VelvetShark

My personal website definitely helped me get hired. Here's how. Whenever I create something, either for work or personal, I add it to a "Featured" section on my website's homepage. Over time, it became such a nice and comprehensive list that I now use it every time when talking about past projects or whenever a "Can we see some examples of your past work or appearances?" comes up. It has different types of work and is exhaustive enough that whoever asks, can find what they're looking for. I had a lot of positive comments from prospective employers about it. What started as a mini project for me to collect all the scattered links for myself so that I don't forget or lose anything, became a great asset that keeps on giving. Here's the link that I send when asked about "examples of your work": https://www.velvetshark.com/#featured It's an anchor link of my homepage that scrolls straight to the Featured section. Oh, just to clarify: the "Featured" section is not the only thing that people find interesting. Once they're on the page, they can browse around and find articles that are of interest to them. That helps too.

Yet another AI company where the logo follows the butthole convergence rule [0] ? As an aside, my favorite Sierra Entertainment logo version is probably the 1983-1993 version [1]. I think the design still holds up even today. [0] https://velvetshark.com/ai-company-logos-that-look-like-buttholes [1] https://logos-world.net/sierra-entertainment-logo/

"PS. This post is meant to be humorous, but let's not pretend there isn't a serious point here about the depressing sameness in modern design. No actual anuses were consulted during this research, though several designers were clearly thinking about them." > Was that even written by a human? https://velvetshark.com/

> This post is meant to be humorous Was anyone supposed to think a post about comparing logos to buttholes was meant to be serious? Either way, the joke doesn’t work if what you’re describing makes no sense (circle and gradient) and are stretching the definition to unrecognizability. > > Was that even written by a human? > https://velvetshark.com/ So, probably not: > I build AI agent systems and help companies implement AI that works in practice > OpenClaw maintainer > I make YouTube videos about AI workflows, agent architecture, and practical automation

Very good article. The hyperlinks within are worth checking. Wonder when the "blanding" term first appeared and when it started becoming apparent. Related, the logo part is also covered providing other possible reasons in https://velvetshark.com/articles/why-do-brands-change-their-logos-and-… (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32040506).

Another example: [0] Have to say this never would have occurred to me. There are also examples of US people being offended by scenes considered harmless in other cultures, ie the Totoro bathtub scene [1], search for "family bathing scene". I guess if this hologram offended people, there must be some nice stories about Nirvana's Nevermind (1991). [0] https://velvetshark.com/ai-company-logos-that-look-like-buttholes [1] https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/my-neighbour-totoro-10-things-didnt-know-2…

Seems the AIs are quite self aware. "If you pay attention to AI company branding, you'll notice a pattern: 1 Circular shape (often with a gradient) 2 Central opening or focal point 3 Radiating elements from the center 4 Soft, organic curves Sound familiar?" https://velvetshark.com/ai-company-logos-that-look-like-buttholes

Can't spell Manus without anus. What is it with AI companies and buttholes? https://velvetshark.com/ai-company-logos-that-look-like-buttholes

If not penises... https://velvetshark.com/ai-company-logos-that-look-like-buttholes

I feel like they had to have read this and added that out of spite. https://velvetshark.com/ai-company-logos-that-look-like-buttholes

The article is repacking content from here: https://www.velvetshark.com/why-do-brands-change-their-logos-and-look-…

Needs a (2022), especially since this article is basically a copy/paste summary of previous work such as [1] and [2] (previously discussed here at [3] and especially [4]). [1] https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1545819896004624384 [2] https://www.velvetshark.com/why-do-brands-change-their-logos-and-look-… [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26048439 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32040506

Lots of negative comments so far, but this is much preferable to having every brand trend towards plain san-serif wordmarks[0] that will be easier to use. Much closer to something like the evolution the Coke brand[1], which occasionally refreshes and modernizes, but retains the same character it had 100+ years ago. [0]: https://velvetshark.com/articles/why-do-brands-change-their-logos-and-… [1]: https://dwglogo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/coca-cola_logo_evolutio…

The curious but unsurprising[1] bit is that the typography, too, was replaced with a mundane and unrecognizable typeface. [1] https://velvetshark.com/articles/why-do-brands-change-their-logos-and-… Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32040506

Hard, hard disagree. This good article has been discussed before on HN: https://velvetshark.com/articles/why-do-brands-change-their-logos-and-… It's not just a "perceived" loss of individuality. The new logos discussed in that linked article, especially the fashion ones, suck in my opinion because they're boring and they all look the same. They at least used to have some good degree of variability.

They mention the OP in passing at the very end of the thread (OP is dated November 18, 2020 [1]; tweet is from July 9, 2022). Indeed, down in that thread, they even include an image from OP with attribution cropped! Btw, the first image in the thread is also a very widely shared image on Twitter with no attribution. Earliest I found in a quick reverse image search is from Dec 13 2018 [2], but I doubt it's the original. [1] bottom of page: https://velvetshark.com/articles [2] https://mobile.twitter.com/hakkocaturk/status/1073192244889509888

Account recovery is by far the #1 kind of ticket any service will get. Either because people forget their credentials, lose their credentials, get hacked or get impersonated - and that's just the legitimate tickets, on top of that come illegitimate tickets from everyday script kiddies over ransom extortioners (i.e. the people that aim to steal "valuable" handles) to nation-state actors that, say, want to get access to DMs of people messaging oppositional accounts. That in turn means three things... it costs a lot of money to have humans look at these tickets, the PR damage from both acting and not acting on such requests can be immense, and users/customers can be anything from the smartest and richest people on the world down to the kind of utter imbeciles whose brains get surpassed by bears [1] or who plainly are not able to write. To make it worse, often enough online services don't have any kind of tie back to some known government-issued ID (either directly or by a proxy such as a mobile phone SIM), there's corruption involved on all levels, and for particularly "juicy" targets the stakes, if they can be converted to a monetary amount at all, can reach into the millions of dollars. Now, Instagram alone has 3 billion (!) users from across the world, so they are bound to not just having to spend a lot of money on user support (remember, we are talking about the entire world, they also need to deal with about 7.000 (!) actively spoken languages, and having attack targets…