My buddies Tim Davison and Dale Anderson are playing down at Ministry tonight, and in fact it’s the album launch party for Tim’s ‘Long way from home’ longplayer out on Baroque records. See you down the front 
My buddy at AKQA alerted me to this - Nike PhotoID allows users to take a photo of anything they like on their mobiles, and via photo recognition, the two dominant colours in that image will be used to create a pair of Nike Dunk high-tops. An image of the shoes is sent back to your phone, along with a unique code that can be used to buy the trainers online. Simple but rather cool use of the mobile as a personalisation engine. Sweet.
I used to promote a club night, and as part of our marketing, we’d get tshirts printed up, usually to be wrapped tightly around a lithe young PR girl (hey, hate the game, not the player).
There would be a substantial minimum order (unless you wanted to pay £100 for a single shirt) and it would take about 3 weeks (picked up from the printers, not delivered).
Which is why German company Spreadshirt seems that much more amazing to me, both a guy-who-likes-tshirts and as a digital planner.
So, first as a guy-who-likes-tshirts. Once signed up, the site sports a very simple web interface where you can create your own products. You pick which shirt (or hoodie / handbag etc) that you want to use as a foundation, then upload a design (or simply type text) to make it your own. You can then sell these designs on your own webshop, choosing your own commission (and therefore the final price to the consumer). There’s no minimum order, so I could use my shop to make one-off designs for me and my friends. Or I could sell my designs on the Spreadshirt Marketplace and try and make a few bob with my designs. Blimmin ace.
It’s experience co-creation meets social media meets crowdsourcing. Spreadshirt also pay users for their user-generated content via advertising displayed each user’s shop, a trend that we’re likely to see more and more of as UGC begins to attract real traffic (and therefore ad revenues). Genius.
Experience co-creation requires consumer involvement in order to create product or service - Spreadshirt provide the basic materials, leaving users to be creative. These created products by their very nature have social currency. If I make a tshirt, I’ll want to tell people about it, as it’s mine and says something about who I am (mine says ‘it would be rude not to’ btw). My friends will visit the shop, maybe buy a tshirt, and probably in turn want to set up a shop to create their own products.
Designs that are popular across the Spreadshirt network are then sold as top picks on the company’s Marketplace. Or users can chose to keep designs private, and create short runs as small as a single tshirt. Quite how they make money is something of a mystery to me, but they seem to be thriving, so something must be right.
So with giants like Nike and adidas offering mass customisation services (Nike Custom and Mi adidas), is this what’s next for apparel? Well, Spreadshirt is more a manufacturing and logistics company than a clothing brand, and it’s unlikely we’ll see a big player surrender all design responsibilities over to the hoi poloi. However for one-off campaigns (like adidas’ adicolor), this could be a way to allow consumers to feel real ownership of the brand.
A friend of mine recommended this producer out of Finland who creates beautiful ambient and downtempo electronica - here’s his bio:
“Planet Boelex is an electronic music project originating from Finland, started in 2004, consisting of only one member. Self-taught, learning music by experimenting on computer-based “tracker” softwares. Planet Boelex released the first freely downloadable EP “Sinking in the soup” in Janurary 2005, on one of the oldest netlabels in existence, Monotonik. This five track release shaped the sound of Planet Boelex, which could be defined as soft, melodic electronica, fused with influences from ambient and IDM. Still faithful to the style, continuing with new EP releases on the netlabels Ogredung, Monotonik and Kahvi Collective, all freely downloadable under the Creative Commons -licensing. During the years 2006 and 2007 Planet Boelex has performed live in Finland, Estonia, Italy, Croatia, United Kingdom, Russia, Latvia and Lithuania.”
All his music is free and available to share under the Creative Commons 3 license (attribution and no commercial uses, with no derivative works), so click on over and enjoy!
The Moleskine is reputedly (or is that ‘allegedly’) the notebook of choice for artists and writers, counting Picasso, Matisse and Hemingway among its owners. Of course it’s hard to see the real history of the brand through the slightly smokey marketing but that hasn’t stopped them amassing a loyal and creative fanbase.
I came across this group in Flickr, mainly because one of our painfully talented designers at Saint is a contributor (and definitely one of the best).
http://www.flickr.com/groups/moleskinerie/
Proof that we don’t need to leave old ways of creativity behind in order to share and build communities online - it’s dedicated to beautiful examples of Moleskine notebook pages: sketches, collages, in some cases just delighting in the handwritten word in this era of digital type.
Here’s one of my favourites:
And more here from Rob.
Can’t wait for this! Chuck Palahniuk rocks and Choke was a cracking book 
For one reason or another, over the weekend I was taken back to my time growing up in Sydney, and in particular that perennial summertime of childhood.
I have no idea why I was remembering all of this, my mind makes full use of its opportunities to meander on Sundays over the papers and a bacon sandwich, but nonetheless I was recalling all the various games we used to play in the playground at school.
We played the same kind of games that kids have been playing, I suspect, since time began; marbles, yo-yos, Top Trumps, toy cars.
But the best games were the ones where everyone could play together. ‘Tag’, ‘British bulldog’, ‘Catch & Kiss (or Kiss Chase if you’re from Blighty)’.
It got me thinking: isn’t the Internet just one big playground? Don’t all the same rules apply?
In the playground, everyone gravitated towards the kids who could tell the best stories, the kids who had stuff to give away, the kids who suggested games that everyone could play together.
And the last thing anyone wanted was for the adults to come to the playground to just ‘hang out’, because the adults always spoiled the fun by trying to make you do things, by always being so serious.
So, what kind of kid are you? Are you the kid who tell funny or entertaining stories? Do you ask your Dad for sweets you can give out to your friends? Or even better, do you come up with games that everyone can play, like this, this, this or this?
Or are you the serious adult trying to control the fun, telling the kids not to sing that song or run so fast, or climb on that? Or worse, interrupting the fun to try and get you to do something?
