Wagamama's Huge Three Sided T-Shirt

Wagamama means naughty/wilful child in Japanease and as a brand they think of themselves as fun, creative amd a litlle quirky. Well i think they have shown us and visitors to London Spitalfield's Market these traits yesterday, through their organised drawing activity, on a a seven foot tall, three sided T-shirt shaped installation.

Above are the three finished designs by illustrators Adam hayes, Billie Jean and Container Plus. They each customised a side of the installation, while the public and tourists could watch and engage with them, whilst they were at work. The event organised by Intercity, reminds me of Street Wars that was previously mentioned in my blog. Again, I think its great that the viewer can be entertained by watching an artist at work and I think it is an exciting way to launch and promote Wagamam's new T'Shirt comp, as it definately draws alot of attention and not just from passers by.

The competition set by Japanese noodle restaurant chain Wagamama, is aimed at students and young professionals to design new Wagamama staff T-shirts.

The inspiring artwork will remain on display in Spitalfields Market for a week, until October 8th. Wagama's positive design competition is searching for the next generation of creative talent. They think what you wear says alot about who you are and they want us to design them a new t-shirt design, for all the staff across the UK to wear!

As well as getting your design worn up and down the country you can win also a £1000 design fee, £250 wagamama vouchers, a celebration meal at your local wagamama for 30 of your family and friends, promotional usage (including submission in your portfolio) and a work placement with renowned art and design collective containerPLUS. It sounds pretty good to me, if I get some time I might try and enter it and give it a go too!

Whats your favourite from the three??

HARD ROCK CAFE'S ROCKIN WALL

Hard Rock Cafe opened it's newest branch on September 8th in Las Vegas, with one of the world's largest and highest resolution, interactive screens. The screen is a huuuuge... 72 square feet and can run with up to six users at a time. This cool concept allows users to flick, zoom and enjoy exploring through the Hard Rock Cafe's entire photo, video and music collection. Users can search by genre of music, type of item, year, type of music and location of the actual piece of memorabilia. It was created by San Fransico based company Obscura Digital and a demonstration of how the wall works can be seen below:

Together with the wall, they have built in booth and surface displays for other consumers to browse and use. 

I find it crazy how interactive media is advancing and how quickly! It makes me wonder if in the future at home we will have interactive TV's where we can zoom in or out and really flick the screen to change channels! It seems we are being surrounded by a more digital environment and as a consumer, constantly involving in new experiences, which involve more of our senses together. I am sure more massive touch-screen/interactive walls will be likely to grow more affordable and popular over the years.

Jump In My Pool Music Video

Friendly Fires are a band I have previously mentioned in my blog and "Jump in My Pool" from their debut album, is my favourite track. The music video, which was created for the promotion of the track I think is wonderfully simple and beautiful:

It simply consists of two synchronized swimmers being filmed (upside-down) underwater, in an ambiently lit pool. Their elegant flowing movements captured, produce alluring shapes that are captivating to watch. 

From simply turning the camera upside down, it appears now that the reflective water surface is beneath them and they are floating above. The contrast in the deep mysterious blue and the dazzling white spotlight, creates a magical/dreamy feel to the video, especially through the bubbles which are caught by the light throughout and have be overlaid on top of the clips of the band singing.  The atmosphere and mode created in this video works really well with the synths and sounds the Friendly Fires produce.

Southbank Street Performers

On a sunny weekend I went down to Southbank in London, where street performers lined the bank of the Thames. There were large circles of crowds gathered round numerous acts, which you couldn't help but stop to watch. The different acts included break-dancers, entertainers from Ghana, a contortionist, living statues and guitar players.

Each set of entertainers impressed and got their crowd smiling, clapping and cheering. The atmosphere was infectious and a communal feel good factor, which is something you don't often get in London.

Some of the performers there purely make their living off the coins and pennies collected at the end of their show, like the unusual three-piece from Ghana. Their act consisted of an extremely, wierdly flexible, small man getting into some odd positions and pulling some gymnastic-style moves. Another man balanced, tossed and caught a football on a small horizontal stick and ran around spinning a bicycle wheel from his mouth. The last member was spinning huge metallic bowls on top of an umbrella, which was on top of knife from his mouth. He then went under what seemed to be a virtually impossible, ridiculously low limbo. Most elements of their act were bizarrely entertaining and funny. I was impressed with their creativity, especially in their use of low-budget props.

The other set of performers I really enjoyed and was extremely impressed by, was the group of breakdancers. The whole crowd utterly gripped by their talented moves, which were accompanied by some well chosen dance tracks. Below is a video clip showing the best bits:

I just loved the summery and european ambiance of the day. It reminded me of various holidays around europe which felt much more relaxed, friendly and a sense of community... which I feel is often lacking, especially in London.

adding pics shortly... but here are some videos:

A Perk For A Fortnight

The massively successful american sitcom Friends, is celebrating its 15th Aniversary since the first pilot episode went on TV, in the form of a pop-up version of the coffee shop, Central Perk. This two week long stunt is in aid of promoting Warner TV's new limited-edition box set featuring unseen footage.

