Please enjoy this week’s dramatic reading of Monday’s post: “You Gotta Know When to Fold ‘Em” 👇
As I explain (and show) in the video, this week’s post was a poetry Mad Magazine Fold-In, that didn’t really come across in the post as laid out on substack. In this audio, I read it in its fold-out version first, then the fold-in version. I did a crap design of it, which you can laugh heartily at, below.
(Designers should feel free to one-up me on that!)
Notes from the Captain
What counts as a failure anyway? I don’t think the writing itself in Monday’s post was a failure, but the absolute conceptual futz-up was trying to use Substack’s code to display a visual concept where the code display changes for multiple devices.
Long story short—the concept only made sense if you looked at the poem on the web version of Substack, and then it didn’t work as a fold-in, only as an implied fold-in (which is what I was going for.)
Oh well. We live to try things. And then we learn.
I do think the bold italic combo made it sort of work on the app, and I’m hoping most people noticed that one poem was actually two poems if you broke your brain and read only the bold.
Video miss: On the topic of all stanzas relating to a kind of fold (fold clothes, fold arms, centerfold, etc.) I forgot to mention how much of an inspired clever-clogs I was using the word gyri in the poem—another fold! Gyri and sulci are the folds and grooves in the brain. I didn’t just know that. I had to look that up while writing the post.
I hope you are enjoying Behind the Streams.
Until next we meet, love what you love,
Your Captain, Janeen 🫡
Thangs mentioned in this episode…
👩✈️ Sunday Night “Folded” Draft
This is the framework I wrote on Sunday night so I’d have a starting point on Monday morning. Much of it changed, but I guess you could call this the pre-first draft?
👩✈️ Mad Magazine Fold Ins
Here are some vintage ones from the 80s including pre-fold and fold states.
👩✈️ My stupid fold in
I redesigned it to poster size and made it way worse in style, color…everything! I think letter size (above) is fine, btw.
If you’re looking for a design exercise because you’re bored and so offended by mine (understandable), here’s the text of The Folding Crane to play with.
👩✈️ All about origami cranes
How Paper Cranes Became a Symbol of Healing in Japan
👩✈️ How to fold a crane (walk through)
And here’s a photo of my Mad Magazine Fold-In poem, The Folding Crane, folded into a folded crane.
Thanks for listening/watching/being. Do something great this weekend. Do.
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