Snack Plate 005: Getting silly with it

Plus, UPF-conferring laundry pods, a soft serve passport, and AI-generated fragrances

👋 Hi. I hope you’re finding ways to stay cool and sane amid an increasingly inhospitable climate. I’m personally looking forward to BLTs hitting the menu at Court Street Grocer and, later in the month, hanging in the backyard at Vato for Masala y Maíz’s global Paga Lo Que Puedas / Pay What You Can Day. As always, respond with questions, comments, or thoughts about anything you read here. My phone line is open.

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This newsletter doesn’t lend itself to subscriptions, so I’ve introduced a tip jar. Think of this as a way to say “thank you,” to show appreciation, and to recognize the work that goes into developing each newsletter, however infrequent.

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The Chips 🍿

• St. Ouro makes breast milk coolers that look like high-end purses.

• When someone is wearing an Oura ring, it’s often the first thing I notice on their hand—and not in a good way. Steff Eleoff’s smart ring covers might be enough to change that.

• Millennials had color-changing yogurt in the form of Dannon Sprinkl’ins. Gen Alpha has Dr. Glitter.

• And while we’re at it, they’re targeting a completely different audience, but HaloBraid reminded me of the Conair Quick Twist.

• Eternal Research asks the question, what if you could hear the electromagnetic fields that surround you?

• Lemon of the Sun claims to offer UPF protection via laundry pods.

• Somehow, in the year 2026, Juice, a line of scented vaginal suppositories, exists.

• When I was in college, the Vermont Brewery Challenge Passport gave us something to plan weekends and nights around. Now you can pair it with the Vermont Creemee Passport.

• It’s cool to see Poked take a more playful approach to tattoo aftercare than what else is on the market.

• This pocket kite by State the Label is so fun.

• I’m really into The Flat Society’s open-ended positioning: explicitly outlining the gap in the market and defining the design challenge to establish credibility, then soliciting feedback from people who have gotten flat closures following mastectomies to shape product development.

• On the subject of positioning, Mowe is framing its products as makeup for exercise, activated by changes in your body’s temperature.

• This eyeglass-holding brooch is so clever and so simple.

• Scent is notoriously difficult to describe. Osmo applies AI to convert location- and mood-based prompts into fragrances.

• If Loops earplugs are meant to be unobtrusive, Charm’d is meant to be seen.

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4-Layer Dip 🍼

1. My sister gave out Sonny Angel blind boxes at her bachelorette party, which is where I learned they were created during Japan’s 2004 economic downturn to provide comfort to women working in offices amid financial uncertainty. la machine, an adaptive and unpredictable desk toy, acts as an interesting foil to Sonny Angel. Rather than provide calm and encourage people to keep working, la machine is designed to offer a distraction.

2. I know a handful of people who have deleted the astrology app Co-Star following news that it was acquired by Midjourney. Most internet users, for better or for worse, don’t typically consider what personal data they’re sharing and how it might be handled if a company is acquired. Co-Star has always had an edge to it that felt decidedly anti-tech, but that doesn’t mean it’s not collecting users’ names, date and place of birth, and social connections—information that surely exists elsewhere on the internet, but which I wouldn’t want to willingly hand over to an AI company. It’s also allowed CHANI the opportunity to run an anti-AI campaign aimed at converting now-former Co-Star users.

3. I don’t believe in dream jobs, but I do have brain crushes: people who I admire and strive to emulate for the way that they think. I first met Meg Lewis when they were a freelance designer for Alma in its early days. Meg has now moved away from design to focus more on corporate culture. More specifically, Meg helps teams embed playfulness into their work processes. It reminds me of some of the kick-off frameworks I’ve borrowed from the HAWRAF Drive and used with clients. Strategy and tech can be so serious, and I’ve found silly this-or-that exercises to be a really effective way of forcing people to go off-script and abandon the rote one-liners and business jargon. We all need to work to live. Why not make it playful?

4. MouthPad, Augmental’s accessibility device that gives users cursor control by moving their tongue along the roof of their mouth, has really cool implications for people with limited mobility. Accessible technology tends to go mainstream without most people realizing they’re even using tools designed for disabled people, like curb cuts and Apple’s touchscreen technology. I’m curious to see how this technology might be adopted by the mainstream and, as Liz Jackson reminds us, it’s important not to erase disabled people from the development and design of accessibility technology.

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Real Dip 🍙

Frozen pea pesto.

Let a small bag of frozen peas thaw in your fridge for a few hours.

Once the peas are soft, add them to a food processor with a big handful of pine nuts, a few cloves of garlic, a big chunk of parm, and some salt. Blitz it until the parm and garlic are well incorporated.

Drizzle in some olive oil until the pesto is smooth. Taste and see what’s missing—maybe salt, maybe parm.

Plays well with buttered pasta, fancy white beans, and just about any vegetable.

Thanks for snacking,

— Emily 🥨

PS: My phone line is open and I have room for new clients! In addition to copywriting and brand management retainers and strategy projects, I’m now offering 4–6 week generative engine optimization (GEO) sprints.