The JC Report, the web's leading fashion newletter, interviews trend setters and fashion experts for each newsletter.

The latest issue features Piers Fawkes of PSFK and asks for his opinion on the intersection of fashion, trends and technology.

"We're finding that fashion spreads beyond apparel in more and more ways. Before we may have had our clothes, our car, and our house. Now we also have the other objects in our life to wrap around us and make definitive statements about who we are. Our phone, our PDA, our iPod, our furniture, our vacation reflect who we are — and in today's world we have access to these articles in a way we never had before. As such, we demand products that fit with our lifestyle (or the lifestyle we imagine or aspire to have) from wherever they are available in the world — this impacts product design, packaging, and retail experience."

Tags: Fashion, Trends

The weekly newsletter Flavorpill has launched the F-List, a brief guide to, amongst other things, the best music, artists, DVDs, fashion, magazines and blogs of 2005. The selection also provides a good snapshot of what is likely to break into the mainstream during 2006.

"Think of it as an A-List of up-and-comers: our newest tradition, the F-List is Flavorpill's snapshot of emergent cultural happenings, both offline and on. It's your guide to the artists, trends, and technologies that have already shaped the way we think in 2005, and will have still more impact in 2006 and beyond."

Tags: flist, trends2006

Microsoft and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) recently held a competition to find the future of the PC experience. Contestants were asked to "envision how form factor influences the digital lifestyle in four categories: personal productivity, entertainment, communication & mobility, and living & lifestyle."

The whole concept of asking outsiders to contribute to your brands R&D has been around for a long time. However, it seems to really add some fresh thinking to often uninspiring sectors.
via Engadget
Tags: Design

I seem to be the only person I know that hadn't heard of Howies. This clothing brand was recently named one of Britain's coolest brands by Superbrands.

Founded in 1995 by a couple of skaters and outdoor sports lovers, Howies never try to be 'cool', just good, honsest and thought provoking.

Their website is one of the best around and the clothes are right up there too.

Tags: howies

Blowback is a new monthly magazine that has hit the streets of the UK. With editorial along a similar line to Vice and Good For Nothing, Blowback has the slightly unusual honour of being produced in Birmingham. It therefore avoids much of the London bias normally found in popular culture magazines.

The writing is to the point and obviously the work of twenty somethings, as they make obscure late 80s references.

The design is lovely and the allround feel of the magazine is that of quality. My only qualm was the lack of features in the December issue.

Tags: Magazines

In true trends blog style I thought I'd publish a few things that I reckon will be big in 2006. So here they are:

1. Vodcasting to take off and spawn advercasting - thanks to the iPod, PSP and increasing

2. Krumping to dominate the hip hop scene and lead to companies tying in with product and merchandise lines

3. Death of CDs / portable media to become increasingly obsolete -

4. Year of the media centre (brought about by the Xbox 360 and PSP) - Mac will surely consolidate it's forays into the home entertainment market and produce a lifestyle media centre, they may not lead the charge

5. Year of the Longtail - someone will launch a killer long tail company and the book will be launched in spring

6. Web 2.0 to develop and it become the norm to create online content

7. Google to keep pushing the boundaries of free ad supported content

8. First wi-fi cities in Europe and the first Google wi-fi city

9. More and more brands moving their ad budgets online and into new media - as the audience for TV fragments with timeshifting

10. Major TV networks to provide downloads of their programming - this is already beginning to happen

11. Bit Torrent to become massive and mainstream through adoption by mainstream media companies

12. Eco trend to become more forceful - companies will HAVE to have a green/sustainable product

13. Simplification - increasingly there will be fewer choices (to make our lives easier) but increased personalisation. New things will be simple to use and simple to buy (eg iPod) whilst we will personalise our lives by buying second hand goods and be prepared to spend more on rarities, one-offs and customised items

14. Advergaming to be huge

15. More virtual games, becoming full time jobs for people - in the same way that for some, blogging has become their sole employment

If anyone disagrees or thinks I've missed something major, let me know here.
Tags: Trends2006

Squidoo is a forum for anyone to write about the subject they consider themselves an expert in. Despite the terrible name, I've come across two really great lenses so far one belongs to the doyen of planning, Russell Davies, and the other is the work of Victor Eylis who's written a lens on trends featuring some of the leading trend and pop culture sites.

Squidoo

Tags: squidoo

In true consumer created content style, over on PSFK we have asked readers to come up with some t-shirt designs. And boy do they look good.

You can order them here and do some cool things with them, maybe even mash them up.

Tags: psfk, tshirt

It's not often that someone takes a classic design and actually improves it. But that's exactly what a young Swedish design student has done.
Oskar Karlin has produced this map of the London Underground and it works out the distance of stations in time all from his nearest station, Elephant and Castle. The full story is here. Nice site Oskar.
Tags: Design

Here's an article I posted on IF this week:

I saw the new Honda 'film' for the first time last night and was blown away. We've mentioned on this site before (here & here) that advertising is not just about entertaining the audience, it's about selling a product.

The best ads do both.

The new Honda campaign is cut from the finest advertising cloth. There's a story within the ad, there's the brand story, and then there are the product stories. But the beauty of this is that they are all the same story, The Power of Dreams.

Watching the film with the sound turned up you feel as though Honda are actually tugging at your heart strings - throughout you're captivated by a bald man singing Andy Williams and driving the most mundane to the most exciting Honda products.

If you follow the call to action and check out the website you get rewarded with the opportunity to discover the deeper stories behind Honda's dream for each product as it rams home just how innovative a company Honda are. If you showed an ad exec a Honda Super Cub to sell they'd probably run a mile (it's hardly the most glamorous of products after all). But using the history and heritage of the product you realise that this vehicle has a place in history and that you actually quite fancy one.

It's not often that a company comes up with such a powerful line as 'The Power of Dreams' and has the belief in themselves to actually back it 110%. The recent Honda work has been excellent, not only from an entertainment perspective but also from a product perspective. Every step of the way you are staring at the product and slowly but surely deciding that you want one.

This campaign isn't particularly innovative or 'breakthrough'. It doesn't use media in an exciting new way, it's just a damn fine piece of advertising.

Tags: honda, advert

Anyone who is yet to be convinced by mash culture need look no further than Futuro's wonderful mash of two classics. Marvin Gaye's wonderful What's Going On? is layed over one of the 90s greatest tunes, Unfinished Sympathy by Massive Attack. You can download it here.

Tags: Music, mashup

This is a top site: Pandora

Put in your favourite beat combo/diva/troubadour and it finds similar stuff for you to listen to on your computer.

Very good.

Tags: pandora