40 Trillion DPI is turning 50! Our fiftieth episode is coming up and we want you to be a part of it. Have a burning question you'd like to ask us? Or, I guess, pose to the larger 40 Trillion DPI community? We're doing an AMA!

Record a question at memo.fm/40trilliondpi (don't forget to say your name) and we'll answer as many as we can in the 50th birthday episode.

Thanks for listening! We love you!

This week, we put on a stretched out vintage lacy thong, an Everlane Oxford shirt, Steve Madden heels, a Gen Z vaguely bug-like nose cuff, and… basketball shorts as we say goodbye to all the clean girls, office sirens, bubble skirts, furry boots, scene queens, and all the other dash cores as we say warmly welcome the Skibidi brain rot of automated AI films about slugs.

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Music in this episode from Human Gazpacho. Theme music by Lobo Loco. Outro by Mello C. All via Free Music Archive.

This week, we're joined by "octopus of knowledge/AI robot", Bryan Lehrer! Bryan guided us on a deep dive into gravestone aesthetics and somehow segued into an existential reckoning of what designers are capable of? It's a wild ride!

This week we navigate a treacherous path down the “ethnic food aisle” of jewel-toned squiggle packaging with the guidance of It’s Nice That’s Roshita Thomas AND we traverse the AI-generated 2024 butthole of Verse.surf and are incepted, smooth and edgeless, into the AI-within-AI generated 90s teen bedroom wormhole of our dreams.

This week, we get Canva-ified with Instagram's new creator tools, we are hot on the case of international rings of AI slop shops, and we spend an afternoon in our plague masks and corsets at the design Ren Faire!

This week—on 40 Trillion DPI America Design Carnage Edition—we get into the brief life of a briefly created logo, we consider word art in official government docs, we learn about online dating streaming services (RIP), and we consider the sartoriality of the postal service uniform!

ALSO: we made a cool new hat! It says “free fonts” on it, embroidered in an authentic hand-drawn free font. It is black. It is a “dad hat.” See the hats for yourself and find the link to buy at designfreaks.cafe or on our instagram.

Music in this episode is by Human Gazpacho, from Free Music Archive.

This week we get lost in the cursed wilderness of legalese trying to update our subscription to Adobe Bear Trap’s AI Swiss typography generator AND we get social at the design gym with the Mondo 2000 cyber phreak fractal polycule.

This week we frolic into the abundant wilderness to write poems with our tattooed hands in monochrome Notion, on our Daylight Computers and we are healed! We sip the viscous black liquid dripping from America’s Mayor, and we are healed! AND we take a five minute pit stop that takes 36 hours in the twisted metal symphony of the Helios House Speedway Express gas station concert hall, and we are healed!

Hi everyone! This week we talk about IKEA's brazen theft of artist Tim Lahan's work for their SF food hall; we celebrate weirdo interstitial illustrations in the AutoDesk "State of Design and Make 2024" report; AND we step into the path of social contract totality at the recent total solar eclipse!

Thanks for listening!

Find us on Instagram at:

instagram.com/40000000000000dpi

Or at Substack:

40trilliondpi.substack.com

Music for this episode by Human Gazpacho.

This week we’re joined by our friend, Holiday Black. Holiday is a concept-forward art director with a passion for youth culture, creativity, and their two cats. They’ve been art directing for the past four years, and have had the opportunity to work on alcohol, fast food, cars, fashion, and footwear. Outside of work, Holiday can be found crafting, looking for hot springs, reading a book, or googling whether or not mercury is in retrograde. You can find Holiday’s work at www.holiday.black.

We talk with Holiday about their work, royal photoshop fails, corgi eugenics, and design as a portal to spiritual ego death and ultimately enlightenment.

Thanks for listening! Ciao!

