Welcome To Friday Fives, Vol. 266
This week we’re fangirling over new fonts, stepping out in a new shirt, shaking hands with our Bitmoji, and having a creamy conversation about Kraft Mayo. Speaking of mayo, we’re getting excited about our 3-day company offsite in Woodstock, NY, but don’t be jealous — Harvard Business Review told us to! We’ll be back with more Friday Fives in August.
Microsoft has said goodbye to Calibri and hello to Aptos, its new default sans-serif font inspired by mid-century Swiss typography. Although Calibri has been the default Office font since the release of Office 2007, Aptos has actually been years in the making and will start rolling out for Microsoft users this month. Although it might take some adjusting to, we’ll always root for the underdog.
If you are one of the many people who want to wear an “I ❤ NY” shirt but also think they are terribly corny, you might be happy to hear there is a much funnier, much New York-ier version hitting the streets. It’s a t-shirt labeled with “Daddy’s little meatball” on it now being sold in most gift shops in Little Italy. It’s the perfect way to capture the zeitgeist that is New York Italians if you ask us, and we can’t wait to wear it.
The Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) strike is a litmus test for the future of creativity and AI. Writers want stable compensation for their writing, especially their work on streaming content. It seems like the obvious choice is to pay them, but Silicon Valley begs to differ. Tech is luring studio executives with the promise of generative script-writing AI that can replace human brains with tireless word bots that never complain about “needing food for their families.” Not to be dramatic, but this is a battle for the soul of human creativity. Come to think of it, that’s not a bad script idea right there…
Snapchat just announced that after four previous versions of beloved Bitmojis, they are finally becoming three-dimensional. After conducting usage research, Snap discovered 85% of Gen Z have their own Bitmoji, and 250 million people use them every day. So as visual expression becomes more prevalent to their user base, why not give the people what they want? Mini versions of themselves.
The Metaverse Is No Longer Dairy-Free
If you were on the hunt for a good deal this week, you might have meandered to Amazon’s Prime Day. The UX design resembles that of extremely chaotic old-timey supermarket advertising spreads with photography and red discount tags, but a UX designer thinks there might actually be some method to the madness. By creating a whole spread of deals-at-a-glance, you feel the joy of stumbling onto a great find. It’s like a digital treasure hunt, just more painstaking and not for kids.
