Is a young British designer who is starting to make a play. A graduate of London's prestigious St Martins College, Hannah designs stunning women and men's jewellry. Her current collection is heavily inspired by rock'n'roll but she has also produced more intricate pieces such as the Braille Bracelet pictured left. The piece contains a message written in Braille that adds an extra element to the piece.
Website

Tags: Fashion, jewelery

Ok, so I was a little bored last Saturday morning. I thought I'd photograph my favourite trainers from my collection. They are starting from top left, Nike Zvezdochka, Nike unknown, Nike Cheyenne, Nike Mach Runner & Nike ACG.

Tags: Trainers, Sneakers

Seth Godin's blog directed me to this rather bizarre but interesting blog. I wonder if this movement will gain any real momentum. It does want to make you cover one eye with your hand though.

If you're a fan of mash-up then I've got the perfect site for you. In the late 90s DJs started to make a name for themselves by 'bootlegging' records, putting an a cappella vocal over an instrumental version of another famous track (my favourite being Mojo's Lady mixed with Brandy and Monica's The Boy is Mine - I don't know why but it just worked for me). This has moved right into the mainstream with the likes of Two Many DJs. Well now there's a pretty swish dutch website called Mash Culture that has regular new mash-ups to download, including some pretty cool mixes.

Also check out Mashing from 64-95 for some Lemon Jelly mashing.

Tags: mashup

I'm always on the lookout for cool digital watches and was doing a little bit of coolhunting on flickr when I came across Nixon.

Nixon produce a range of mid-price watches and most are pretty run-of-the-mill. The red, industrial looking digital watches however, look the business.

Tags: watch, digital

British Designer, Daniel Brown, has an excellent site up at the moment. The site is called Play/Create and is very aptly named, encouraging people to mess around with the shockwave movies that are fully interactive.

Brown was the London Design Museum's Designer of the Year 2004 and has worked on projects for a wide variety of clients, including Playstation, Warp Records, BBC, VW and Vodafone.

With credentials like these it's no surprise that Play/Create is such a joy.

Tags: Design, danielbrown, playcreate

Amaztype is a flash based navigational tool for Amazon. Using its very simple interface users can search for either books, music or films. Once the search is on Amaztype pulls together all the images of all the relevant books, cds or dvds and spells out the search word. The titles are navigable with basic information available and an option to click through to the title's Amazon page.

This really enhances the experience of using Amazon and it's a cool gimmick to show your friends.

Amaztype is a great example of mash-up and is one that other companies should look to explore. Coincidentally, Influx have a post on their blog regarding the Washington Post Remix. Readers have been encouraged to create useful applications in the same way that Google and Yahoo have encouraged people to put their mapping software to alternative uses.

Influx point to a step by step guide to achieve this:

1. Media company creates original content

2. External web developers play with content and build new applications for users to access that content

3. Users interact with content in new ways that are more relevant to them

Tags: amaztype, mashup

Apparently:
"Originally, the Adicolor was a shoe that was launched in the 80’s. It was a special model that came with pens so you could customize your own shoes. When the 35th Anniversary series came out, they used the Adicolor name for the Adicolor Superstars.

Now adidas will launch a full series of Adicolor: 6 series each sorted by color. The first one is a white series delivered with pens. The 5 others are shoes customised by artists each time with a color theme.”

So it isn't the Adidas alternative to Nike ID. Nevermind.
Tags: adicolor

This weekend I managed to pop along to our favourite cinema, The Coronet, and check out a movie I've been looking forward to for a while. Based on a John le Carré novel, the Constant Gardener is a beautifully shot film. Directed by Fernando Meirelles of City of God fame, the Constant Gardener maintains the pace and colour of Merielles famous picture.

The story is that of a British diplomat and his slightly errant wife, who are stationed in Kenya. Her shady dealings lead to her murder and quite a few plot twists. For a much more informative review click here.

