Each week, we share the top five articles that caught our attention. Here are your must-reads, published here and abroad, for the week of August 1st 2016.
Why do you like Stan Smith shoes 👟 ?
There’s a scientific reason why you like the fashion of Stan Smith and Vetements! According to Steven Quartz and Anette Asp, neuroscience researchers at the California Institute of Technology, viewing “cool” objects stimulates the part of your brain associated with social emotions, such as pride and embarrassment.
→ Read it on Quartz Pocket
Stranger Things and retro typography
If you like to immediately binge watch new Netflix releases, then you’re probably already done with Stranger Things. From the opening credits of the first episode, the retro typographic style of the series is making certain viewers experience deep nostalgia. Can the return of an iconic font really influence how a series makes you feel?
→ Read it on Inverse Pocket
Data, Facebook and the North Pole
Apparently, those James Bond films and Mission: Impossible plots are not so far-fetched after all… At least when it comes to remote stockpiling of massive confidential data. Since 2013, Facebook has been storing an inconceivable amount of user data at a facility located in Lulea, Sweden. Why did the company choose to keep its servers in such a remote location?
→ Read it on Le Monde (French only)Pocket
Dollar Shave Club is making ‘em shake in their boots
The big brands of male grooming never saw it coming. Dollar Shave Club was merely an upstart betting on online distribution and (hilarious) online advertising. Since acquired by Unilever, this small company managed, in a short period of time, to win serious market share and attract loyal customers.
→ Read it on The New York Times Pocket
Life before CSS
What’s peanut butter without jam? Or HTML without CSS? For many years after the introduction of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) in 1991, there wasn’t a way to specify the style of web pages. Programmer Zack Bloom dives into the archaeology of the web to explore the different computer languages that almost became Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
→ Read it on Eager Pocket
Three signs that your brand is in danger
#Sponsored
Brands are becoming increasingly more fragile, disappearing and being replaced at an accelerated rate. Meanwhile, entire industries are being redefined by new methods. Stéphane Mailhiot, VP Strategy at Havas Worldwide Canada, shares his insight about the challenges brands face and how to survive them.
→ Read it on our blog
In your earbuds: Creative Pep Talk
Feeling as if your creativity is brimming over, but don’t know what to do with it? Let yourself be inspired by Andy J. Miller, an illustrator who has Google and Nickelodeon on his client list. The artist also hosts a series of podcasts designed to motivate and guide creative listeners!
This week’s favourite thing
Art or vandalism? When it comes to graffiti, if there’s one thing we can agree on, it’s that most of it is illegible. Happily, artist Mathieu Tremblin has recently devoted his time to changing that. This once-tagger has been travelling across France, Germany and Holland covering graffiti with white paint and then re-posting more legible versions.
