Issue No. 9
Thank you all for joining us over the past few months - we have readers in 61 countries and counting! We appreciate the enthusiasm and support you have shown TCF, and we're excited to be expanding our efforts in 2020.
Next year, we will bring you more stories about the creators, innovators, and change-makers who view the world with an eye toward reinvention.
Creativity and entrepreneurship will be a key focus, as we explore how people use imagination, resourcefulness, and a boatload of perseverance to make an impact.
Happy holidays, and we’ll see you back in January.
Matt McCue & Amanda Tuft, Co-Founders / Editors@thecreativefactor.co
Conversation Starters
Why Everything You Buy Looks Like It Was Made By a Hipster In Brooklyn
We admit we clicked on this piece from Marker because of the above headline. So what’s the story? Big box grocery chains are tripling down on their private label brand business, where the sales margins are about 30% higher than from national brands. And to make these products feel human (rather than factory-made), these chains are stamping their packaging with serif fonts and using alliteration-and ampersands naming conventions: Bowl & Basket! Good & Gather! Homespun & Handcrafted! (OK, we made that last one up.) “The ampersand has become ubiquitous in everything from restaurants to fashion, giving a whiff of authenticity, even if the brand was conceived with the help of focus groups and sales data,” notes Marker.
File Under “Fun”
The folks over at Postlight are always doing cool stuff including their latest, Yap,—an old-school chat room with a twist. “The rub (or killer feature, depending on how you look at it) is this: There is no log. No scrolling. What you just said is all you said. When others jump into the conversation, they jump into the last set of comments. Just like in real life. When the conversation is over it’s over, 24 hours of inactivity means the chat room expires. For real: Enough logs.”
So ramble on because Postlight isn’t tracking your conversations to mine your data. “Then what’s the business model?” they ask. “Who gives a sh*t! We do business models all day. The web can have something that’s just disposable fun.” Yes, please, to more of that next year.
Image courtesy of UX Collective and Illustrator Gus Morais.
Trends we can get behind in 2020
The end of the calendar year typically ushers a flurry of forecasting content into our inboxes. A standout is The State of UX in 2020 from Fabricio Teixeira and Caio Braga of UX Collective. Far from a standard Top 10 list, Fabricio and Caio ask their design audience to cast a critical eye on our own motivations and responsibilities. Under Designers, Unite they write: “Fighting over the “right way to design” won’t make us stronger as a discipline. Why do designers pick trivial battles on Twitter, instead of fighting against the broader, systemic forces who actually do have a negative impact on the world?”
Similarly, The Rise of Micro-Communities advocates for creating opportunities for connecting more deeply on a professional level. “In 2020, the most relevant discussions in design are becoming local, authentic, and focused,” they state. “Large communities become primarily a way to find and build smaller ones. In a world where everyone is shouting at each other, quieter and more thoughtful conversations become incredibly precious.” We couldn’t agree more.
/ Final Thought
Close 2019 without a Baby Yoda meme, you cannot.