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When “Behind”—the first single from this EP—algorithm-ed its way into my YouTube feed back in January, it was love at first listen. The song’s indie, punk, grungy, shoegaze-adjacent brew and jaw-dropping vocals sent me scrambling to listen to anything else I could find from this band. And what do you know: Kills Birds has put out two whole albums, 2019’s Kills Birds and 2021’s Married. But “Behind” doesn’t sound much like any of that, save frontwoman Nina Ljeti’s distinctive vocal style. Crave sounds more tightly wound, heavier, and substantially darker than those past albums. A four-year gap between recordings can do that. The sound could also be at least partially attributed to Crave’s producer, Aron Kobayashi Ritch, who you would surely recognize as the bass player and producer for Momma, who have also cultivated a distinctive 90s rock sound.

DEKA is a research and development company that has been working with FedEx to create Roxo, an autonomous delivery robot. Build atop DEKA’s iBot wheelchair base, Roxo will be able to easily navigate urban terrain like sidewalks, curbs, and even stairs. Roxo has a 6-inch touchscreen for use by both employees who will prepare Roxo to make a delivery and ordinary folks who will be receiving deliveries. Users will either type a PIN code or scan a QR code to securely open Roxo’s doors. DEKA’s strength lies in its talented hardware development teams, so in order to produce a user-friendly proof of concept touchscreen application for FedEx to use in its initial delivery tests, they reached out to my employer. Over the course of 3 months, I worked with DEKA’s Roxo team to produce an optimal user experience for both user types. This project was really fun and presented challenges that I hadn’t come across before. For example, Roxo will be used in a variety of lighting environments, from dim, indoor fluorescent lights to full-on sunshine, necessitating some branching of the FedEx design system to increase the size and contrast of text and buttons.

It's always nice to see a fansite still up an running, and this is a great one for a great band.

I have to admit, I snickered most of the way through this article as it described AI getting put in its place by a seasoned designer, only to slowly realize the argument that Dan was going to make at the end. I still struggle with the environmental and ethical aspects of AI, but these tools are going to continue gaining adoption. Decisions will have to be made.

“Since late 2021, I’ve done daily drawings in my iPhone’s Notes app, sharing them to social media under the hashtag #notesArt.” Woah.

I really like this package design for Spiritbox’s Tsunami Sea CD. The outer package is a sleeve holding the booklet and CD, but the CD also has a sleeve. It all looks like a miniature vinyl album. Very cool. Haven’t seen this before.

Greg Storey: “If Google’s AI can’t even fact-check the popularity of a cheese, how the hell is it supposed to take over someone’s job? What is the value of having an assistant that does an amazing job 60% of the time—every time? And how is it going to do good work if it can’t find the data because it’s still on spreadsheets on a laptop somewhere?”