HELLO!

We’re deeply curious about the way AI is changing media, and so we’ve included a lot of AI links in the Friday newsletter lately. But you know what? I’m a bit sick of all that. So this week, I put a call out to the Storythings team for links that don’t mention or involve AI at all.

Here’s 10 links of 100% human creativity. We love technology at Storythings, but we value human creativity more than anything else. If you’d like us to help you stay human as the winds of AI blow past us, hit the button below.

PSST! Prove you’re a human by reading to the end for a bonus link of one of my favourite creative geniuses.

Hope you like the links, and have a great weekend!

Matt

Wonderful Visual Explanation of Game Graphics (2-min watch)

Why Brands Are Hosting IRL Pizza Parties for Substack Creators (4-min read)

How Substack’s Deceptive Design Fuels Their Growth (8-min slide deck)

Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) (2-min watch)

A Gallery of Beautiful Inspiring Decks (Collection)

Great Interview With Dropout TV’s Vic Michaelis (6-min read)

Inspirational Youtube Videos from 22 Museums (22 Youtube Videos)

The UK Punk Collective That Designed De La Soul’s First Album (10 slide Instagram post)

Attention Matters: How To Scale Your Prototypes (6-min read)

PUFFIN WEBCAMS! REPEAT: PUFFIN WEBCAMS! (live cams)

Don’t become a B2B zombie. STAY HUMAN.

Storythings is the content marketing agency that helps you STAY HUMAN in a sea of marketing slop. If you think you’re at risk of becoming a B2B zombie, we’ve got the antidote. Click the button below for your free guide.

Wonderful Visual Explanation of Game Graphics (2-min watch)
Darren from the Storythings team sent me this - a wonderful explainer of how to create 3D effects in a game using lo-fi 2D game graphics. Humans are great.

Why Brands Are Hosting IRL Pizza Parties for Substack Creators (4-min read)
I loved this article about how shoe store Rothy’s is hosting pizza parties for a couple of hundred followers from leading Substack authors. We’ve been talking about building community a lot at Storythings recently, and if there’s one thing that helps community building, it’s pizza.

How Substack’s Deceptive Design Fuels Their Growth (8-min slide deck)
We moved all the Storythings newsletters from Substack to Beehiiv last year, because it felt like Substack were focusing on building their platform more than your audience. This great breakdown from (Brighton based!) UX genius Peter Ramsey explains how their onboarding process is designed to at best confuse, if not deceive, Substack users into subscribing to loads of newsletters at once.

Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) (2-min watch)
Sly Stone passed this week, at the incredible age of 82, considering the life he lived. If you haven’t watched Questlove’s brilliant documentary about him, it’s available on Disney+/Hulu. If you’re not familiar with the story of Sly & The Family Stone, and how they revolutionised music in the late 60s, this is a great watch. For me, Sly’s influence is up there with Elvis and the Beatles.

A Gallery of Beautiful Inspiring Decks (Collection)
We love these kind of resources at Storythings - human curated collections of creative inspiration. In this case, it’s beautiful decks to help you the next time you’re working on a pitch or a talk. Bookmark this now!

Great Interview With Dropout TV’s Vic Michaelis (6-min read)
My family loves Dropout TV (if you’re a fan of Taskmaster, you’ll love Gamechanger!) so I had to share this interview from Kate Lindsay’s Embedded newsletter with Vic Michaelis, one of the stars of their many great shows.

Inspirational Youtube Videos from 22 Museums (22 Youtube Videos)
Another great curated resource, this time from our friends at One Further, who specialise in helping museums and arts orgs with their digital strategies. They’re doing some background research on arts YouTube formats at the moment, so put together this google doc with 22 of their favourites.

The UK Punk Collective That Designed De La Soul’s First Album (10 slide Instagram post)
I had no idea that the beautiful cover of De La Soul’s 3ft High & Rising was designed by The Grey Organisation, a UK punk collective who had to leave London after splattering Mayfair galleries with paint. These slides show the very human techniques they used to create it - acetate sheets and Posca pens!

Attention Matters: How To Scale Your Prototypes (6-min read)
In this week’s Attention Matters, I wrote about how to scale your prototype, and why most issues with scaling are about one thing. We’re really a bit scared of our audiences. Although not me - I think you’re all marvellous.

PUFFIN WEBCAMS! REPEAT: PUFFIN WEBCAMS! (live cams)
The National Trust is streaming video from their Puffin colonies on Farne Islands, off the Northumberland coast. Why are you still reading this description? Click the link already!

If you made it this far, you’ve made it to the end of the week AND the end of this newsletter! So here’s an extra Sly Stone treat from the rabbit hole I’ve been down this week - a live performance of their epic song STAND!  

Have a lovely weekend, and STAY HUMAN!

Matt, Anjali, Hugh and the rest of Team Storythings