Zune Valentine’s art

WE'RE SUPPORTING

In a marketplace oversaturated with photoprints, Finnish illustrator and designer Inka Jarvinen has managed to make it look new. Her up-andpcoming label, Girls Of Boredom, showcases her photo cut and paste style, while her client work sees her creating record covers, fashion show identities, and magazine covers.

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

When you first see The Gershwin Hotel, you might think it’s an art gallery or a public art installation. The white, bird-like shapes sticking out of its red facade is certainly unique, without being too loud. The rooms are rather small but the location and accessible price range makes it all worth it.

WE'RE WEARING

Luxury goods have been getting a bad rap lately, and for good reason. Now I don’t know how you roll, but we don’t know many people who enjoy covering themselves head-to-toe in someone else’s initials. Yet for some reason designers think that diamante logos and monogrammed tapestries are the best mediums to communicate their brand. So it’s just as well LA based eyewear label Barton Perreira doesn’t play by the rules. Starting out less than a year ago, you won’t find their designs getting over-excited by insignia. Instead, these guys hand make their frames in Japan to rely on precision, fit and design. And that’s the way it should be.

WE'RE THINKING

I wish I could remember my dreams more often. I wish the damn things wouldn’t go in one ear and straight out the other. Who plants them and why? And how come the few I recall are like tiny portions of an indie blockbuster, minus the credible acting and the killer plot twists. Sigh. Life is like a dream sometimes. And then you wake up. [illustration by Sam Weber]

WE'RE READING

On a recent trip to San Francisco, I was lucky enough to meet with John Trippe, the main man behind the popular arts based site, Fecal Face. Read more

Oh man! If I was twenty again, a jumble of nerves and a well of electric energy, I’d be in the front row for every damn MGMT gig. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

The first album released by the Malian duo Amadou & Mariam, Dimanche a Bamako, bordered on exceptional, if not for its songwriting then for its sheer diversity. You’d be forgiven for approaching cautiously an album that draws its influences from Syria, Cuba, Egypt, India, and Colombia, as well as its own country – much like a restaurant that offers every cuisine on the planet: choose one and do it well, you’d argue. But the album is fantastic: so full of life, so catchy and so accessible. Read more