my day 😯 That’s new.
Barnaby (Our Account Director) and I do a little face to face standup which is cute.
I’m adjusting to being extra disciplined with my day, making sure my hand-offs are perfect, and asking questions well in advance.
Shoutout to Danny (Creative Director) for being super supportive and getting on a 5 min call at the end of my day/his morning –sometimes all you need is a quick verbal debrief to make sure you’re on top of your shit 💞
Feeling incredibly lucky that LAM has put in all the work, procedures, and trust to allow us to do this, it’s pretty feckin’ cool.
Hang on folks… [hand-on-earpiece pose that news anchors do] I’m getting word from Japan that two ex-interns have been spotted in Tokyo. That’s right – meet Dutches, our newest LAM Graduate Designer ✨
Don’t touch that dial – we’ve got more vibes to report next month. Stay safe, stay informed, and stay connected.
LAM NEWS NETWORK. WE OUT! 😤
#processes-and-platforms
If there’s one thing we know for sure, its how to create good memes on the Internet, brands are memes after all. Like any good meme, it needs to be in dialogue, that's why we don't want to just talk at you with them, we want to develop them, beta together (amirite?).
So, to keep making better ones, we’ve been thinking about how we might get some other voices in the (chat)room when it comes to creating these memes for brands. Naturally, we have some questions to float. See below, answer in the comments ty ty x
We believe we don’t own any individual idea, we own our interpretation of it– that's creativity, guaranteed originality. We try to replicate an idea but end up polluting it with our perspectives. But what perspectives should we use to explain a brand, surely not just LAM ones, in our small internet chatroom? So, a process we're developing is one that helps us to involve others’ reckons, specifically the customers of the brands we work on. Whilst we think our ideas are pretty suave, we need to ensure our audiences also think they’re suave. We need to test that our interpretation is at least cogent with theirs, and if not better than our own. We need to Memes Test.
Q1: Does anyone own an original idea. Or do we merely own our interpretation of it? Discuss.
A meme test? What is that? When we start an Engagement with a client, we’ll gain an understanding of the Elements and Environment in which their brand lives. We take this information and interpret it to come up with an idea that resonates both internally (in their organisation) and externally (with their audience). We take this idea and we run with it. But we can do better.
We should introduce this idea to the audience and test if it’s actually good. By introducing a diverse and more relevant perspective than our client orgs and our Internet chatroom, we can introduce more richness into our brand meme/idea and make it beta. Get it?
Q2: How could we do this? Discuss.
Sorry, I’ll just jump in here and answer this for you. LAM would run ads to test our proposed memes to a pre-determined audience, then collate the findings, and refine the meme in our Creative Sprint, which sounds easy enough.
But, before we dive in, we have a few questions that we’d like to hear your thots on. If you’re willing, drop by our #herd-community or in our comments and throw in some answers. We’ve showed you ours, now you show us yours.
Q3: How can we build our own cohort of customers? In what ways to people do this already inexpensively?
Q4: In your experience, have clients been keen to share their audience with other clients, so that we can test this is a wider, more diverse group?
Q5: Would it even be effective? Or should we just trust ourselves, always?
TL;DR is going on hiatus this quarter, in its place we’re going to be sending out fortnightly content explaining some of our philosophies on brand and digital in more depth– Attempts to Explain. If you share this with one of your friends, you’re gonna get some serious clout or kudos, whichever is worth more to you.
Before we do though, you can also expect some other content, namely the LAB Report, outlining our experiments over the last quarter. It drops next week!
tl;dr
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