The opening of the coffee shop did not feature the original cast, although the actor who plays Gunther was in London on the first day alongside other celebrities including Peaches Geldof, Sophie Ellis Bextor and Kimberly Walsh. So there's no chance of Rachel serving you your coffee, but maybe some lookalikes should have been cast to add to the atmosphere and really make you feel like your on set in New York!

The coffee shop has been designed as a replica including the fake redbrick walls, fake tiffany-style lamps, the velvet orange sofa, green armchair, Oriental rugs, tiled floors and big 'Central Perk' stickers on the windows. There are also real props from the programme scattered around to add to the nostalgia and novelty factor. For example Joey's "best buds" bracelet, the "Geller Cup", the hurtful list Ross wrote about Rachel saying she was "just a waitress", Rachel's wedding dress and Brown Bird Cookies. I can imagine there will be a lot more photo snapping and cameras flashing capturing customers posing next to all the props, rather than drinking the free coffee that would probably go cold by the time the excitement had worn off a little! Creating a less peaceful and relaxing atmosphere than the original of the show!

Unlike the other pop-up I mentioned in my blog (The Double Club), the coffee shop only serves drinks, apart from a small selection of chocolates and cookies. There is a very short menu, consisting of 5 types of coffee which are all free! Before visiting, you can download your free coffee voucher from http://www.warnertv.com/friends/.

Central Perk is on Broadwick Street, just off Carnaby Street in London. It is open from the 24th September till the 6th October. I heard about it from a friend who tried to visit the shop yesterday, but the queues where just too big! Unfortunately I am back at Uni so won't get a chance to visit the coffe shop. I definitely would have popped in if I could though, for those photo opportunity's and experience the excitement and hype surrounding a TV show I never seem to get sick of how many times I see it...I don't think I ever will!

I think the pop-up shop is already proving to be a massive success and hugely popular with the enormous fan base the TV series has! I even think that the idea of replicating "Central Perk" as a coffee shop that would stick around a little longer than just two weeks, would also work and be a popular, steadily busy tourist attraction (similar to that of the several Cheers bar replicas located in the USA).

Sicilian Nightlife in Catania

Catania is Sicily's second largest city, situated in the middle of the eastern Ionian coast. The City is vibrant and full of grand architecture, which almost feels like you're on a movie set. Unfortunately, most of the walls leading up to the centre are faced with untalented graffiti, which gives the city a slightly dirty feel and takes away some of the beauty of the buildings.

I visited Catania and experienced the buzzing, friendly nightlife. I definitely stood out as a foreigner in the city, as I was not wearing the norm and sexy look, of tight jeans and tight tops, which nearly every woman... and man seemed to be wearing.

It was unusual to see such a large number of men so well groomed as here. It is obvious that they take pride in their appearance, but so much so that they might be mistaken as homosexual in England! This, together with the more intimate greetings they give each other is something unseen in England.

Men and women seem to openly look at each other more, on both parts and it is not taken as sleazy on either side. This is very different from England where the onus is nearly completely on the man and with the woman it seems to be less frequent. Indeed, in one bar a young pretty blonde girl was stood, fascinated by our group or a couple of minutes. When our Italian guide said 'hi', she didn't turn away in embarrassment or nerves. Instead she beamed a big smile and said 'ciao' back. She was very friendly and chatted with us before leaving with her friends.

In the main bar area, most of the customers were stood/seated outside drinking and chatting. There seemed to be no danger of lairy, drunk Sicilians anywhere, just people happy to be out on a Friday night. The only danger you had to be aware of was the crazy erratic driving of Sicilians on their scooters, nipping through all the side streets. If you had a bottle/plastic cup you were free to roam from different bars, across the streets. Making no reason for downing drinks and moving on abruptly, which also added to the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. The middle square was full of people all night. Only at about 3 or 4 am did people seem to move on or go home for the night.

After visiting Catania and experiencing the Italian culture, it made me think about our own and wish it was a bit more like theirs: relaxed, open and friendly. Our weather does not permit such relaxed and communal gatherings in outside spaces very often, but hopefully the UK will become more European in its relaxed social and drinking culture in the future.

iDaft App

I have recently bought an iPhone and am now enjoying personalising it by adding numurous applications. You can download from a massively wide variety off apps, some you can choose to pay for and some, which are completely free... including iDaft.

iDaft is an app that lets you recreate your own version of Daft Punk's popular track "Harder Better Faster Stronger". It is incredibly simple, consisting of a 16 different squares in a grid-like design that you touch to the beat of the song, each square has a pre-recorded lyric that plays. I had lots of fun playing it and still find it stupidly entertaining! It's completely free, so if your a Daft Punk fan there's no reason not to give it a go and download it! Go on and have some daft fun!

This impressive you tube video is from about two years ago, but if you haven't seen it its made by some pretty talented hands... who must have had a lot of practice too!!