Another blog that I contribute to PSFK is on the hunt for some great ideas:

'Need funding to help your idea become other folk's inspiration? Two Fortune 100 companies (in beverages and health & beauty respectively) want to meet people with superb ideas in early October to help bring your ideas to life.

PSFK has been asked to help find 25 clever persons to attend a round of 'speed-investing' in early October in New York City. Each person will get about 5 minutes with an executive from one of the major brands in attendance before moving on to the next. You get about 6 to 8 sessions.

What type of ideas? We all know brands these days want to get involved with smart projects - they support, you get to make your idea come true, they get the benefits of being associated, the world thinks you're both smart cookies. Well, that's the concept, anyway. Although ideas can come from anywhere, the result must be visible in the US.'

So if you're just waiting for your big break check it out here
Tags: Ideas

News from Crooked Tongues:
'Just For Kicks is the first film of its kind to present the underlying drivers and players that fuelled the global sneakers revolution and its $26 Billion global market. Far from a formal history of the sneaker industry, Just For Kicks offers a fun and colorful insider's history of hip hop's most treasured fashion item; revealing behind the scene stories with exclusive testimonies, never before seen footage and the charismatic personalities that have come to influence pop culture. Featuring amongst others Bobbito, Jamal Shabazz, Damon Dash, Run-DMC and Futura.'
Tags: Trainers, Sneakers, crookedtongues

The trend for sustainable, affordable and desirable houses has been knocking about for some time. From the floating houses of Berlin, to the nooks and crannies housing of Hamburg. However, one of the most interesting pre-fab builds has been created by Alchemy Architects and is now being used by Marriott Hotels to promote their new room designs.

The Wee House is beautifully simple and is modular in design so that they can be expanded. The need for affordable and simple housing has reached new heights, especially in expensive inner city areas such as London, New York and Berlin. People are no longer so worried about their properties being made of bricks and mortar instead they just need a place to stay with a bit of character - and these new developments certainly have that.
Tags: Design

The coolest sport in the world (except football) has had a mini film made of it and it's awesome. For more information on Le Parkour check out its official site here.
Tags: parkour

The history of brands has been littered with various ways of making them more personal and creating an empathy between brand and consumer. Of late, brands seem to be creating more and more products that have very obvious personalities. From Peugeot and the fly swatting to the Puma ads that place their shoes in with the animals you are made to feel like the product has its very own personality and this allows you to relate to them.
Puma's latest ads, which can be seen at your local London Underground station are a fantastic example of this and show their latest Mostro alongside a bat. This follows the themes of Puma's other recent animal ads and succeeds in giving the product its very own, very distinctive personality.
span class="technoratitag">Tags: Trainers, Sneakers, puma

Josh Rubin has an interesting post on his Coolhunting blog. The snowboard and apparel company Burton has opened a store in New York's Soho but in order to give you the full experience of using their apparel they have built in a freezer.

'the store includes the full range of products from each of the Burton brands: Red, Anon, Analog, Gravis and of course Burton. The highlight is their 20 degree below zero testing room. It's a minimally decorated ice box with a mirror, window and some seating-- a perfect way to get a quick sense of how warm the gear really is.'

Tags: Fashion, Burton

Protein seem to have a little bit of an exclusive on the new Maharishi boards. They feature the DPM Series 1 camouflage patterns.
'Each pattern contains references to the natural world in line with the theory set out in the 944-page camo encyclopaedia DPM Disruptive Pattern Material. The book, also available from dpmhi, emphasises camouflage's natural roots and artistic influences over its military associations. DPM features a 14-page section on the use of camouflage by skaters, with contributions from the Bones Brigade, Powell, Santa Cruz, Zoo York, Supreme, and East among others.'
via Protein
Tags: Design

The Brilliance is a great US blog that looks at pretty much everything that crops up in the lives of Chuck and Benjamin, two artists.

This is how they describe themselves: 'THE BRILLIANCE exists to serve as a resource for people of all interests around the world. When we launched in the spring of 2005, we started out with interviews from the likes of photographer Kareem Black, internet-fashion-superstore-Japan-based ConceptShop, and Henry Lee, art director of ESPN Magazine. The content is as varied as the tastes of the creators, which span from high-end fashion to cars to islands to art directors and more. We are simply here to share our likes, dislikes, interests, hobbies, and thoughts.'

They've had some great interviews with likes of David Gensler, Jason Bass and Futura.

This site is highly recommended.

Tags: Magazines, Ideas

Sony have organised Pret-a-PSP, a fashion show to promote the latest accessories for the PSP from the likes of Fendi, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Anna Sui.

This is yet another example of the ever narrowing gap between technology and fashion. With fashion trying to grab hold of the new opportunities that mass technologies such as the PSP and iPod represent, whilst the tech companies piggy back on the traditional allure of the fashion brands to reaach a wider audience and gain greater social acceptance.
Tags: Fashion, PSP

No real surprises with the Apple announcements today and certainly nothing revolutionary which was a bit disappointing. Apple announced the iTunes phone to no-one's surprise, they did however introduce the rather more exciting iPod Nano. This will replace the Mini and carries a 1.5 inch colour display, with 2gb and 4gb hard drives available.
Tags: Design, iPod

Flickr has been getting a reputation as a great trend tracking tool. So inspired by the PSFK cool hunt of a few months back I thought I'd have a quick look at what patterns are emerging in the UK vs the US.

Now this isn't the most scientific way of researching but it acts as a pretty good guide as to what is going on amongst the Flickr demographic. By typing in 'sneakers' to the Flickr search tags tool bar you get to see a snapshot of what North Americans are wearing on their feet. By typing 'trainers' you can see what their UK cousins are wearing.

The first thing of note is that the baseball boot is seeing a major resurgence, and in particular the Converse Allstar boot. This trend has been pretty evident on the streets of London for the last 12 months or so but it appears to be breaking the mainstream.

A big surprise is the lack of Nike ticks on both the UK and US searches. Yes there are a few but these are far outnumbered by the classic Adidas and Puma shoes that are clearly on the up for both sides of the Atlantic.

The key trends from this very quick piece of research are that the retro look is definitely in whilst the usually omniscient Nike takes a back seat.
Tags: Trainers, Sneakers, Coolhunt, Trends

I've just had my first full Nike ID experience from start to finish and it feels good! Back at the beginning of August I reported on a cool new Nike product that was to be released in September, the Nike Hammer watch, so I immediately began looking for this good looking piece of kit. My first port of call was obviously the Nike website and then the Nike ID site where, lo and behold, was the timepiece that I sought.

So, I began to enter into the enjoyable process that is purchasing from the Nike ID store. Despite the ubiquity of Nike products, the ID store makes you feel like you are buying something exclusive. Obvious you might think but however you personalise your purchase it's still going to have a big tick on it somewhere. However, the way in which you purchase and the level of customisation really allows you to create something that is massclusive (available to the masses yet exclusive).

The layout of the site is great and very intuitive with instant rendering of your customisations. The process is fairly quick and provides a great opportunity for you to show off your design skills to your mates and create the piece of kit that you've always wanted. Once I had designed my watch the registration process was simple and within weeks I was tracking my delivery through UPS.

The ID site is definitely worth checking out and gives you the opportunity to create a personalised Nike item, something that only top athletes have had the opportunity to do until now. The idea of mass customisation has been kicking around for a while now but it is surely here to stay and as more companies realise that they can charge a premium for this experience the more quickly it will spread.
Tags: Trends, Nike