I can't stop listening to...

This week, I have three bands for you to listen to! The reason being is I'm going to a gig tonight where all three of these bands are playing. I know for a fact it's going to be an amazing night, as I really love a lot of the songs I've heard from the bands.

I've picked out a song for each band for you to listen to: Flaws by Bastille, Talk Through The Night by Dog Is Dead and I Just Know by The Struts.


Bastille - Flaws

Talk Through The Night - Dog Is Dead 

I Just Know - The Struts

I can't stop listening to...

Cheryl Cole - Under the Sun (Cover by The Struts)

HTC One Freefall Fashion Shoot

I saw the HTC One advert on television about a month ago and thought it was brilliant, not only because it highlights two of my great loves, fashion and photography, but how visually stimulating and engaging it was.

I love the concept around it and how they've created the experiment. 

The advert sends Nick Jojola, a second year photography student from Upland to Arizona to capture the perfect fashion photo during a tandem freefall with the new HTC One mobile phone, basically showing how well the phone works even in extreme conditions.

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The HTC One Experiment

The Aim: Nick has to take the perfect fashion photo on an HTC One phone in freefall.

The Apparatus: 1000 feathers, 50 mirrors, 4 lights, a C-130 Hercules, 4 canisters of smoke, a model who skydives and an HTC One phone.

The Method: We gather the best skydiving team in the world. Nick will be falling at tandem at 126 miles per hour. The mode, Roberta Mancino, will be falling at 181 miles per hour. Therefore, Nick has 0.8 seconds to get the shot. We took a fashion designer and added a physics proffessor. Nick was asked to test the HTC One camera features he would need to get the perfect freefall photo. Low light capability for the dark jump. Video and photo to record the whole freefall and take stills at the same time. Instant capture to guarantee the perfect photo in time. Back light photography for when the sun is behind the model. Burst mode, keep pressing to take up to 99 shots in a reel. 

The Risks and Hazards: Like all good experiments, we came across some obstacles, phones dropped in testing, the jump taking it's hold and a crash landing. 

The Experiment: To see the results watch the commerical at HTC.com

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HTC One: The Experiment

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The HTC One Freefall Fashion Shoot

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Urban Geode Street Project: A Common Name

Paige Smith is the artist/graphic designer behind A Common Name. Her street art project named 'Urban Geode' caught my eye when I first saw it on the Plenty Of Colour site [http://plentyofcolour.com/] where I related it to my graduate collection EPOCH. 


The amazing 3D sculptures are placed in the Los Angeles area in small holes in buildings and pipes.


The three-dimensional paper shapes (created to look like geodes, crystal, quartz or other minerals) are so beautiful and look amazing in the gorgeous metallic colours. There is a spectacular purple and gold piece inside a post of some kind (bottom image) that actually inspired one of my later pieces in my collection, so I have that to thank Paige Smith for!


Below are some great images of the street art project. Smith says of her project: 


"A parallel aspect of these “geodes” in nature and in the city is they are always unexpected treasures. You might go hunting for treasures but you generally happen upon them during your adventures or casual interaction with the environment. I enjoy the fact that many people will not notice these, but some astute people will; that these will not last forever and the weather will affect them as naturally as it might in nature. So far I’ve made twelve—several have been trashed or taken away, and one has fallen apart due to rain."
(Text taken from A Common Name website: http://acommonname.com/street-art-project/)

(All images taken from A Common Name website: http://acommonname.com/street-art-project/)

Since the street art project, Smith has been working on a Giant Geode Installation at The Standard Hotel, Hollywood. On the A Common Blog [http://acommonblog.com/] I found a video of this amazing feature being created and installed. Take a look:


http://vimeo.com/43876685#


I hope you've enjoyed looking at Paige Smiths project, and if you'd like to see more of her work please visit her website at http://acommonname.com/ and her blog on http://acommonblog.com/.

The Struts - I Just Know (Official Video)

Please watch this new promo video for the new up and coming band signed to Mercury Records alongside Arcade Fire, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Maverick Sabre, Noah and the Whale, and other huge artists such as Razorlight, Paul McCartney, Stereophonics and The Killers.

Please welcome into the music scene, The Struts. 

Visit them on facebook and get a free download of their song I Just Know.

https://www.facebook.com/thestruts/app_190322544333196

Visit them on twitter too: https://twitter.com/#!/strutsofficial

These guys are deemed to be the next big thing!

Mary's Bottom Line

This is a great documentary! Mary Portas has lost a few marbles, but I love her. She means business, doesn't take rubbish from anybody and she tells it how it is.

She's on a mission to reinvigorate the British trades and clothing industry, after years of it being lost and forgotten. In todays Britain, everything we purchase as consumers comes from everywhere but Britain! Factories have been forced to close down and made to buy from abroad to ensure their products are still just as cheap as they used to be.

So, Mary wants to bring back the British trades, and make a pair of pants that are fully British; British material, British Lace and even British workers, putting them back behind the sewing machines!

The documentary follows Mary as she sets up her new British business and her endeavor to find herself some hard-working employees. She finds herself standing face to face with Britains incredible unemployment statisics for young people. It's a really great insight to the reality we have to face in Britain.

So watch it! Despite there being some mildly depressing parts in it, Mary is fantastic and the whole documentary is extremely interesting.

Gok Wan: Made in China - Gok Wan: Made in China

I really loved this documentary on 4OD! Gok Wan travels all around China to find out what 'Made In China' truly means after getting it tattooed on the back of his neck two years before.

He visits a jeans manufacturer and finds that each and every pair of jeans is fully handmade! And these weren't even designer jeans! He then visits a bra manufacturer and discovers that no matter where the company gets their order from, be it Victorias Secret or Asda, the quality is all exactly the same. So no need to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a bra if you get a good fit at Asda!

He also finds himself in a town named 'Thames Town', where everything has been re-created from Britain. There are copies of old tudor houses with the black beams and so many other typically westernised buildings. There's even an exact copy of church from England which Gok describes as a 'flat pack church from Ikea'.

The information gathered from the documentary is great and I found it so interesting. You also get a look at an old Chinese tradition of burning paper models of items (luxury or not) that late family members would like to have with them in the afterlife. Gok visits his familys home town and offers his paper gifts for his late grandparents and uncle in their tomb-like area. All this of course is after a mildly amusing phone call from his father telling him what paper items to buy!

I seriously recommened you watch this, just to have a little look at where pretty much everything you own in the room you are sat in right now and the very clothes on your back came from!

Alexander McQueen Spring Summer 1999 - Creating an art piece

This is just amazing!! Enough said!