This week we spend our life savings on numerological sports betting meal deal life hacks at whop.com; and we quit school to work on our sports betting meal deal life hack startup with a grant from Molly Mielke’s Moth Fund; and then we bathe in the bisexual lighting cast by a full screen view of Monotype’s neuroscience type reports. Turns out we were right all along!

This week we bring fine art to our fine faces with Marina Abramovic’s new line of spiritually-invigorating skincare products. We get a head start on our 2024 thumb fitness goals with T-9 in our TV at CES. AND we go into existential crisis mode in a post-creator world with whatever Metalabel is.

This week we talked to David Chathas: a graphic designer, type designer, educator, sometimes artist who would have rather been a UFC fighter. We talked to Dave about lots of things you can and cannot drink: Bud Light (comma) the history of, high end baby skin care products, energy drinks that look like automotive fluids, and automotive fluids that look like energy drinks—we also discussed the etiquette of lurking online, AND the woke Kansas state license plate fiasco (brought to you by Canva)!

You can find a breakdown of this episode with images and further digressions at: 40trilliondpi.substack.com

AND you can find Dave’s work at: bestgraphicdesignerintheworld.com

This week we delve into the odd history of fax memes; we try and see if there is any there there in the Figma state of the designer report; we learn about the weird things people are trying to do to sea slugs; we visit Kim K in her 7-11/office at the top of the Empire State Building, and we try and get our dating-app eggs to hatch before they're cooked. It is so confusing! Thanks for joining us!

This week we look into the medieval street scene that is the internet and ask ourselves, where did all these jesters come from? And why are several of them named Brian Jordan Alvarez? AND we take a trip to the best of all possible techno-optimistic worlds with Marc A-seven-n.

NOTE: We accidentally swapped in the wrong audio on this, so we're reposting!!!

Hey baybees! We're back! In this week's episode, we pour one out for Burkey Belser, the designer of the original Nutrition Facts label, and how raw information can compete with raw obfuscation. It's a rabbit hole! Also we talk for way too long about Humane AI's AI pin and what a future without screens, apps—or desire itself—might look like!

This week—we dodge the floating pharmaceutical logo lockup with medical spokesperson, lady gaga, we liquidate our savings buying virtual ice cream for Pinkydoll, we compare tactical battle strategies with I Can Talk Barbie, we stick our arms into tiny black suits to visit the puppet pet cemetery—AND we also might have talked about the glassdoor drama! Only one way (for us) to find out!

This week we wait for a flight in Meta’s shiny new Threads lounge, we are led by Gilbert the floating head through a very special video essay about the state of Graphic Design, we are led by an AI chat-panion we’re calling “Figgy” through Figma’s annual IRL conference, CONFIG, and we see what happens when you put an obscure piece of film history in the Magic Chef.

Check out some visual references and an episode breakdown at

https://40trilliondpi.substack.com/

This week, we take our rightful place as characters in the Sanrio Cinematic Universe, we embrace life on the grid at a digital nomad spreadsheet cafe, and we head to the abandoned SEARS in Second Life to try and buy a hat.

This week we go grocery shopping with AI Drake, we take a walking tour of every single place you’ve ever seen on AirBnB, we check on Dril as his native Twitter habitat collapses around him, and we join a larger-than-expected study group at LoFi Girl’s house.

AMMAAR RESHI'S CHATGPT INSTACART ORDER:

https://twitter.com/ammaar/status/1645934107304787968

Jordan Pearson/Motherboard, "A Viral AI-Generated Drake Song by ‘Ghostwriter’ Has Millions of Listens":

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxj5gw/heart-on-my-sleeve-ai-ghostwriter-drake

Alex Murrell, "The Age of Average":

https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average?mc_cid=5c3a906e88&mc_eid=c0768607a8

Nate Rogers/The Ringer, "Dril Is Everyone. More Specifically, He’s a Guy Named Paul.":

https://www.theringer.com/tech/2023/4/12/23673003/dril-twitter-interview-profile-identity

Lofi Girl | Know Your Meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lofi-girl