Fashion label Black Milk have produced a line of Star Wars themed leggings and swimsuits. Why is this interesting? They initially released R2D2 and C3PO swimsuits without permission from George Lucas, so to have returned with a full line of legitimate merchandise means they must have impressed the Dark Lord. I have no idea how…
Tag: fashion
13 Tools to Promote Divergent Thinking
New ideas can come from anywhere, but are often hardest to find when you’re actually looking for them. However, I believe it’s possible to jumpstart your brain, even under pressure, by applying yourself to a bit of divergent thinking:
Divergent thinking typically occurs in a spontaneous, free-flowing manner, such that many ideas are generated in an emergent cognitive fashion. Many possible solutions are explored in a short amount of time, and unexpected connections are drawn. After the process of divergent thinking has been completed, ideas and information are organized and structured using convergent thinking.
So to help anyone out there who may be stuck for ideas, here’s my list of divergent thought helpers:
- Stumbleupon – highly recommended: tell it your interests and hit ‘stumble’ to be sent to a random site
- Buzzfeed – hit the randomize button in the top right corner (occasionally NSFW) to see something usually quite cool
- Mystery Seeker – type something in the search box and receive a set of google results for a totally different subject
- The Wiki Game – start in one place on wikipedia, and try to end up in another, while seeing loads of content on the way
- We Heart It – inspiring and high-quality imagery, often captioned, and with decent search functionality
- We Feel Fine – an emotional search tool, potentially good for scanning & visualising need states
- Popurls – see the freshest stories from a range of great online sources, with customisation options
- Newsmap – a visualisation of the latest news, powered by google (quite old but potentially interesting)
- Thesaurus.net – high quality thesaurus dictionary: search synonyms, antonyms, rhymes, quotes and idioms
- Visual Thesaurus – see the associated meanings between concepts – worth paying for
- Bing Visual Search – search the web visually in an intuitive, exploratory way
- oSkope – discover images, videos and products related to a search query
- TouchGraph SEO – see the links between topics and websites
Finally, and it may take more time for ideas to emerge this way, but TED really is an amazing resource for this kind of thing. I recently attended TEDxObserver, after which my head was swimming with ideas.
Can you suggest any of your own?
Web Discoveries for December 13th
These are my del.icio.us links for December 13th
- The Number 4 Blog –
A well-produced blog administered by my younger sister Laura, soon to be an intern at Vogue. - The Millennials – Pew Research Center –
The Pew Research Center begin a yearlong series of original reports that explore the behaviors, values and opinions of today’s teens and twenty-somethings. - Internet rules and laws: the top 10, from Godwin to Poe – Telegraph –
Meant to be funny, but there’s actually some useful stuff here! - 13 Ways to Promote Your Next Blog Post –
Some great advice for noobs and pros alike. - Twitter Guide Book – How To, Tips and Instructions by Mashable –
Great for clients looking to break into Twitter – very concise info.
Web Discoveries for October 20th
These are my del.icio.us links for October 20th
- Eigenharp Alpha –
A new kind of instrument for the future of expressive electronic music – research for an upcoming piece. - Wearable Technology, the next User Experience Frontier | UXbyDesign –
Some brilliant real-world applications of wearable computers, that could drive us further into the age of ubiquity. - Tech Crunchies – Internet Statistics and Numbers –
Meaningful snippets of statistics across a range of topics, including Mobile. US-centric though. - 95 websites you should totally bookmark today | News | TechRadar UK –
A bookmark of a page of great bookmarks. Lots of new stuff here, with interesting descriptions of them all. - ScentAir: Scent Marketing, Fragrance Systems, Aroma Diffusion –
A company I’d love to work with on an upcoming campaign, following a write-up in WIRED magazine.