Friday Fives, Vol. 183

The Working Assembly
4 min readAug 20, 2021

This week we’re cramming into a branded subway car, pondering the latest Banksy pieces, and signing up to live in a Martian habitat.

Supreme Goes Subterranean

All aboard the hype train. Supreme is collaborating with the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) to wrap a NY subway car in their iconic red box logo. For $2.75 you can ride a Supreme emblazoned L train as the streetwear brand builds buzz for their 2021 fall collection launch. This promotion is a follow-up to the 2017 partnership where people waited in line to buy Supreme branded MetroCards, which are still available on eBay by the way, if you’re looking for the perfect gift for the hypebeast in your life. If only the MTA could also make the trains more reliable, not just Instagrammable.

Banksy by the Sea

The internet’s favorite faceless public defacer is back. Banksy loaded up a camper van with spray paint and a camera crew for an artistic escapade dubbed “The Great British Spraycation.” The mysterious artist blessed a string of British coastal towns with graffiti art and other installations that manage to be visually arresting, politically scathing, and thought provoking all at once. The townspeople, however, were less impressed, offering up some tough reviews like, “It looks a lot better from far away than it does when you get this close.” Rough, but we think Banksy will probably get over it.

Music Meets Motion

UK based creative Rhox_ released the latest installment of Waves, a digital music catalogue marrying visuals and volume into bite-size bits of artistic brilliance. Each piece is inspired by a playlist, album, or song, creating an entire mood using just seconds of music and simple, looping graphics. They’re hypnotic and beautiful, and if you’re not careful, you’ll spend way too much time watching them when you should be writing a weekly newsletter. We’ve already discovered a few songs on there that we’ll be adding to our playlists.

Martian Staycation

If the current state of planet Earth has you saying “I’d love to peace out of here and live somewhere else,” then we’ve got an almost perfect solution for you. NASA is looking for four volunteers to live in a 3-D printed Mars habitat, but on Earth. The year-long stay is a test run for the ultimate plan of settling on Mars, which involves astro-shipping the components of an enormous 3-D printer, assembling the printer on Martian soil, then using local resources to plop out a whole space base for humans to inhabit. The year will be a simulation of what life would actually be like on Mars, eating space-friendly food and providing “biological samples” for testing. Sounds fun, right? Applicants must pass psychological and physical evaluations, be 30–55 years old, and have a masters in a STEM field. Damn this liberal arts degree…

eBay’s Grab Bag

eBay capitalized on the luxury handbag resale market with pop-up handbag machines in LA and NY. People seeking designer wares from brands like Chanel and Prada could try their luck at handbag trivia for a chance to win highly coveted bags. The machines paired with a new film called “A is for Authenticity,” espousing the online marketplace’s commitment to verifying high end resale products. Since we missed this rotation of the machines, we’re off to eBay right now to engage in a scorched earth bidding war over a Louis Vuitton bag. Game on.

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.

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The Working Assembly

NYC branding agency exploring the intersection of art, design, technology and culture. Partnering with emerging and evolving brands.

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The Working Assembly

NYC branding agency exploring the intersection of art, design, technology and culture. Partnering with emerging and evolving brands.