How Barbie and Super Nintendo World Toy with the Scale of Playtime
In February,Universal Studios Hollywood debuted a new area that transforms Mario’s Mushroom Kingdom from a 16-bit fantasyland into a 6,040-square-metre landscape. Super Nintendo World (a follow-up to a similar attraction in Tokyo) is filled with giant toadstools and colourful warp pipes that lead to side quests like a themed restaurant and kart-racing ride.
Even as virtual reality gaming gains momentum, there is still something special about knowing that the environment in front of you is built out of more than just pixels and code. That’s a principle that Barbie director Greta Gerwig understands well. While making her cinematic tribute to the toy doll, Gerwig and her production designer, Sarah Greenwood, avoided using CGI for…
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In the magazine world, there is always the temptation to identify “emerging talents” or “change agents,” to seek people at the tipping point of their careers, before they are known entities. With AZURE’s Nov/Dec 2023 issue, we tried to move past these marketing hooks to shine a light on people doing great work that we wanted to tip our hats to.
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In assembling the stories in this issue about circular design, one word kept coming up: value. By rethinking “value,” we’re also reclaiming our own values. If we want to strive for a healthier planet, one that is more ethical and sustainable, we have several examples to follow — and this issue is brimming with them.
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