Fragments - Issue 36
Your links for the week of 3/2/2026
Today (Sunday) was the first, very spring-like day here in Seattle, and the sunshine and warmth always bring interesting people outside.
I was on a long bike ride earlier in the day and came across a young cyclist who was fully kitted in a custom spandex suit (why do they always show off corporate sponsors nobody heard of?), an aerodynamic helmet, and douchebag sports sunglasses. His road bike is probably equivalent of six months rent for a non-tech worker and made of materials that come with adjectives like aerospace-grade and surgical-grade. To be honest, you’d see people like him pretty often in the city, but what made him interesting is this: He was vaping as he was riding at 20+ mph. Maybe there’s a performance-enhancing vape only a select few have access to. Or he needs a better therapist.
When I lived in Portland many years ago, I often saw this old gentleman in Downtown who commuted on a Segway while being very well-dressed. I’m taking a three-piece suit, always in a lighter color like tan or cloud grey. And more often than not, he had a cigar in his mouth. Same kinda energy, but I prefer the gentleman who had much more class and grace (despite his ride of choice) to the mostly run-of-the-mill asshat cyclist.
I wonder what kind of interesting people I get to find in the coming days. Spring is here in Seattle.
Here are your links for this week.
1️⃣ Color Game - How Well Can You Remember Colors?
👉🏼 LINK
Even as a mediocre designer, I always believed that I have a better sense of colors than a regular person. This game tests your color and memory skills by having to recreate five colors you just saw (one by one, don’t worry). Now only I scored pretty high, I also got this compliment: “Genuinely unsettling accuracy. Please find a different hobby.”
I feel great.
2️⃣ Rename World
👉🏼 LINK
This is the kind of an online collaboration project I love. Rename World is an aptly named website where you can rename ANY and every place on the world map. It’s hilarious that a bunch of people are out there exposing their prejudice and judgement in full. Seattle is currently renamed to Introvert Megacity, and it’s perfect.
3️⃣ Different Views of the Winter Olympics
👉🏼 LINK
A bit unusual collection of photos taken at the Winter Olympics by various photographers who used some specialized equipment (an infrared camera, a vintage large format, etc.). I’m a sucker for a composite like this one above. Very cool.
4️⃣ Liz West Transforms a Bristol Parking Garage into a Kaleidoscopic Passageway
👉🏼 LINK
A simple idea yet beautifully executed:
“Does colour change the way you feel? What does it feel like to be inside a rainbow? I was to invite visitors to drench themselves in the spectrum and allow them to question their individual perception of colour,” [Liz West] says.
Can’t every parking garage just be like this?
5️⃣ Sample Breakdown: The Most Iconic Electronic Music Sample of Every Year (1990-2024)
👉🏼 LINK
Back in high school, I listened to A LOT of electronic music and disco/funk/jazz because I was so fascinated by a technique called sampling. Well, and also imported CDs were usually priced at 1/2 to 1/3 of the price of a domestic rock/pop album in Japan. I always thought, why would I buy just one album everyone listens to (boring!) when I can get three, very unique ones for the same money? I didn’t have many friends.
In short, sampling involves extracting bits of existing songs (soul, funk, and R&B from 1970s are very popular for this) and manipulating them to create a new rhythm, bass line, percussion, and/or sound effect. This breakdown video is probably the best I’ve seen to feature the original songs used and how the artists then created something new out of them.
Fatboy Slim’s Praise You, a classic big beat track (breakdown starts at 7:24) from 1998, is still SO GOOD.
About this newsletter, in case you need to tell somebody
Fragments is a newsletter published every Monday morning with curated links to get your work week started with something fun, interesting, weird, and maybe even insightful.
About the person behind this newsletter
Sho Ito is a B+ freelance (Associate) Creative Director/Art Director based in Seattle. In his downtime, he torments himself by noticing bad kerning, bad type choice, and bad color scheme on every street corner. He’s also available for hire at a reasonable rate for pretty much any creative need.