I hope all the UK folks had a good bank holiday weekend, and if it was anything like mine you’re now on day 1 of your break from alcohol and junk food 🤢.
There’s been a real noticeable uplift in content recently, which can only mean good things and makes putting together this newsletter much easier. It’s been interesting to watch the trends throughout lockdown and the tail end of it, and certainly underlines the persistence and adaptability of you content folks out there.
Let’s get into the good stuff.
I’m in the process of sorting out some sponsorship opportunities for the newsletter! If you’d like to get in front of nearly 900 highly engaged and intelligent content bods, drop me an email: markprtr@gmail.com 💌
Must-see Content 👀
Noma Bar – Be a Hero, Be Boring Posters 🦸
These posters by Noma Bar in partnership with Mucinex are incredible. He’s also done an equally amazing series of ‘Wear a Mask’ posters in a similar style.
Guess the Celebrity From Their Home Office 👨💼
A bit of a different take on the usual content and similar to ‘spot the’ and other brainteaser type pieces. This time you have to guess the celebrity from their home office, with some being much more obvious than others.
Size Comparison Infographic 🐧
I absolutely love it when I’m scrolling through the top of Reddit and stumble across an infographic. They remind me of much simpler times, where you could build 500 linking root domains with 30mins of research and a bit of design wizardry. In my opinion, this piece is laughably bad but I find it amusing that it clearly resonated with Reddit for some reason.
Service Station Psychedelia 🤯
This fun piece re-imagines the branding of well-known service station through 60s inspired posters. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall in the boardroom when someone uttered the words ‘service station psychedelia’ during an ideation session.
Discovered via Joel Stein 🕵️
World Heritage in Danger 🏰
At the time of writing, there are 53 world heritage properties that have been deemed as in danger by UNESCO. This piece visually reconstructs 6 of the most notable examples (click through to see the awesome gifs), and not only are the designs really well done, I love that it has the credibility of architects behind it.
Excel Art by Tatsuo Horiuchi 📈
I’m not sure how this 80-year-old legend escaped me for so long, and for those of you who also haven’t heard of Tatsuo Horiuchi, he creates incredible artwork using nothing but Excel. His site design could do with some work, but bear with it and scroll down to see examples of his work.
Discovered via Aaron James 🕵️
Which Video Game Communities Are The Most Toxic? 🤬
This is a great idea that analyses different gaming subreddits to work out which one is the most toxic. It’s a good example of leveraging freely available info from Reddit and putting a news worthy spin on it.
Discovered via Patrick Langridge🕵️
What Do COVID-19 Dreams Look Like? 💤
Have you been having wild dreams during covid? If so, apparently you’re not alone. The Sleep Judge surveyed 1,000 Americans about their dreams during lockdown, and attempted to visualise them with this trippy posters.
Discovered via Joel Stein 🕵️
More Great Content…
- How Candidate Diversity Impacts Color Diversity 📣
- Colour Palettes of the World’s Most Popular TV Shows 📺 Discovered via Casey Paul 🕵️
- Bigfoot Sightings Across the United States 🦶
PR Stunts
The below campaigns may not have been intentional PR stunts, however they did attract substantial attention from the media.
Add a Goat to Your Next Video Call 🐐
What an incredible idea. Cronkshaw Fold Farm have released a service where you can book a goat to make a live appearance during one of your video calls, for just a fiver. The four-legged legends are clever enough to use most video calling platforms and could probably contribute more to a meeting than some of your colleagues. If anyone gives this ago, please let me know.
Discovered via Joel Stein 🕵️
The Sound of Colleagues 🗣️
Do you miss the sound of someone quietly sobbing over their most recent failed campaign, or eavesdropping on a cringe inducing phonecall between a PR and a journalist? The Sound of Colleagues unfortunately doesn’t have those options, but if you want to listen to the ambience of a tame working environment, fire it up in the background.
Discovered via Abi Bennetts 🕵️
Must-read Articles ☕
Below are some articles that are absolutely worthy of a read during your coffee break:
- Continue, Pivot, or Put it Down 🧁 by Amber Thomas
- How to Come up With the Perfect Content Idea 🤯 by Amanda Milligan
- To Make The News, Read The News: Why Content Marketers Should Keep Up With The Daily News Flow 📰 by Amy Walton
- REVEALED: New Study Shows Your Idea Has Probably Been Done Before ⚠️ by Damian Summers
- 10 Lessons Learned After Running an Agency for 10 Years 🔟 by Danny Ashton
- Creative Diversification — More Hooks and Less Risk for Link Building 🔗 by George Driscoll
Must-follow Marketer 👑
Alright, bit of a cop out, but the above articles section is full of absolute corkers this month and I wanted to draw more attention to it. I guarantee you’ll gain some great insights from each one of them, and when you’ve finished, follow the author on Twitter if you haven’t already.
To Conclude
That rounds off the latest issue of Content, Curated. We’re teetering on the edge of 900 subscribers which is pretty incredible, so if you could share the love that would be greatly appreciated!
If you’re not yet subscribed, feel free to do so in order to be notified of future issues, and follow me on Twitter.
Cheers,
Mark.