Here we go… Looking back at almost a month of ‘isolation’ where the world around us changed dramatically, and also didn’t. In strange times like these it feels good to share more. Not to add more distraction or noise, but to show there’re good and beautiful things happening too. And as it is again 7 months since last mail I thought to try out a different format. Called ‘Another Recap’ to force myself into sending these things more often. And in case it isn’t enough for you, you can also subscribe to my Are.na Another Recap channel to see what’s coming in live, and read this newsletter as a kind of a digital digest to that. Enjoy.

At …,staat we launched a fun side-project call Got Your Back to bring expressions of optimism and design to video conference calls (because we all find ourselves in so many these days…)

This curated selection of virtual backdrops by internationally known designers, illustrators, animators, photographers, filmmakers and creatives are free to use in today’s video call apps like Zoom.

Many great artists & friends already shared theirs, including Lennard Kok, Panos Tsagaris, Romain Lenancker, Gilleam Trapenberg, Thomas Brown, my brother Iwan, and many more (with many more lining up as we speak)

All artworks are available for download at gotyourback.space, where visitors have the option to contribute to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.

For my friends at The Village my other side project Office of Information made a special ‘The Village Caffeine Anti Virus’ shirt to flatten the curve of pain for small businesses like theirs. Support them and buy a shirt and freshly roasted coffee beans from their online shop now!

What I started as a project of personal exploration, feels now as something we all need to go into: Solo running and cycling. District Vision launched their second Mindful Athlete Course to help you with this in a more mindful way. ‘This time of social distancing offers a unique opportunity to experience silence and to investigate the inner dimensions of running in solitude… The goal of this course is not to make you run faster or become a better meditator. There is another game to play here and it’s about exploring the nature of the mind in all of its depth and complexity. Let’s bring these new learnings to our physical training and become wiser and more compassionate in the process. During these exceptionally challenging times, our mission is to make mindfulness as accessible as possible to support everyone’s mental wellbeing.’

Also just finished reading ‘Running with the mind of Meditation’ by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche (thanks for sharing Jess) which helped me already a lot while not running a marathon a month these days.

“The body benefits from movement, and the mind benefits from stillness.” So we’ll need both, meditation and running.

And please run & ride alone for as long as needed.

In one of my favourite podcasts, Your Undivided Attention, Tristan Harris shared this story about a comment Steve Jobs made on attention: ‘there’s a story about Steve Jobs when the first podcast app was created. Someone had suggested, “we should make it so you can instantly share podcasts in a feed and everybody else can see the podcast that you’re doing.” But Steve said “No, if it’s that important, someone will make a conscious choice to copy the URL and open up a message and send it to one specific person or two specific people because it’s worth their attention.”

A call for all digital product builders and entrepreneurs these days, please keep this in mind!

Related to the quote above - Last year we met with Tim Hooijmans from De Studio, a Dutch design studio focussing on ‘honest objects with more attention and consideration for the world around us.’ Designing products that have nothing to hide, completely stripped down, relentlessly honest, to the core of what that product should be. In a believe that things can be simple, undecorated, raw and even imperfect they created their first product, the Task Light.

And in that same line of interest. I just started in Kyle Chayka’s new book ‘The Longing for Less’, so can’t say too much about it, but after reading the NYT review I think it’s good to grab a chair in our quarantined houses and go deep down this rabbit hole where The Longing for Less will ‘generates more questions than it answers — which is only appropriate, considering that the “deeper minimalism” Chayka pursues is more about vulnerability than control.’

As shared and quoted before: Sameness Is Killing Us. And it still is, maybe even more in times of crisis like these. I had a lot of conversations over the past months about this theme, and this article seems to catch quite a good part of that. The fact that everything is measurable, everything is trackable, and everything can be boiled down to data, proofing it is good or not. But it turns out, we’re only creating the same dumb shit over and over again if we go down this path. As this designer from the field is saying “An over-reliance on data makes everything boring”. Or even more clear: “Data doesn’t make magic.”

We did a little feature on Ryan Willms latest project Into the Well. ‘A platform for connection and learning to live in harmony’. Also quite essential these days, have a look at it here.

📝 If you want to write more David Perell has some good advice →

🛰️ My good friend Luis made a special Distance Residency with his ‘Almost Perfect’. Check it out here →

🤖 Digital Spring Cleaning is a thing from now on →

🎨 Zach Lieberman and WeTransfer launched an online painting canvas. Happy Easter egg paining there →

🎶 Nicolas Jaar’s latest album Cenizas is on repeat →

💬 Hassan Rahim on his News Reader interview  → “… if I make something that doesn’t look like it came from my heart, then I don’t want to show it.”

🌟 Last one (and maybe the best), shared by my good friend Samuel earlier today, was this Subpixel post on Premonitions: ‘We are all going online in a new way, and we will never entirely leave again.’

So far for now. As said, there’re many more interesting links and stories on the Are.na channel if you’re interested.

Stay Safe & Stay Sane!