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"I'm always astounded at the way we automatically look at what divides and separates us. We never look at what people have in common."                                   - Doris Lessing
Love & Work
A notebook about how we work, learn, love and live.
This week the people of our town opened a brand new public library. More than 500 people crowded its front doorway for a ribbon cutting that celebrated a community effort that took more than 10 years. Over two days I was one of the official greeters, and the sheer joy I saw in hundreds of faces of myriad ages and backgrounds reminded me of the unbelievable power that is unleashed when we share our commonalities. In sharing connection we share each other at our best. 

Happy Friday.
How We Live, Communication
"A good conversation bridges the distances between people and imbues life with pleasure and a sense of discovery."
Serious Conversation. Oil on canvas. Peter Worsley via CC  
"Good conversation mixes opinions, feelings, facts and ideas in an improvisational exchange with one or more individuals in an atmosphere of goodwill. It inspires mutual insight, respect and, most of all, joy. It is a way of relaxing the mind, opening the heart and connecting, authentically, with others. To converse well is surprising, humanising and fun." - Paula Marantz Cohen

Article: To Converse Well
How We Live
What we can learn from Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of interconnectedness


"As a pastoral counselor, chaplain, and activist, Pamela Ayo Yetunde has witnessed both our capacity for enlightenment as well as the ways that our humanity is distorted by forces of oppression and ignorance. She believes that our true nature is to care for one another, yet distraction and delusion keep us from this natural impulse. Drawing from Buddhist and Christian teachings on mutuality and liberation, Yetunde lays out a path for how we can become better caregivers to ourselves and our communities in her new book, Casting Indra’s Net: Fostering Spiritual Kinship and Community.

"In a recent episode of Life As It Is, she spoke with Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher, Sharon Salzberg, about the ancient Vedic image of Indra’s net, what she has learned from Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of mutuality, and how we can practice nonviolence in our everyday lives." - Tricylce Magazine

Interview: Communities of Care
How We Live, Community
‘If we wait for governments, it will be too late. If we act as individuals, it will be too little. But if we act as communities, it might just be enough, and it might just be in time.’

"What if, we wondered, the change we need to see in response to the biggest challenges of our time came not from government and business, but from you and me, from communities working together? What if the answers were to be found not in the bleak solitude of survivalism and isolation, in the tweaking of ruthless commercialism, or in the dream that some electable saviour will come riding to our rescue, but rather in reconnection to community?" - Rob Hopkins

Book Expert: From What Is to What If
Packaging, Circular Economy
"The world’s first carbon neutral battery with a built-in recycling program."
The Better Battery Co. claims to have created the world’s first carbon neutral battery with a built-in recycling program. When your batteries are depleted, you put them back in the case they came in, print out a prepaid recycling sticker and send them to a facility "specifically designed to recycle alkaline batteries. Their process recovers all the battery components. Recycled products are sold locally without additives or further refinement."
Website: Better Battery Co.
Visual Identity, Typography
A bright color palette and a custom typeface focus a museum's visual identity.
Photography by Sean Eaton (Copyright © Carnegie Museum of Art, 2023)

“A visual identity isn’t just a logo – it’s a dynamic, holistic design system,” says Aryn Beitz, director of design and publishing at the museum. “At Carnegie Museum of Art, we wanted our new visual identity to communicate who we are, what we do and what we stand for. Our initial brief was to create a contemporary yet friendly visual identity that was welcoming, legible and easy to maintain. With that in mind, we imagined the museum as a tide pool that surfaces information and ideas. Our visual identity brings all the things we create at the museum – including art, programmes, events, design and so much more – to the surface, making them more visible and within reach for our visitors.” - It's Nice That

Article: Carnegie Museum of Art’s New Look is Built on an Approachable Typeface
Advertising, AI
How a well-respected design agency employed AI to create an entire advertising campaign for a longtime client.
"As for the models, they’re all 100% fake. In fact, everything in the campaign is AI—except for the type and the eyeglasses, the latter of which are actual Georgetown Optician frames added to the scenes. Lefebure estimates that some of the results came out 80% complete while others rendered around 50% or so." Photo: courtesy of Design Army
 
Design Army is known for its fashion forward creative for clients like Adobe, Bloomingdale’s, Disney, Netflix and PepsiCo. Recently long-time client, Georgetown Optician, asked them to promote a new store, a project that would typically take at least three months to execute. This time they didn't have the time, nor the budget it would take to scout and shoot a conventional campaign. Agency cofounder and chief creative officer, Pum Lefebure, realized that it was time to put AI to the test.

This is a revealing article that summarizes some of their learning. One of their insights is that when using AI the art direction needs to be even more careful and explicit than when working person-to-person. Another is that this train has already left the station. As Lefebure said: “As an owner of a design company, I don’t want to be left behind. I feel like we humans need to keep up with the technology and find a way to work with it. It’s too late to be against it.”

Article: How One Design Studio Crafted a Brand Campaign Entirely from AI
Advice
Jenny Holzer
Untitled , from the Survival Series, 1983-1985

One-liners

Article: “320 years, 12 presidents, 10 emperors, 2 republics, 1 newspaper." One of the world’s oldest newspapers, the Vienna-based Wiener Zeitung, has ended its daily print edition.

Article: Study: Drumming helps pupils with autism overcome fear of failure.

Article: Is organic cotton really better? A shopper’s guide

Study: Creative people are less likely to to feel bored in solitude.
Playlist

Last week Omar Sosa, Seckou Keita and Gustavo Ovalles graced the Tiny Desk offices. As team member Felix Contreras described the experience, it "sounded as if it was dropped directly from the heavens of musical compatibility right into our laps".

"From the very start of 'Allah Léno,' the notes began to sprinkle down like soft snowflakes from Sosa's piano and Keita's magnificent 24-string West African kora, while percussionist Gustavo Ovalles' tasteful drumming percolated beneath the interplay of Sosa and Keita. Proving once again that the Tiny Desk space is sacred ground for musical inspiration, barely four minutes in, Keita ended an inspired run with a huge smile acknowledged by his bandmates as well as those lucky enough to be in the NPR Music offices that day."

Conteras's description of the Tiny Desk space as "sacred ground" really resonates. From the opening notes these master musicians are clearly channeling the divine. Very special.

Video: Omar Sosa & Sekou Keita SUBA Trio: Tiny Desk Concert
Weekly Mixtape
Music that is inspired by or seeks to touch the divine. 
Playlist: Tell Heaven
Image of the Week

The Image of the Week is by Lina Kusaite. It is an illustration from the book "UZKAMPYNE" by Igne Zarambaite. "It is a story about endless child fantasies and the unlimited imagination that creates the worlds beyond what we know or see. It is a story about love between mother and son, so big that it floods those worlds with colors, magical creatures and plants growing from the skies."

Published by Alma littera, Vilnius, Lithuania

Behance Portfolio: UZKAMPYNE
What's Love & Work?
Love & Work is the weekly newsletter by me, Mitch Anthony. I help people use their brand - their purpose, values, and stories - as a pedagogy and toolbox for transformation.
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Copyright © 2023 by Mitch Anthony. All rights reserved.

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