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| Feel Free To Pitch In |
This free Monday Briefing is available to all subscribers. If you'd like to receive the Thursday Briefing and more, consider becoming a Patron.
As we welcome a new contributor this week, we extend the opportunity to our talented readers and creatives to share and submit stories of their own.
Portfolio Features
- The Goal: To provide a platform for you, the creative(s) to showcase your work and for us, to bring new perspectives to our audience.
- The Ask: Have a project or body of work you've done or will finish and would like to have it featured on MAEKAN? We'd like to hear about it (and pay you for it).
- The Requirement: Work must be your own or if, done in collaboration, have the permission of all collaborators to be shared. Generally, we're looking for works that have been finished during or after 2015 or, if still in progress, will be completed within the next two years.
- Compensation: Exposure for yourself and your project. Aaand of course, a small fee to feature your work on MAEKAN, which will be promoted through our social channels and newsletter.
Original Content
- The Goal: To find the right creative(s) to help us explore topics we want to know more about and pass that knowledge on to the world.
- The Ask: We ask that stories focus on subjects directly connected to creatives, workers in the creative industries and the industry itself, artists, and creative culture. For a comprehensive (but not exhaustive) list of the topics we're looking to explore, click here.
- Compensation: Rates will be agreed upon based on the scope of the story and project.
Something Outside the Box
Of course, if you have a story to tell that would be a good fit for MAEKAN, we're also currently accepting pitches for original stories or series.
How To Submit
- Form: Our Airtable form for submissions can be found here.
- Email: Shoot us an email at stories@maekan.com.
- Subject: Editorial: [Your Name] - [Project Name] [Portfolio Feature/Editorial Pitch]
- Body: Tell us about yourself and the project
- Attachments: Please feel free to include any image(s), documents or links as reference.
- DM: While we would prefer the above channels, we will also accept pitches via direct message on our Instagram.
We appreciate all submissions and pitches, but only those with shortlisted submissions will be contacted for a follow up.
- The MAEKAN Team
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The Bulletin
Hear and read the latest from MAEKAN and the community. |
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Readworthy — On Photography by Susan Sontag
In our inaugural episode of our book review series Readworthy, new contributor Audrey Kalman finds the lasting impact of Susan Sontag's perspectives on the craft of photography which is alive and well in the present, as well as what lessons can be gleaned from her work On Photography (1977).
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Making It Up 183: Climate crisis responsibility and Kanye West’s DONDA
Eugene and Charis talk about the illusory nature of tech solutions for the climate crisis as well as personal responsibility in the face of it. They also discuss the artistic merit of the release of Kanye West’s DONDA and how the cultural shift towards group decision-making and participation played a big role in this latest drop.
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| For Your A-10-tion |
The best links from across the Internet.
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1. 💽 How 88 Rising Created The Shang Chi Soundtrack
Sean Miyashiro, the founder of the Asian music collective worked with director Destin Daniel Cretton on curating the Marvel film's soundtrack, which features the talents of Rich Brian, Swae Lee, Jhené Aiko, MaSiWei and JJ Lin,
2. 🎤 An Interview With Friends With Benefits Crypto-Base Social Membership
Yana Sonovskaya of Zora talks with key members of the Friends With Benefits (FWB), the crypto-based cultural membership program. Aside from setting the record straight on what the platform is and how it started, the members talk about how they look to better integrate the digital world with everyday life such as through in-person gatherings.
3. 🧠 The Pros And Cons Of Creating For Yourself Or Designing For Others
Creating for yourself offers the chance to take creative risks and produced emotionally invested work. But it may come at the cost of alienating those offering constructive feedback and those that just don't "get it." The latter can result in a more profitable product and even more creativity by working within constraints but of course, also involves the chance of burning out and being stuck doing something you don't love. We believe both are definitely part of the creative journey, and managing the process is key.
4. 🤝 Notion Acquires India's Automate.io
The popular note-taking and database software used by us here at MAEKAN, acquired Automate.io, which is based in Hyderabad for the automation apps some 200 integrations with other services. The acquisition comes after Notion only just discovered Automate a few months ago and the move will allow Notion the ability to set up its first engineering outside the United States.
5. 👋 Nike Looks Leaves Behind Alpha Masculinity With Restructure
As the brand continues to uphold a passion for sport while leaning into inclusivity, the sports giant is stepping away from the masculinity it sold for great cultural acclaim and profit to boot. As Ethan Strauss writes:
"For all the talk of a racial reckoning within major industries, Nike’s main problem is this: It’s a company built on masculinity, most specifically Michael Jordan’s alpha dog brand of it. Now, due to its own ambitions, scandals, and intellectual trends, Nike finds masculinity problematic enough to loudly reject. This rejection is part of the broader culture war, but it’s accelerating due to an arcane quirk in the apparel giant’s strange restructuring plan, announced in June. Under the leadership of new CEO John Donahoe, Nike is moving away from its classic discrete sports categories (Nike Basketball, Nike Soccer, etc.) in favor of a system where all products are shoveled into one of three divisions: men’s, women’s and kids’."
6. 🖼️ Ai Wei Wei Offers Harsh Words For Hong Kong Museum
The dissident Chinese artist criticizes Hong Kong visual art museum M+ for its exclusion of key works by Ai from its opening exhibition. He also responds to Credit Suisse's decision to terminate his bank account based on the allegations of a previous criminal record.
7. 🐛 Insectta: A Singaporean Startup Using Insects To Rethink Production
Founded by Singapore-based farmer Chua Kai-Ning and her partner Phua Jun Wei in 2017, Insectta is tackling the city state's food waste problem by relying on black soldier fly larvae. The company feeds them eight tons of food waste a month, which includes by-products from soybean factories and breweries. Excrement from the larvae can be used for fertilizer while the bugs themselves can be flash fried into animal feed. More promising is the maggots that reach maturity produce a cocoon that can be harvested for chitosan, an antimicrobial substance with antioxidant properties that can be used in cosmetic and pharmaceutical products.
8. 🔎 LinkedIn Upgrades Include Learning Hub And Search Options For Hybrid Work
Its learning hub includes a slew of 40 video courses that are free for members until October 9 that are based around improved management in the new normal, adapting to remote work and returning to the office. Also included in the changes to the platform are new fields for its recruitment service that let recruiters indicate whether a job is remote, hybrid or onsite while companies have options to indicate vaccination policies and the operating status of their physical locations.
9. 🎮 Balancing Difficulty And Personal Investment In Game Design
Josh Brycer examines how the design of games, particularly their level of difficulty can lead to players sticking with a game or dropping out early and what is needed for diverse players with different expectations of the game experience. As Brycer writes:
"Understanding what aspects create difficulty in your game is vital for not only accommodating people who want it easy but making something that people can sink their teeth into if they want. I’ve said this countless times, poor UI/UX makes a game more difficult, but that is not good design. There is a difference between feeling like the game is challenging you vs. fighting a poor UI or UX that are making it frustrating to even begin to play the game."
10. 📷 On The 20th Anniversary Of 9/11, Photojournalist Richard Drew Remembers "The Falling Man"
An Associated Press photojournalist of almost 60 years, Drew recently gave an interview for CBS Sunday Morning recalling the day and his now infamous photo of a yet unidentified individual falling from the twin towers.
"As a veteran photojournalist, Drew knows what it takes to document horrific events — he remains objective, shuts down his personal responses, and focuses on recording history. This is the same principle he also applied to photograph the desperate people who were trapped on the upper floors of the burning World Trade Center and had made the grave decision to jump to their death to escape the fire and smoke (as well as those who were blown out by force and fell)."
The Surreal Digital Paintings of Khoi Pham
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