Tags: constantgardener

I recently met up with William Higham of Next Big Things Research, a London trends agency, and posed him a few questions.

1. You're from a music background, how did this get you interested in trends?

I started off interested in the bands and then, the longer I was in it, the more I became interested in the audience. Plus I’ve always been interested in how popular culture shifts and mutates. I have been an amateur observer of popular culture since I was an adolescent: my collection of social histories of 20th century British and American culture and vintage back issues of magazines from NME and Vogue to Interview and i-D are second to none!


2. At what point did you decide to start up your own company and why?

I remember being at a Meat Loaf gig in Birmingham NEC in the mid-90s and looking around me at all of these 30- and 40-somethings in jeans and T-Shirts and thinking “Who ARE these people? How does Meat Loaf fit into their life? And what do they do when they’re not at a gig.” I stuck around the industry for a few more years, but the seed was sown. Plus, as a spotter of trends, I could see that, once the Internet had kicked in, the future of record companies was looking decidedly shaky …


3. How has your company developed?

It started off as me in my front room and has since developed into a small team based in an office in Soho, with correspondents in various cities around the UK


4. Do you find it a help or a hinderance that you haven't come from a marketing or design background?

I have come from a marketing background (I did marketing for record companies for almost 10 years) and that’s proved a vital tool for understanding both the consumer trends themselves and also the marketing implications of such trends. But I am unusual in that I don’t have an advertising background. It was a little odd at first, as I meant I had to get my head around how ad and media agencies were set up, but it’s certainly not proved a hindrance: having a more unusual background means I can, perhaps, take a more lateral approach. Plus many consumer trends come from the Entertainment and Leisure sector – and my background gives me a great understanding of that sector.


5. Could you provide us with some insight as to how you trend spot?

There is no hard and fast rule as to where trends can come from: they can come from any sector or any demographic (e.g. a trend in Health could appear first in the Travel sector) and they can also come from above (celebrities or brands) or below (directly from consumer tribes) e.g. Marlon Brando started the trend for T-Shirts by simply wearing one in the movie ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ but the trend for skateboarding came from the street. So for us, it’s vital to hunt for trends across all industries, sectors and locations; to talk to consumers as well as experts; and to monitor cutting edge and mainstream media. Just keep an eye out for anything unusual, in anyone and any sector – then try to work out WHY it’s happening.


6. Do you find that companies are open to trend spotting?
On the whole, the most successful ones are into trend spotting. And more and more companies are now starting to understand the importance of it as an aid to both marketing and strategy


7. What are 3 major trends that are going to break soon?

The New Puritans: despite tabloid reports to the contrary, we are seeing Britain’s youth becoming increasingly conservative and anti-hedonistic

Video Tech: from PSP and video iPod to IPTV and VOD, the future of personal tech will shift from audio to video

Eastern European Cuisine: as we spend more weekend breaks in Eastern Europe and more Eastern Europeans come over here, expect to see a rise in traditional Baltic and Eastern Bloc food and drink, from organic Polish beer to snacks like Golumpki

Tags: Trends

Can be downloaded here. It's pretty cool. I like the proposition, that anyone can play. It's evidence that the gaming companies are moving away from targeting the teenage geeks and positioning their products as home entertainment centres.

Xbox 360
Tags: xbox360

You may recall that I had my very own experience of Nike ID back in September. Well now you can do the same with the Three Stripes too. Yes Adidas have launched Adicolor, your opportunity to mess about with your Stan Smiths, Micropacers and Gazelles.

First launched in 1984, the ADICOLOR project was the earliest customization program of its kind. Buyers were given a pair of all white Adidas and a set of weatherproof, quick drying markers, which allowed the wearers to create their own original look on their new kicks.

Via Protein OS

Microzine, the cool gallery/store from North London is branching out.

"Tomorrow sees the launch of ONE - a collaboration with Microzine and Exposure; same Microzine spirit, different postcode."

