You can see the effects of climate change from Google Earth
Plus: They made a metaverse moon out of thousands of archival NASA photos
Hello, in this week’s issue we’ll look at…
You can see the effects of climate change from Google Earth
They made a metaverse moon out of thousands of archival NASA photos
What political design looks like in France
You can see the effects of climate change from Google Earth
For Earth Day last Friday, Google turned its Google Doodle into a time-lapse showing the effects of climate change around the world.
Using images taken each December between 2000 and 2020, Google showed glacier retreat in Greenland (above), as well as coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef and the destruction of a German forest from bark beetle infestations due to rising temperatures and drought.
The search giant offered even more on Google Earth, including 3-D time-lapse of glacier retreat at the Columbia Glacier in Prince William Sound, Alaska.
Last year, Google released Timelapse, a feature that shows how the planet has changed over 37 years based on 24 million photos in Google Earth.
“Visual evidence can cut to the core of the debate in a way that words cannot and communicate complex issues to everyone,” Google said at the time.
Google’s 2022 Earth Day project was done in collaboration with NASA and European Space Agency programs as well as Climate Central, a climate change nonprofit that uses visuals to show the effects of climate change. Last year the group put out sliders that show before-and-after images of landmarks like Independence Hall and the Statue of Liberty under water if worst-case scenarios come to pass.
Just for fun, here are some Google Doodles from Earth Days past:
Google used globes in place of the letter O for its first Earth Day Google Doodle in 2001, and they’ve since put out an Earth Day Google Doodle for 18 of the past 21 years. 🌏🌎
They made a metaverse moon out of thousands of archival NASA photos
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo missions, the Smithsonian built a metaverse moon landing.
“Moonwalk” is a virtual 3D experience made in partnership with Meta Immersive Learning, an initiative from Facebook’s parent company. Using a Meta Quest 2 VR headset, visitors can experience a virtual moon landing and explore an area produced from measurements made from more than 7,000 archival NASA photos in a process known as photogrammetry.
The experience also includes audio from the Apollo missions between astronauts and Mission Control, and yes, there will be a corresponding Instagram filter that will let you take a “lunar selfie,” according to the Smithsonian.
Meta sees the experience as an example of how VR can be used in education, and the company will show off a metaverse coral reef and art experience at an immersive learning panel next month.
“Like space exploration, the future of learning is limitless,” said Monica Arés, head of Meta Immersive Learning. “Partnering with the Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Building allows us to showcase how immersive technology can transform the way we learn by exploring simulated environments.”
The 3D “Moonwalk” opens May 4 at the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building and runs through June 6.
What political design looks like in France
French President Emmanuel Macron won reelection Sunday, defeating far-right National Assembly candidate Marine Le Pen to become the first French president to win a second term in 20 years.
French presidential campaigns don’t have the same budgets or design needs as U.S. presidential campaigns. And although they sometimes rip off visual design trends from the U.S., their political culture is driven by the street, not TV or digital ads.
Here’s what I learned about what politics looks like in France following their presidential campaign:
1. Campaigns are price capped and publicly financed
French presidential candidates can spend a maximum of the equivalent of about $23.8 million if they make it to the run-off, and the state reimburses a percentage of campaign costs. Compare that to the price tag of presidential campaigns in the U.S. In 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden raised more than $1 billion, and former President Donald Trump raised about $774 million.
“That limits what you can do and the people that you can hire,” said Clement Favaron, a student at Sciences Po Grenoble, and design and communications don’t always fit the budget. But there also isn’t the same need for fundraising and advertising.
Businesses have been banned from making political donations in France since 1995, and individual donor contributions are limited to donating €7,500 per year to parties and an additional €4,600 to candidates, according to France 24, the French state-owned news network.
In the U.S., voters are inundated by a barrage of advertisements pressuring them to vote in the final days of a campaign. In contrast, French voters just observed a period of "silence électoral,” an election silence that began last Friday before the Sunday election, in which candidates are barred from campaigning and the news media is prohibited from quoting candidates or publishing poll results.
2. Posters are everything
Without the need for big budget TV buys or A/B tested digital ads, the emphasis for French candidates is posters and mailers.
Wheat-paste posters are posted publicly, and the designs tend to feature a well-lit portrait of the candidate with slogans set in a sans-serif font. The posters for the last three winning campaigns all stuck to the same script:
Posters are inevitably vandalized, and graffiti is part of political street culture. Posters this year were vandalized with messages like “Fascist,” “5 years is already too much!,” and “Give the cash back,” according to AFP.
Campaigns do have limited digital asset needs, like for their own social media accounts, and many also have online campaign shops, though “the media talks about it because it’s fun, but then no one really buys it,” Favaron said.
Go deeper >> [5 things I learned about political design in France]