From the Curator 😎💻
Yo, What's up! Joseph here
If this week’s newsletter looks a little different it’s because we’ve just leveled up!! With the help of each one of you subscribers, I’ve been able to keep writing and posting enough content to level up the look on this platform and keep things interesting! Yay! Now enough excitement, these two posts cover topics that have been on my mind lately so it was fun to research and bring to your attention.
If you enjoyed this issue of Life of a Designer, consider buying me a coffee to show your support!👇
From the Socials 📲
Burger King just released their new branding package and WOW.
For once, a fast-food chain is looking pretty sweet! Something I’ve been thinking about recently is the architecture behind these fast food buildings. Yes, they are meant to be easily built. Yes, there are brand standards, & yes, they all look horrible! Except surprisingly this one.. 🤔 What if it looked like this though? Is it possible for fast food restaurants to be designed architecturally but in a cost efficient way? Imagine how different our neighborhoods would look to have “nice” buildings at every corner. Pretty cool, pretty weird, but at least they would be pretty 😅 What I’ve been thinking about that I failed to mention in the first sentence was creating a series on YouTube where we re-design really bad fast-food restaurants and make them look a little more architectural! Any interest in that?
Now, this specific render is part of Burger King’s initiative to better serve customers in a COVID-19 world. My friend Sean Joyner wrote an article covering this topic on Archinect and you can read it here.
Article of the Week 📚
Liam Young's Planet City could tackle climate change by housing 10 billion people in a single metropolis
Liam Young is making waves in the design world once again! Young somehow has managed to be featured what seems like every month in some design publication. Most recently he was bashing the god, Bjarke Ingles, and the Master Planet Project by saying
"Such proposals are a continuation of the colonialist project that has already masterplanned the planet in its own image. Plans of this scale have historically perpetuated forms of exclusion and reinforced existing systems of power.
Most of these projects rarely engage with these root causes of climate change and in fact enable them.
So what does Young do? He proposed his vision for the future and it’s pretty badass. Young consolidates the 10 billion people living on earth and creates a super city that could be built on 0.02 percent of the planetary surface, taking up an area roughly the size of an average US state. Thus returning stolen land, rewilding, and returning back to nature.
Watch the movie and let me know what you think. I’m a HUGE Liam Young fan and wish to someday be able to create visions for the future. 🔮
Product of the Week 👀
What’s going on everyone! Now just imagine, you’re up there presenting your project in studio (virtually) and it’s a super Tadao Ando inspired project. What shirt do you wear? Look no further, I’ve got you covered!
This concrete Button Up was designed and made by Reddit user BodegaCat77. When I asked their story, BodegaCat77 went on to say
I graduated in architecture and still work in the field but during the pandemic I lost my job for a while so I started this with some cash I had saved up as a creative outlet. Never thought I’d have the opportunity / as much free time as I did.
I think one too many of us experienced the downturn of the pandemic but this archi-preneur found a way to keep creating and turn a side project into a side hustle.
If you’re interested in buying one of these shirts you can get it for 30% off right now with discount code POLYLINE (I don’t make a commission).
That's all for this week, follow me on Twitter & Instagram 📲
I'll be back next week, same time, same place! 💪🏽