Latest Stories from Charlie
Why we need to stop putting developers under ‘crunch’
Cyberpunk 2077 has been removed from the PlayStation Store for being unstable and buggy. It’s a result of industry pressures and crunch time - do things need to change? CD Projekt Red’s latest title, Cyberpunk 2077, has finally launched for both PC and consoles, after a near eight year wait and four delays. Intended to be a worthy successor to the studio’s last game, The Witcher 3, the sci-fi RPG title...
New app Honk targets Gen Z with real-time texting
Honk is attempting to corner those weary of Facebook’s monopoly on mobile communication, offering real-time texting more akin to Snapchat than Messenger. Ever sent a friend or potential love interest a risky message and regretted it? Perhaps a meme on the group chat that went down like a lead balloon? We’ve all been there. A new mobile app called Honk is hoping to offer Gen Zers a happy medium between...
Mental health metaphors ‘doubled’ in hip-hop over last 20 years
New research shows popular hip-hop and rap songs of this century reference mental health and suicide twice as much as older tracks. It’s the result of a long and steady cultural shift. Anxiety, mental health, and suicide have become more prominent themes in the most popular rap songs of the last two decades, according to a new report from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Researchers analysed...
Pantone announces its official ‘Colour of the Year’
Pantone has selected two colours it predicts will dominate the next year of culture, providing a platform to discuss social change within the arts - though it’s not without criticism. Pantone has just announced its official ‘Colour of the Year’ for 2021, a combination of both ‘Illuminating’ and ‘Ultimate Grey’. The company selects a new colour (or in this case, two colours) every year that it thinks will best influence the...
Exclusive – Explaining the rise of AR with experts Ant and Alex
Augmented reality filters and interactive games have exploded in popularity this year, especially with Gen Zers. We sat down to discuss all things AR with two industry leaders, Ant Hagan and Alex Semenzato. If you’ve ever sent a friend a selfie with a face filter, or made a TikTok using special effects, then you’ll be familiar with augmented reality. Augmented reality (AR) can be anything that uses virtual assets or...
Samsung UK launches new Gen Z competition ‘Solve for Tomorrow’
Samsung Electronics has launched a new competition that gives Gen Zers the opportunity to pitch their own tech ideas to a panel of experts, with a £10,000 cash prize up for grabs. If you’re a budding inventor or tech enthusiast living in the UK, you might want to jump onto Samsung UK’s newly announced initiative, ‘Solve for Tomorrow’. Comprised of three rounds, this nationwide competition encourages 16-25 year olds from...
Spotify reportedly paying less than £200 annually to most musicians
A new survey has found that Spotify gives eighty percent of all musicians less than £200 a year, as artists call for fairer financial pay-outs. The popular streaming service Spotify is facing renewed scrutiny for not paying artists enough in royalties. Despite being the world’s biggest music platform that has earned record labels over £3.3 billion in revenue so far this year and boasts over 144 million paying subscribers, the actual...
How graphic design trends are changing for 2021
Experts have predicted how graphic design trends will change next year and there are some interesting surprises. Prepare for a lot more psychedelic abstraction. It’s never been a better or more important time to be a graphic designer. Our constant engagement with social media and digital content means things are always changing, and effective visual design can help spread significant awareness of brands, personal projects, and even activist movements like Black...
Exclusive – Chatting to Prospect 100 design winner Ryan Roddy
22 year old designer and Prospect 100 winner Ryan Roddy talks to us about his corkscrew sneaker, future career plans, and offers up tips for other Gen Z creatives. It’s been an exciting few weeks for Ryan Roddy, the brains behind Prospect 100’s winning entry for its latest sneaker design competition. For those unaware, Prospect 100 offers under 25s opportunities to show off their work and potentially bag career-boosting internships...
Exclusive – Meeting the creators of new Gen Z art magazine Gatekeeper
Gatekeeper is giving new and aspiring young artists resources and insights into the world of art, helping them to understand the ins and outs of an over-commercialised industry. The art market is huge, estimated to be valued at over $64.1 billion USD. That’s a crazy high number, one that’s been generated via politics, hierarchy, and elitism. That’s before you even consider that the industry remains largely unregulated, meaning the...
