{D} 143: Have you ever been medicated?

pics + links + Mahler's Hammer // photos are gateways

I went to the symphony the other day.

Mahler, if that means anything to you. It didn’t to me.

All of those violins, raising at once, reminded me of flocks of birds in certain nature shows.

I haven’t been sleeping well. That’s what I was thinking the whole time, watching the orchestra play. So this week I have an appointment with a psychiatrist. Never been to one before. Never really been keen to take pills. Always thought: they’re just guessing.

When you draw a figure, you’re always concerned with proportion. Distance from ears to sternum. Distance from sternum to waist. Know the length of one, know the length of the others. How does the psychiatrist know what he’s drawing? How does he know the distance from one prescription to another?

In the back row a percussionist raised, far above his head, a giant wooden hammer.

-s.

---

---

• Stereotypography is when a font becomes a stand-in for an entire identity [Mind of Julia]

• “A standard for art is that it doesn’t just play a game, but invents one”. Why substack is just as bad as all the other platforms out there. [Robin Sloan]

• “I’ve come to the unfortunate realization that I can't experience anything anymore without thinking about how I'll document it.”

• Are you stuck in movie logic? Consider just saying what the problem is [Cate Hall]

• The rise of the creative generalist: why being 'good at lots of things' is becoming a superpower [Creative Boom]

• HQ Trivia meets Zillow: This live real estate game is giving away houses [Fast Company] // the Climbing for Dollars universe edges ever closer //

• How Field Notes went from side project to cult notebook // great notebooks // I miss the Coudal link blog // Jim Coudal helped us out when we launched Rental Car Rally #neverforget [Fast Company]

• Zohran Mamdani’s campaign differentiated itself with bright, vibrant colors and letterforms inspired by common NYC visual motifs. More of this please. The design was done by Forge. [Ashwinn] // see also this piece in FastCo Design [Fast Company]

• The Historical Tech Tree is a visualization of how technologies led to each other [historicaltechtree.com]

• Pathfinder reveals the connections between any two concepts [Matthew Siu]

• They’re making a Spaceballs 2? Assholes. [Deadline]

• Sci-Fi Interfaces is a blog devoted to just that by the authors of Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction [Scifiinterfaces.com]

• Buttons I’d like to press [are.na]

• The Guide to Being Awkward Together [Perfectly Imperfect]

• “When I lost my virginity I had no idea I was having sex with my father’s murderer. Here’s what that taught me about B2B marketing.” [Rayne McGowan]

---

Locals Weekly

Garbage truck in process. Perspective is hard for me. I tend to flatten the perspective out; I originally drew the rear of this thing twice as long … and this comp still looks like the truck is turning to its right, which it totally isn’t in the reference photo. I realize drawing well is more about light than shape, but I think the trick is to outline the whole unit and even draw the 3D cube lines before getting started on any details. Go big to small, as they say. Anyway the number of times I’ve had to redraw those wheels is humbling.

---

Delightful is a 100% organic, free-range, desktop-to-inbox newsletter with links and things, usually. Your host is Steve Bryant, friendly neighborhood insights and content strategist. Let’s work together or go on a hike or something. steve@thisisdelightful.com

---

{ 🔒 archive }

Creativity, illustration, language, stuff like that

• What did you learn about yourself today?
  Notes on picking up drawing 30 years later

• 26 things I've learned while learning a language
  Notes from someone who’s working at it

• How to write
  On moving and watching and paying attention

• Curiosity and Research 101
  On finding out about things

• A map of what you meant to say
  On the 3D space of language

• The A.I. isn't a moron. She's your wife.
  On making ads with AI

Brand strategy, content strategy, etc

• Observational and Culture Study Cheat Sheet
  A template and tools for researching people and communities

• My content strategy toolkit
  14 tools for organizing, measuring, and creating content

• My concept diagram template
  A Figjam for diagramming the complex relationships between concepts

• Product Content Strategy 101
  For anybody who’s creating a product that requires editorial content

• The Bento Box Method for developing topical content
  A cute and useful way to structure your content topics

---

Thanks for reading. Be seeing you.

“I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me — the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.”

―Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5: 1947-1955