TWID - Jony Ive is planning a murder (WK39)

Zuck is terraforming the metaverse, Sir Jony Ive is planning a murder, Karri Saarinen talks about craftsmanship, Coca-Cola ditches their dated logo, Framer secures the bag, & Arc - but for Windows 95

Sep 29, 2023

Happy Friday!

Welcome to the 11th issue of TWID - the only design newsletter on the internet (poorly) written by me.

Kind of a peaceful week in these here parts, but definitely not boring.

Thanks for being here, let’s get into the sauce 🥫

WK39

Zuck is terraforming the metaverse

What a week it has been for everyone’s favorite humanoid and personal-data salesman.

On Wednesday, Zuck & Co. announced their new smart glasses that can take calls, play music and livestream from your face.

The twist is that they’re not incredibly ugly and only cost $300.. or do they? I mean, Meta already knows me better than I know myself, so what’s a few more data points?

In all seriousness, I think this is pretty exciting for the future of consumer tech. Affordable smart glasses that look like they were designed as a fashion accessory & not a super niche nerd-device are kinda promising.

Then, yesterday - Zuck went back on the Lex Fridman podcast, except this time it took place in the metaverse – which seems to have gotten exponentially more uncanny valley since we last saw it.

@OpenAI & Jony Ive are planning a murder

This week, news of Sam Altman tapping Jony Ive for a hardware AI project broke the internet (or at the very least it crushed the hopes & dreams of Humane’s Imran Chaudhri - more on that in a sec)

Since leaving Apple, Sir Jony Ive has been working on some high profile projects via his new venture - LoveFrom. And now, the studio is supposedly in talks of building the “iPhone of AI” with Open Ai.

Time will tell whether or not they’ll be able to pull it off … but after seeing the incredibly overhyped teaser of @Humane’s AI Pin back in April, my money is on Ive to completely massacre the Boy Scout badge.

I am wondering, though, how is @darius going to be involved in all of this?

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@karrisaarinen discuses craftsmanship

In a 500 word mini essay, Karri shared some inspiring thoughts on building a company where “quality” is a core value.

This is by far my favourite tweet of the week, and I strongly recommend that you read the whole thing.

@CocaCola’s inspiring rebrand

In a world where iconic brands are afraid to challenge the status quo, Coca-Cola leads the pack by ditching their dated identity for a much more refined Sans Serif word mark.

Just take a look at this complete branding masterclass from @ezyjules and co.

I am simply too stunned to speak & can’t really add anything of value here – the new logo speaks (no, screams) volumes for itself.

Excellent questions Grey, I hope this gives you the answers you seek.

Seriously, though – brands have gotta stop doing this shit.

@framer raises $27M

Absolute massive W for Framer for securing the bag this week.

If you follow me on Twitter, you already know about my unhealthy obsession with their product, and this news makes me really excited for the future.

To Koen’s point, it’s been really cool to witness Framer’s historic rebound. To those unaware – they’ve been around since 2016 and have gone through several pivots to get to where they are.

I’m a big fan of their team & vision, and I’m really rooting for them. Huge congrats, and LFG!

Design Dopamine 💊

The hardest part of writing TWID is figuring out what awesome project should go into this section. I can honestly write a whole separate newsletter just full of dope work I see online (maybe I will … let me know if this is something you’d read)

Arc, but for Windows 95

This week, thought, I knew I had to shout out this design exploration from @rishmody. Say what you will about current design trends, but there was a special kind of ✨ magic ✨ in Windows’ old design language.

I love everything about this.

By the way, earlier this week I received a suggestion to highlight some designers building cool stuff in TWID. I think that’s a great idea, and starting next week we’ll dedicate one Design Dopamine section a month to just that!

That’s a wrap for WK39

Thanks for reading, if you enjoyed this issue (or hated it), please let me know in the comments (or tweet at me).

If you have an idea for how I can improve TWID or want to suggest something for next week’s issue, be sure to tag @twidfyi on twitter

Love you all, have a great weekend

- @aleksliving