The Dice — 008

I was going to save a link for those people who read everything to the very end but given the week we've all just been through, I think we could all use a laugh. After everything that's been thrown at us, what could possibly be worse?

This week's issue of The Dice is brought to you by the new Airbag pint glass. Keep your beverages smart and tasty while impressing your friends with this one-of-a-kind branded drink receptacle. Cheers!

History repeats itself and fashion trends always make a comeback so let's go into the future prepared with Pop That Collar The Official Preppy Handbook. The fact that I’m sharing this highly likely means that the early 80s revival has already come and gone, but this satire remains timeless. Reminds me of Spy magazine.

Adding to the increase of Enshittification comes the The Canva-ification of everything. Described by Joan Westenberg as “the dulling of creativity into a uniform “Canva aesthetic.” We’ve been here before with Dribbblefication, but this is on a completely different scale when you consider that the service has 175 million users per month. “The result is a visual sameness wherever Canva designs show up, as if the world has been blanketed by an army of aspiring graphic designers who all graduated from the same school.” And an awful design school at that.

Speaking of lame. After reading through this interview with Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, I get this feeling she has little interest in growing the design profession.

Alright, enough of that. Come with me as we go back to a time when Photoshop was sold as an $800 product and the web was a real, blank canvas. Resize your browser (← this wide → ) and relive the mid-to-late 90s glory that was Entropy8 by Auriea Harvey. 

And when you’re through check out Matt Owen’s Volumeone archive, but start at the top! The only way to experience Volumeone is from the beginning with the first issues found at the bottom of the archive.

For those feeling inspired to create without the use of AI or templates or offshore labor, I give you mmm.page an app that lets you create web pages unlike anything you’ve tried before. Can you imagine what the web would have been like if we had this in the 90s? 

And if that’s not crazy enough, try the Electric Zine Maker. Make it fun and make it funky.

Not feeling inspired and perhaps need motivation? Yeah, me too. I’ve got us covered with Midlife Creativity, a powerful short film for everyone, but especially those with a good chunk of their life in the rearview mirror.

Designers and developers and people who make things for the web, check out Matthias Ott’s presentation Web Design Engineering With the New CSS. I don’t write code much anymore but I still found Matthias’ talk super interesting and definitely worth the time. Reminds me of the types of talks Eric Meyer used to give at An Event Apart.

Also, Matthias is a big supporter of the Indie Web and publishes a newsletter called Own Your Web. Highly recommended!

This week go talk to a neighbor or two. If anything just ask them how they're doing.

Published in Tacoma, Washington listening to Come Back to Life by The Zolas