Hey yall, Oren here this week. I’m fresh off the road from Spain, and I recap my trip with some selects for your next visit in a creative travel guide below. Next week I head to NYC where we’re doing an Office Hours meetup event (details below), and then I’ll be reporting in on sourcing luxury materials from Premiere Vision in Paris.

This week in the newsletter I hit new design resources, a look at the creative side of Barcelona, my live show with Ashwinn and Jordan is now episodic,, and we’re doing another free 7 day content challenge in Feb.

If you are looking for our creative ops guide from last week, you can find that here.

Let’s begin.

NYC Meetup

For all our readers in NYC, I will be hosting Office Hours with Darkroom and Shopify at the Shopify space in NYC on Tuesday! Clayton and I will both be there, come by, and we’ll talk about creators starting brands, making content as a founder, and whatever else yall wanna chat about!

RSVP

A Creative’s Guide to Barcelona

Welcome to my second scene report, following up on last year’s trip to Guangzhou.

This is my unique approach to these as someone who cares about packaging, product sourcing, and design inspiration while traveling, and who probably can’t tell you where you should be eating, but I do have a psionic 6th sense that guides me to post-fourth wave coffee globally. Hope you enjoy!

This guide is presented in partnership with my friends at July luggage. I have been travelling with their standout gloss trunks. Check out the matte vs glosse styles, they’re a super fun look.

Learn more about July.

FIRST, THE PACKAGING

El Corte Inglés - Barcelona's answer to Erewhon, but make it Iberian - head to the gourmet floor for the gems.

orenmeetsworld

View more on Instagram

NEXT, FOR MY PRODUCT DEVS

Barcelona isn’t known for it’s textiles and fashion brands the way Paris, Portugal or Italy is, but has a wonderful vintage scene, and an excellent wholesale market for finding fun and experimental items.

El Market Del Encants was ideal for vintage jewelry and hardware inspo, and had a pretty serious fabric selection for those (like me) that can’t resist the potential pf finding something for their brand abroad.

@orenmeetsworld

The Market Del Encants in Barcelona #hiddengem

WHERE WE STAYED

• Hotel Neri - A stunning boutique hotel housed in a former medieval castle in the Gothic Quarter. The stone archways and modern design elements create an unforgettable atmosphere.

• Nobu Hotel - Home to the highest rooftop in the city, perfect for sunset cocktails with panoramic views

COFFEE

• Bricks - Start your day with an immaculate V60 and their fun breakfast menu (probiotic sandos!)

• Right Side Coffee Roasters - Exceptional espresso in an minimalist industrial space

• Satan's Coffee Corner - Another local favorite with excellent brews

ART & DESIGN

• Moco Museum - Contemporary art in a stunning palace setting

• Casa Batlló - Gaudí's masterpiece that looks like it's made of bones and scales

• Hey Studio - Essential stop for graphic design lovers and poster inspiration

• MACBA - Barcelona's contemporary art museum with excellent rotating exhibitions

• Fundació Joan Miró - Spectacular collection of the Catalan artist's work

SHOPPING & INSPIRATION

• Loewe - Housed in a historic modernist building, worth visiting for the architecture alone

• Solebox - Sneaker store with an incredible grocery store concept design

• La Ribera - Wholesale local spot for traditional conservas (tinned fish)

NATURE & RELAXATION

• Parc de la Ciutadella - Find the hidden greenhouse for a moment of zen

• Bunkers del Carmel - Best sunset views over the city

• Jardí Botànic - Beautiful botanical gardens away from the crowds

Stay tuned, as I will be reporting in from Paris shortly for the Premiere Vision luxury textiles show in Feb as well, and if you’re looking for a new luggage option, check out July!

The weekly live that I was doing with Ashwinn and Jordan Rogers is now a regular recorded series. We heard you that people couldnt always make the live, so we are now weekly on Youtube, Spotify and Apple, thanks to our friends at PLTFRM.

Every week we cover the marketing and branding campaigns from the week before, and a new “marketing confessional” series where people who worked on controversial campaigns spill all… in confidence.

Our latest episode on “dark marketing” is now up!

Spotify

Youtube

And if the branding on this looks… surprisingly bad, almost… intentionally bad… we will be launching a lil process for people to help with our branding for the show soon as well, and documenting it along the way!

The Cut30 team and I are doing another free 7 day challenge kicking off on Tuesday Feb 4th. If you want to break the seal on short form video for your brand, or personal brand, we had 1500 people run this with us last time with some awesome results. This challenge is all about breaking the seal on new content types you may never have done before, and not taking it too seriously. Last time we had viral motivational talks, husband videos, financial yaps, life advice, and some solid founder content along the way.

If you want to join, it’s free, sign up below!

Start Here

From my bookmarks

Le Creuset pallete in Figma? Yes.

The new OOH marketing canvas

Design inspo resources to checkout

As always, thanks so much for reading, back to our usual HYPER programming next!

Oren