Need to know
28 : 09 : 17

Berlin – Foam Studio, the commercial arm of art collective Zeitguised, has created a new campaign for high-tech polymeric material supplier Covestro. The minute-long ad taps into Visual ASMR to highlight the visual and tactile qualities of the materials supplied by the company. A foam-like substance blossoms into a plant-like structure, while a dynamic, paint-like substance rises up to resemble branching coral.

‘In the film, invisible structures and processes are transformed into poetic expressions of colours, shapes and transformation,’ Zeitguised co-founder Henrik Mauler tells LS:N Global. ‘There is a general trend now in how dry content is presented and communicated. We have taken our trademark route of looking at inanimate objects as abstract characters with lives of their own.’

As LS:N Global explored in our Soft Aid design direction, designers are creating vibrant visual identities for brands in the science and medical industries to rebrand them as more accessible and user-friendly.

Global – Facebook has worked with Condé Nast to create Virtually Dating, a show that sends people on virtual reality (VR) blind dates. The couples meet in real life before putting on VR headsets to be transported to a variety of far-flung, often fictional, locations, such as a post-apocalyptic world with zombies.

Bridging the divide between the physical and virtual worlds, the premise of the five-episode series is to provide an ice-breaker for couples who are then encouraged to date in the real world. Available on Facebook’s recently launched Watch platform, which will be home to a range of original shows by various media companies, Virtually Dating demonstrates the potential of digital dating, moving beyond apps such as Tinder to more engaging VR platforms.

As explored in our Courtship Crisis microtrend, although the rise of digital culture has helped to facilitate connections between people it has left many lacking the interpersonal skills required to sustain a relationship.

While inflated house prices mean that Millennials have long been viewed as Generation Rent, this demographic is now beginning to command enough spending power in the US to buy their own homes. With a median household income of £61,155 ($82,000, €69,810), Millennials – now aged 27–37 – are the most likely to be home-buyers, purchasing around the age of 32. For more on how brands need to cater for US consumers who have become disenfranchised by the traditional American Dream, see our macrotrend The American Middle.