40,000,000,000,000 DPI

SF Art Book Fair Edition

This week we take a trip to the SF Art Book Fair, a three-and-a-half day book party in a tent—and in the Minnesota St Project. The fair brought out like, hundreds of publishers? Basically it was overwhelming. In this episode we talk SF Art Book Fair, fairs in general, the riso-coil industrial complex, micro-capitalism—and we accost a small number of fair participants with an even smaller microphone in a very busy room. 

Thanks to everyone we talked with at the fair:

Kaming and Shannon from Inventory Press, Mo and James from Fisk, Danielo from Open Projects Press, Josh from Fulcrum Press, Jemimah from Laguna Collective, Kate and Steph tabling for Gender Fail, Hallie from Mouth to Mouth, Mollie from Irrelevant Press, Sahra and Andrew, current students in the CCA MFA Design Program, Lena and Pete from Night Diver, Chris of Unrealized Archive, Alec from Endless Editions, Renee from Blum and Poe, and Luca and Heather from SFABF.

NEW EPISODE ALERT 

This week we take a work vacation at SF Design Week—a five day series of events and gatherings put on by AIGA/SF. We went to a mixed bag of panels, “mixers,” Adobe shit, rooftop captive butterfly zen-office zoos, studio cheese tables, and a confusing party. 

AND

We have our own first merch! We got so excited about Acquaintance Cards (If you don’t know what an acquaintance card IS—check out our last episode) and we decided to make some of our own. Visit our website at designfreaks.cafe to order your own set of 12 limited edition acquaintance cards, and get really into the world of bespoke dating! 

In this week's episode, we jack into the surreal muppet matrix of AI generated image grids—and we take a lo-fi time-trip to the 19th century creation of the world’s first dating app, the acquaintance card. Thanks for listening! 

What's up! This week, we're excited to be joined by our first ever guest designer/host, Helen Shewolfe Tseng! Helen is an artist, designer, and witch. Her art practice centers inquiry, obsession, and non-linear experience, often in conversation with the ancestral, diasporic, ecological, interspecies, speculative, and cosmic. You can find her work at helentseng.com.

We talk with Helen about ancient cursed stones, plagues of spiders, nine tailed fox spirits, youtube brain, cough drops' new look, and the sharing economy to luxury brand pipeline. It's a wild ride! Thanks so much to Helen Tseng for joining us and helping us navigate all this wild energy!

If you haven't already, visit our website at designfreaks.cafe! Ciao!

Welcome to another episode of 40 Trillion DPI! This week, we warm the bench for the social design competition, 36 Days of Type, we dust off our tube tops for the arrival of peak bimbo, we get real at the same time every day for exactly two minutes with the new social app, BReal—and we summon the Sagmeister Tamogotchi from behind a rack of weird infographic Target clothes. 

Thanks for listening!

Help the people of Ukraine! Donate to our friend, Anna Sergeeva—a Ukraine-born artist living in NYC, who is sending $$$ for mutual aid projects organized by people in Ukraine. Anna is great and anything you send her way will go to a good place. 

Find Anna at:

Anything/everything helps!

In other news: Web3 goons are attempting to monetize the very concept of color; Beeple has mounted a physical painted art show for some reason; we talk Ukraine and instant mythologies; and we watch the political poster rise from the design intent graveyard. What a ride! 

As always THANK YOU so much for listening. Go to designfreaks.cafe for more episodes. 

XO, 

Helen + Justin

What does 2022 hold for design? On today's episode, we take a look at trend forecasts from around the internet. Is the 90s revival going strong, or going away? Will the much-hyped Metaverse honestly have any impact on anything? How do designers and so-called amateur content creators affect one another's aesthetics? And, what exactly is "Frasurbane?" Plus! We try and make some predictions of our own.

Visit designfreaks.cafe for more episodes, and/or follow us on Instagram at @40000000000000dpi or Twitter at @40TrillionDPI. 

Thanks for listening!

Hello! This week, we pay tribute to the majesty of nature with Jony Ive, we stare blankly into block.xyz’s liquid chrome abyss, we go through Spotify’s uncanny copy valley, and we track down Microsoft’s insta-fascist AI twitter bot, Tay. It's a such a journey! Thank you for joining us! 

–––

ALSO: The California College of the Arts union is in the midst of a labor dispute with management and potentially may go on strike very soon. If CCA employees do strike, it will be the first time this has happened at a private arts college since 2012. This is a really important action even if you’re not directly involved with this school. 

Learn about what’s going on—there’s a piece over at the Chronicle about it, and follow along at:

–––

Articles we reference or are related to this week's episode: 

TERRA CARTA

Microsoft's TAY AI Bot

SPOTIFY WRAPPED

BLOCK.XYZ

Hello friends! This week, we wander Costco with Chinese influencers flexing their institutional-size muffin hauls; we explore the strange, crumbling metaverse of Neopets; and we gaze deeply into the MLM/DAO, Mirror.xyz. It's a wild ride as usual! Thanks for listening! 

Find us on instagram at:

Or on Twitter

Articles mentioned in this episode:

CHINESE INFLUENCERS

NEOPETS

MIRROR.XYZ