Melon bags, slow ideas, pope meteor
Candles and clutches shaped like fruit and veg are the future, and a book about Shackleton's Endurance expedition is a reminder that influencers have been around forever
One of my favourite things about Dune 2 was all the interiors and architecture. Maybe it’s because I used to write about those things, but when I re-read Dune earlier this year I kept noticing how much attention Herbert paid to interior details – which feels unusual for a science fiction novel. There’s a whole section set in the Great Hall at Arrakeen where he makes a point of saying the wooden beams must have been shipped a long way, because no trees grow on any planets nearby. And it’s completely incidental to the story.
Anyway, Transfer Orbit always has lots of sci-fi insight, and their latest newsletter delved into what’s made Dune 2 such a success – which feels like required reading for every single person or company embarking on anything creative. In summary: establish your vision, take your time and don’t let people come in at the end and start fucking it all up. As Andrew Liptak writes:
What got me thinking about this is a Tweet from screenwriter Joe Russo (not the Marvel director), in which he says that he spoke with a VFX artist who worked on Dune Part 2, who explained that the reason why the visual effects looked so good was "Specificity of vision. The way the footage is captured and blocked. Creative choices made on the assets early and consistently. Less executive meddling late in the process."
Other things I read and saw this week
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Luxury fashion so often seems so boring. Loewe is having fun though, with an array of beaded fruit- and vegetable-shaped bags. Jonathan Anderson is behind it all, which makes total sense considering JW Anderson’s epic pigeon and canary clutch bags.
Maybe we all just want to buy things that look like other things, but I’m hooked on the @nonnasgrocer Instagram account, which shares an endless parade of candles shaped like food.
I’ve been reading Ernest Shackleton’s South: The Endurance Expedition. So far, I’m not totally enthralled; every sentence is like: wind today, 30mph, torpedoed a whale, put a penguin in the larder, lots of bergs. HOWEVER, the introduction by Fergus Fleming talks about Shackleton’s generation of explorers, who were something like proto-influencers – raising huge amounts of money through merch – particularly toys, souvenirs and clothes marketed under their name. The New Brunswick Hosiery Co advertised its underwear as: ‘The Underclothes Peary Wore to the Pole’.
As more and more publishers lay people off, there seems to be a lot of chatter around the next generation of media – and it seems to be all about keeping it small, putting journalists at the centre of things and focusing on specific areas of coverage. The New York Times has a great overview HERE.
This idea of ‘small’ seems to be a big source of interest for a lot of companies – rather than locking people into recurring, significant monthly payments to access a lot of content, why not get them to pay miniscule amounts for what they actually want?
Absolutely wild that the Vatican has commissioned Maurizio Cattelan – a man who, in 1999, created a life-size depiction of Pope John Paul II lying beneath a meteorite – to create an outdoor installation for its own exhibition.
I like this website that collects digital design details. Who knew if you scroll far enough in Citymapper you go underground?