House of Common Affairs is a new journal designed by Paula Minelgaite that aims to “highlight the potential of how higher education of artists and designers can positively contribute to society.” The first issue is themed around Fourth Estate Utopias. “It provides an opportunity to challenge the niche and yet popular field that exists in the overlap between the arts and journalism,” says Minelgaite.

Contributors include writer and designer Theo Inglis, interdisciplinary artist Alina Negoita, graphic designer and artist Jaione Cerrato, illustrator Olivier Kugler, and Depatriarchise Design (Anja Neidhardt and Maya Ober), a research platform focusing on Design Patriarchy.

Our chums over at Hato studio have recently been in Milan for the Salone design shenanigans, creating the Eight Heads High installation, which also lives as an online project that lets you use your very own human body as a font. Using a webcam (or IRL, if you were also in Milano), users can cast shapes and poses to create proportions for the Regular, Italic, Condensed, Extended, and Small Caps versions of a new Hato-designed font.

“Eight Heads High explores modular measurements and its relation to humanistic design,” Hato explains. The piece is inspired by Vitruvius’ hypothesis and Da Vinci’s drawing L’Uomo Vitruviano (Vitruvian Man), which depicted the perfect body proportions as being eight heads high. Hato combined these ideologies with modern day design tech so that “from the tallest stance to the deepest lunge, each and everyone’s poses and ratios” can be added to a wider database which will determine the final proportions of the font. Why not try doing the Macarena in front of your webcam, in the name of furthering typography? I know I did, and I don’t regret a thing.

All Mixed Up is a speculative design project from designer Jessica Faccin that addresses “microaggressive language towards Eurasian individuals, inspired by personal experiences,” she says.

The project has been a year in the making, and Faccin says it’s part of her wider ethos to use design to raise awareness around social issues. “As a biracial individual, I have been stunned by the increased fetishisation of Eurasian individuals in contemporary society, and its ongoing negative psychological impacts,” she says. “Biracial microaggressions have become normalized, often perceived as compliments by perpetrators. Yet the underlying implications of casual comments can be detrimental to the mental wellbeing and social identity of biracial individuals.”

The project has various components that look to invite people to challenge their attitudes, including a proposal for a Biracial Survival Map microsite, and Quick Hacks, a series of “design interventions” for use in office spaces to serve as “conversation starters and thought provokers.”

You know what isn’t cute? Not getting your flu shot. What is very cute indeed, however, is this campaign encouraging people to be vaccinated. Created by Switzerland-based Get It Studio, the animated short uses adorable stop motion characters variously riding a log flume and partaking in semi-violent funfair games to encourage Swiss people to “beat up” flu by getting their jab. “Our challenge was to avoid hurting people’s feelings by spreading a message that could be interpreted as moralistic or accusatory,” says the studio. We reckon they’ve done that brilliantly. You can watch the glorious little critters here.