Anyone for chess? ➜

Take one of the world's oldest and most revered board games and re-imagine it as a digital cityscape and a battle of one-upmanship between two kings played out by their counterparts in the streets below. That's the new 2021 ad spot for Playstation, taking you on an exhilarating ride through the eyes of a pawn navigating the city on route to take the throne. Checkmate.
 

Prediciting your creative streak ➜

Can you use artificial intelligence to predict when you are likely to hit your creative 'hot streak'? Research undertaken at Northwestern University by Professor Wang would indicate there's something in it. By looking at metrics of success of nearly 30,000 artists, directors and scientists alongside the diversity of work during their career, AI was trained to spot the diversity before and after periods of high creativity compared to random points in their career. The results, although not definitive, did indicate what tends to come before you might have your creative flush and the behaviours and approaches that might lead to it.
 

Character spaces ➜

We're loving this work from London based studio Anagram for workspace cluster Hoxton Campus. Characterful (literally), playful (thankfully) and simple (deceptively), where the physical office spaces come to life. A great way to draw folk back to their desks after 18 months of working at the kitchen table in their joggers.
 

It's OK to ask ➜

This new Google ad voiced by footballing activist Marcus Rashford aims to cut through divisiveness by encouraging people to simply ask. Ask questions of others about things you might not understand, be they cultural or emotional. As the ad so simply puts; "It's not our questions that define us, it's what we do with the answers". Powerful stuff.