An explanation…
Every Friday, we create a visual response to the week’s news or trends. The only rule is that it can’t take more than an hour, including research.
It forces us to make quick creative decisions and to focus on clear ideas that don’t require much time or budget to execute.
Here are our previous efforts:
May 2017
NHS suffers cyberattack, locking staff out of their computers and asking users to pay £230 to be able to access their PCs
April 2017
Labour propose four more bank holidays as part of their election manifesto.
March 2017
The UK formally gives notice to leave the EU, unravelling 44 years of membership.
February 2017
Record-breaking Instagram likes (9.2m+) of Beyonce’s pregnancy picture
January 2017
Hull becomes UK City of Culture 2017 (with apologies to Spencer Tunick)
A lack of stars as musicians turn down performing at Trump’s inauguration next week.
London breaches official air pollution limit for 2017 in just five days.
December 2016
2016, the year of mother’s ruin
November 2016
Stop the world, we want to get off
Leonard Cohen dies the same week Donald Trump is elected president of the United States.
Enjoy the fireworks.
October 2016
Post-Brexit, everything in Britain becomes a luxury good – as Apple, Unilever and Nestlé all announce price rises.
The third runway at Heathrow gets government approval, not helping London’s air quality.
We hit the ‘equilux’ on Sunday – when day and night are exactly the same length.
September 2016
End of summer in the UK as temperatures plummet on Friday.
Will Brexit change Britain’s role in the world? The official group photo from this week’s G20 summit in China offers some clues…
August 2016
A new sport was introduced at this year’s Olympic Games…
July 2016
This was the month in which the IOC stopped short of banning the whole Russian team from the upcoming Rio Olympics, but did ban all but one of the track and field athletes. Cue the Russian doll metaphor…
July 29th was both International Tiger Day and National Lipstick Day, so we combined the two.
On the same theme, July 12th was Cow Appreciation Day, in case you missed it.
June 2016
Iceland had an incredible run in Euro 2016. Almost 10% of the entire population went to France to cheer them on.
An odd one: The Mongolian Post adopts ‘what3words’ as national addressing system. It turns geographic coordinates into memorable 3 word addresses and vice-versa. You can even apply it to London. More explanation here.
Euro 2016 kicks off on 10 June between the cockerels (France) and the vampire bats (Romania).
On June 3rd, Japanese 6-year-old boy Yamato Tanooka was found alive and well after going missing for 6 days in the forest. 🙂
May 2016
A row quite rightly kicked off this month after a PwC receptionist was sent home for not wearing high heels.
Always practise safe text: the German traffic light for smartphone zombies, aka ‘smombies’.
Richard III is reburied in Leicester after 530 years, and on May 2nd Leicester win the Premier League. Coincidence?
April 2016
On 22 April, the Paris climate deal was finally signed by more than 170 governments. But are we too late already?
The creative genius Prince dies on April 21st.
More sad news: Zaha Hadid dies on March 31st.
A new report this month suggests we’re getting 6.8 hours sleep a night on average, compared with the 7.7 hours we need.
March 2016
On 8th March, Maria Sharapova falls foul of the regulations in tennis. The rules on banned substances changed on Jan 1st this year.
A take on International Women’s Day.
JJ Abrams has suggested Luke Skywalker’s sexuality is ‘open to interpretation’ and could be gay in the latest rumours about Star Wars Episode VIII.
‘Peak Stuff’ – average overall materials used per person has dropped from 15 tonnes in 2001 to 10 tonnes in 2013 (all those CD cases and paperbacks).
February 2016
Various UK public infrastructure costs (also the week the Flying Scotsman went back into service, and Crossrail was named the Elizabeth Line).
The latest Instagram-ready snack fad, New York’s ‘rainbow bagel’, lands in London.
Gianni Infantino elected Fifa president, after a seemingly endless wait.
The big news: Tesco bows to demand and will soon only sell straight croissants, deeming the curved ones too old fashioned.
Single life in 3 words – trending on Twitter on Feb 16th.
An attempt to graphically explain the mind-bending numbers involved in the discovery of gravitational waves, a major breakthrough in physics, which happened on Feb 11th.
Happy Chinese New Year 2016 – the Year of the Monkey!