Friday Fives, Vol. 180
We’re back! Last week we took the whole agency upstate for a team-building, s’more-roasting offsite, but this week we’re checking out a baseball team’s new aesthetic, investigating the funding phenomenon known as a “business shower,” and putting our creativity to the test.
Your Right Brain Needs a Workout
If you take pride in being the ~creative~ one in the friend group, here’s your chance to prove yourself. The Divergent Association Task (DAT) released a test that will rate your creative skills from 1–100, based on your chosen 10 words that are as different from each other as possible. The less originality, the lower your score. Don’t worry though, if you’re disappointed in your results, author and Harvard psychology professor Ellen Langer wants you to know that creativity is something everyone is capable of. Just like anything else, creativity takes practice, and the more we embrace uncertainty, the more mindful and imaginative we can become. Here’s a link to the test. Let us know how you do, we’re always in the market for creative folks.
As if we weren’t already making too many impulse purchases on Instagram, Twitter recently unveiled its new Shop Module, another platform on which you can view and shop products when all you were trying to do was catch up on everyone else’s social life. After Fleets’ (Twitter’s Instagram-Story-esque addition) rather brief appearance, we’re excited to see how this new Shop Module will perform, and also very curious about what other surprising new features Twitter might have in store for us.
An Overdue MLB Update in Cleveland
It took years of public pressure, but Cleveland’s baseball team finally unveiled a new name and logo. In 2022, Cleveland’s franchise will be called the Cleveland Guardians. After doing some research on the inspiration and listening to Tom Hanks’ smooth and reassuring voiceover in the reveal video, we like the name. Although, we’re a little bummed they didn’t go with the Spiders as some fans thought they might. The new logo is also a monumental improvement over their old one, and even though we’re based in NY, we might just have to buy a hat. If you need help with a mascot, hit us up.
In case you weren’t aware, in the year 2021, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics has finally begun and it’s definitely taking us back. The Olympics has seen its fair share of amazingly designed logos, but none of them have ever displayed an inconsistent date. Despite being held this year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) chose to retain the original 2020 branding. Some see this as a nagging reminder of our struggles, while others see it as a story of how the world came together in a difficult time. Regardless of where you stand on this spectrum, we’re just glad to see the Olympics back in action.
Start Funding Women’s Start-Ups
Who else shed a tear of joy earlier this year when they saw Whitney Wolfe Herd ring the NASDAQ bell in her Bumble-yellow power suit and baby in-hand? It was a feel-good moment, but Herd is an anomaly: only 2.3% of investment dollars go towards female-founded companies annually, and only 2.4% of VC founding partners are women. We’ve all got a lot of work to do to correct that imbalance but for right now, if a woman you know is starting a company and she’s not quite ready for Wall Street, try throwing her a “business shower” instead. Across the country, entrepreneurs are throwing celebrations for their new business ventures — holding full-on gatherings with games, decorations, catering, and even a gift registry. And if you’re planning on starting a new company any time soon, we expect an invite.
The Working Assembly is an award-winning branding and creative agency.
Established in 2017, we collaborate with emerging and evolving companies for end-to-end brand building, including strategy and visual identity, print and digital design, content, and creative campaigns.
Have a project in mind? Let’s talk.
hello@theworkingassembly.com
The Working Assembly
NYC branding agency exploring the intersection of art, design, technology and culture. Partnering with emerging and evolving brands.
