{D} 144: Which project are you practicing?

pics + links + intention // photos are gateways // questions are invitations

My project lately has been drawing Mexico City’s trucks.

Trucks here are big. Looming. Oversized. Overloaded. Teetering. Out of scale.

They have a way of kindly peering down at you. Like a santa, like a dad. The bigger a truck, the more I feel like a boy.

I draw the trucks as a way of practicing three-dimensional volumes. A square, attached to a rectangle, sitting on top of circles.

Always I need a project to practice. Can’t wait till I feel like I’m good enough. Can’t just “practice”. Have to practice as a way of getting somewhere.

So I walk around and take pictures of garbage trucks, dumpster trucks, delivery trucks. Sit on a curb, stare at vehicles, sketch some forms, draw some trash.

This morning I’m walking the dog and a policeman crossed the street to approach me. He handed me a flyer about preventing vehicle theft in the neighborhood.

Are you a neighbor, he asked.

Uh, yes sir, I said.

I’m the one staring at all the trucks.

-s.

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Work stuff: I am booked through July and August but available starting in September for cultural research, strategy, and content strategy gigs. As always: steve@thisisdelightful.com

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• Modern day social etiquette you should live & die by // hard agree: “If you’re telling a story and then someone else starts telling their story, don’t look at your phone” // also the group chat tip is spot-on // [Hanna Park]

• Know your shit: A design reader // Typography Essentials // Public Domain Image Archive // and more at the Design Resources channel [are.na]

• “Unfortunately, my reluctance to film myself is increasingly passé.” As social platforms reward visibility, creatives are increasingly expected to make their practice public // this is not the type of practice I was talking about up top and I loathe how everything has become commodified // if you don’t just do some thing for yourself, alone, you don’t truly exist // [It’s Nice That]

• File this research paper under no shit: “We show that the full-scale launch of Tinder led to a sharp, persistent increase in sexual activity, but with little corresponding impact on the formation of long-term relationships or relationship quality.” // Interesting throughout. // I wrote a bit about dating apps while helping one of them launch in SF many years ago: Happy Valentine’s Day, Bicycle Face. The nut:

  But one big argument I’m going to make is that the most dangerous thing about dating apps is that we don’t take them seriously enough as a definer of what it means to be a human being. That hyper-efficient and convenient coupling may not be in our long term best, humans-living-among-humans interests. That many of us today are just so accustomed to swipe-swipe-swiping that we forget that dating online is not just “meeting more people in less time” but “meeting many more people, in much less time, every single day, no matter where you are”, and that is so cursory an experience that it fundamentally changes what it means to value another living, breathing, bones-and-a-butt person.
  
  Anyway I met my girlfriend on Bumble and we have two dogs together so. As always, the answer to the unasked question is “intention”.
  

• lol, he said, out loud: ‘AI doesn’t know what an orgasm sounds like’: audiobook actors grapple with the rise of robot narrators // [The Guardian]

• “The internet is always going to be a little bit ugly.” // tbh I rely on ugliness and messiness as an indicator that something isn’t made by AI, a strategy which will surely begin failing any minute now // [Etymology Nerd]

• “How do you manufacture a lightning bolt moment? Would you change someone’s mind?” Author Andrew Aydin on having faith in your work, manufacturing lightning bolt moments, and why comics are an inherently positive medium [The Creative Independent]

• AI-Generated Psych-Rock Band The Velvet Sundown Rack Up Hundreds Of Thousands Of Spotify Streams // this will only keep happening // I am aware some guy claimed to be their PR but that ended up being a prank, which would be cool, except the part where he shamed the media for falling for it, which is just whorish, faux-righteous attention-seeking and not culture jamming at all // [Stereogum]

• This will only keep happening too: Adding a feature because ChatGPT incorrectly thinks it exists // [Adrian Holovaty]

• I Deleted My Second Brain // Stop building abandoned memory palaces // [Joan Westerberg]

• I am mostly linking to this because I’d never before heard the terms “polyfocal” and “time literacy”: Why One Geologist Thinks We Should All Pay More Attention to Rocks [Atmos]

• The art of choosing furniture for film (and your home) // tbh i would like more messy real rooms in cinema // also, don’t make your home like a movie, make it like a home // anyway, cool furniture! // [Film and Furniture]

• Stop calling it a micro-retirement. [Merriam-Webster]

• Really good: Headshot practice [Lilou Roel]

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I draw things

Finished the garbage truck. I think. Who knows. When is a thing done etc! This is what it looked like last week. Had to redo the pallets a few times, since they were out of perspective. I’m learning and practicing, through this project of drawing Mexico City’s trucks—more trucks on the way!—to break complex objects down into simple shapes in perspective. That’s common advice among youtube artists like brokendraw (one of my faves), who advocate for basing your practice on fundamental forms, per the late-great Kim Jong Gi.

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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

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{ 🔒 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

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Thanks for reading. Be seeing you.

“When you look at the clouds they are not symmetrical. They do not form fours and they do not come along in cubes, but you know at once that they are not a mess. [...] They are wiggly but in a way, orderly, although it is difficult for us to describe that kind of order. Now, take a look at yourselves. You are all wiggly. [...] We are just like clouds, rocks and stars. Look at the way the stars are arranged. Do you criticize the way the stars are arranged?”

―Alan Watts, The Tao of Philosophy