ALL ABOARD THE BRAIN TRAIN
Welcome to the Clubhouse February service.
This month, we’re terminating platforms, departing from mind traps, and taking new creative routes with some pop art nuns. We’ve got high speed rail travel and some lines that we’re only too happy to stand behind.
If you see something that doesn’t look right, keep it to yourself.
Choo Choo!
WHY AMAZON IS FULL OF JUNK NOW
TikTok is, too
Search for any product on Amazon now, and you’ll find pages of targeted ads for shonky looking products with clearly made-up names. It feels like it's getting worse deliberately.
And it’s not just Amazon: Facebook, Instagram and TikTok all seem determined to show us stuff we didn’t sign up for, from people we’ve never heard of. Is this how platforms die?
HOW COFFEE BUILT THE WORLD
A brief history of everyone's favourite drug
Michael Pollan has been writing about how pretty much everyone in the modern world is addicted to caffeine. What are the effects of whole societies depending on a psychoactive drug in order to function? Probably fine, right? Probably fine.
21 COMMON MIND TRAPS
If your brain is the moth, these are the lampshades
Hey, it's not just coffee that's changing the way we think. Even when left to their own devices, our brains are shaped and shaded by all kinds of fallacies, biases and mysterious idiosyncrasies.
This animation takes 21 of the most common mind traps from Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow to show you why humans make many of the bad decisions we do. (It's actually a lot of fun.)
LEARNING BY HEART
Set your creativity free
Corita Kent was a pop artist and nun in 1960s California, who taught art and creativity at an LA school. Her book Learning By Heart offers all kinds of ways to think more creatively – the big ideas have been outlined in this lovely video series.
See also: finding creativity in the ordinary with Bill Keaggy
AND FINALLY, FROM THE WRITING CLUB DESKS...
EUROSTAR IS GOING PLACES
Behind the rebrand
It's a big year for Eurostar. As well as a massive expansion of their network and a new merger with Thalys, they've just launched a very fresh rebrand.
We got on board to help create a new tone of voice to go with it.
LIGHT WORK
We lent Bolter Design a hand on Tala
Bolter Design got in touch last year for some headline writing help, as part of their beautiful rebrand of the luxury light maker Tala.
The final results are looking luminous - and have just won a silver at the World Brand Design Society Awards.
