Cherry 

Best of the past week

Hi ,June is Pride month and it culminates with the Pride Parade. Here in Chicago, I live right next to Boystown, the LGBTQ rainbow flags are all around, and the parade is a couple of blocks away. I'm going to finish this newsletter and go check it out. Otherwise I'm still very much enjoying summer in Chicago and things are progressing, I'm nicely settling. I'm finally getting back on track with my podcast too, which is great. I published an episode and recorded a new one. I'm getting ready to publish every other week.This week I also read about this other though arguably quite different symbolically rainbow related craze: unicorns. Worth checking out, some thoughts about why unicorns are all the rage these days and the kind of limited run products some quick-witted brands have managed to sell out.The Unicorn Craze, Explained.

 Sprinkles What's the GIF? 

The symbols and meaning of the Pride rainbow flag colors.

Whipped Cream

As mentioned last week, the Cannes advertising festival was on, as a counterpoint I really enjoyed this delightfully strange and satirical take on traditional house mom style advertising. Even though I haven't actually visited yet, it also kind of confirms some of my preconceived judgements about Phoenix (sorry if you're from around there - one of these days I'll visit and perhaps correct my preconceived notions).Mom Commercial (Low Sugar!)

Caramel Fudge

What's sticky in the communications industry?

Wall Street's sculpture Fearless Girl won a nearly historical amount of awards at the Cannes Advertising festival. In case you missed it, it's worth revisiting the polemic around the sculpture when it was dropped in front of the Charging Bull on Wall Street.Fearless Girl's Dominating Run at CannesSeriously, the guys has a point (as in, the artist and creator of Charging Bull who wasn't too happy about Fearless Girl)Why people are so upset about Fearless Girl (The Atlantic).

Chocolate

What's going on in gaming?

John Wick, the game designer and creator of the 7th Sea gaming universe just launched a Kickstarter campaign for a strategy board game in the swashbuckling world of 7th Sea. I'm still hesitating whether I want to put money against it though I'm of course tempted just because I love the universe and John's games in general.It look like some kind of evolved Risk with a little more in terms of strategy and negotiation, a little less random dice chance (one of the reasons I generally lose at Risk, damn dice).The War of the Cross on KickstarterI'm also finally getting back on track with my podcast!! I've published a new episode, a fun conversation I had with Randy O'Connor, an independent game designer, and we recorded at the Cards Against Humanity studio in Chicago.

Scoundrels, Pirates and Game Design with Randy O'Connor

Vanilla

What else is interesting this week?

Let's finish off with these pretty pictures over at Messy Nessy Chic's website, "location scouting" for Wes Anderson - the film director who made The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Royal Tenenbaums, Darjeeling Limited, and more.Location Scouting for Wes AndersonThat's about it for this week folks, enjoy the rest of your weekend! Cheers,Willem