"The space is gallery-esque and the finds the usual über limited edition treats. Highlights of current stock include adidas/mcm collaboration kicks (there are only 125 in the world and they have five here), vintage Eames and even a '79 Björn Borg tracksuit (a definite upgrade from the neighbouring Topman trackies)."

3/4A Little Portland Street, W1
Tel: 020 7636 8969

via Urban Junkies
Tags: microzine

I love my adidas is a cool new blog on the block. Some excellent shots of rareities and new releases. These mash-up Stan Smiths caught my eye.
Tags: adidas

One day measured in a pixel per second looks like this. It's incredible to break down the complexities of a whole day and see it illustrated in such a simple manner. Check out the time now here.
via: RM116

Hyde is an online magazine published 4 to 6 times a year in
irregular intervals aiming to provide a forum for different kinds of unrestrictedly-practised art.

"In each edition, we would like to give comers and artists the opportunity to present themselves and their work, while the selection of the artists is based on the planned topic."

"We try not to focus so much on a certain genre or style but on a uniform philosophy. Each artist is provided with a more or less unlimited number of pages for his presentation and also given the liberty to design the layout of these pages. Hence, the magazine's layout and content are highly influenced
by all participating artists."

"Hyde shall become a communication platform and give artists the chance to get some feedback regarding their work. We believe this is valuable input especially for still unknown artists."

Tags: hidemagazine

For a friends birthday this week we all piled along to London's latest eatery, Annex 3. Brought to you by the same people behind Loungelover and Le Trois Garcons, Annex 3 is pretty much what you'd expect from these gastronomic entrepreneurs.

Hassan Abdullah, Stefan Karlson and Michel Lassare have made the decor of Annex 3 a mish-mash of 80s technology, fin de siecleopulencee and 60s swinging London. Playing a good mix of music, which included Koop and Thievery Corporation the venue was spot on. The food is a mash-up of French, Malaysian andSwedishh cuisine and the menu promises some interesting dishes.

The experience itself was pretty good, although the service was rather slow and the portions a little too small for our liking. However, if you're at a loose end in central London this place isdefinitelyy worth a visit.

Tags: annex3

I first came across the phenomenon that is Krumping back in the summer. The New York Times had an article about this craze that had hit Los Angeles.

Well, fashion photographer turned director, David LaChapelle, has created a feature length film on this manic dance craze.

Krumping is a fast and aggressive form of dancing that appears to almost be fighting. Invented by Thomas Johnson, a birthday clown, the dance is also known as clown dancing.

The Observer says:
"Krump dancing resists definition because it's a style that is continually changing. In the course of Rize, we see how the dance evolves from the 'stripper dance', a high-octane booty-shake into a kind of sinuous, furious, free-form demonic possession (some dancers even 'get krump' in church, as a way of communing with Jesus). Glistening limbs flail at impossible speed; the movement is so aggressive that it looks like the prelude to a fight. One dancer calls it ghetto ballet."

Tags: krumping

Lavazza have released their 2006 calendar. You can see more of their beautifully shot calendar here.
Tags: lavazza

:trends: favourite Marc Newson has designed a line for Samsonite. Famous for his work with Nike, G-Star and Ford, to name but a few, Newson has now trained his sights on reworking luggage.

'Combining ground- breaking mesh materials, courtesy of previous work with Nike, with an eye-popping colour scheme, apparently courtesy of the Teletubbies, the results have moved Samsonite to herald his creations not as luggage, but as "un-luggage".'
via the Times

Tags: marcnewson

Last week we posted on the rather marvelous Hart+Larsson. Well they emailed me the other day to let me know that they'd added some short films to their site. And what marvelous films they are. Must views are 14 and Wow and the beautiful Yellow Springs Ohio.
Tags: film

Brief Blog has a post about the latest Nike Football ad that has hit the Mexican streets. A quite superb example of outdoor media, this ad is a great idea beautifully executed. Mind you, it can't be all that hard to work on the Nike Football account eh?
Tags: Nike, Football