Charm Café is a youth focused creative centre located in Zhongshan Bei Lu, the creative street of Hangzhou. They provide a platform for Chinese artists and designers to present and sell their artwork. They also regularly host offline activities to encourage creative thinking amongst Chinese youth. Some of their main activities include the monthly West Lake Idea Mart (DIY Mart) and the weekly Charm Café creativity class and exhibition. Every October and May respectively they also help organize China Hangzhou Cultural & Creative Industry Expo and China International Cartoon and Animation Festival.

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Designed by the Zurich-based firm of architects RAAFA, the 2016 Rio Olympic Tower will sit just a few miles off the coast. On the island of Cotonduba it’ll be perfectly visible along most of the Rio seafront and beyond. It will contain an amphitheatre, auditorium, cafeteria, library and even a bungee-jumping platform at the top that will truly turn it into a thing of beauty. Acting as a beacon, a “welcome to Rio” landmark, it will be 100% sustainable and capable of keeping itself and the Olympic Village going. By pumping seawater to the top of the tower it will not only create a truly spectacular cascade effect but also power turbines that will produce energy during the night. An extremely clever combination of solar panels and turbines makes all of this possible. It will be an engineering and architectural masterpiece and a thing of beauty that will add to the natural beauty of the city.

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Facial hair became very, very common in the last few years, with almost every male who could grow it sporting some. It all began a few years back with shaped designer stubble, but pretty soon as this look became ubiquitous if not actually compulsory a facial-hair race developed in which male celebs and their followers sought to outdo each other in furriness. The stubble grew and grew, ending with Brad Pitt’s Mad Miner straggly nightmare and David Beckham’s patchy face-carpet. But now, inevitably, the beardy backlash has begun. Brad Pitt recently shaved his off, as had Russell Brand, Robbie Williams, Joaquim Phoenix, Keanu Reeves and Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley, to name but a few.

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On the picture we see a poster located on the floor of the museum shop in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. It was put there as a floor mat during one of their modernism exhibitions ‘Cold War Modern’. It reads in four languages; “ You are entering the retail sector… ”. The rest of the text reads like an instruction one is not supposed to ignore. Most people will immediately make the connection with Checkpoint Charlie, but not all. “Checkpoint C” was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Germany and West Germany during the Cold War. It was a symbol between East and West and symbolized power, fear and separation. Upon entering instructions such as these were also visible.

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Workspring in Chicago has gone the holistic route with their offering of urban workspace. They are presenting an environment that engages you with the latest technologies and a staff that is there to be at your beck and call. When arriving you can receive your favorite cup of coffee or tea and your newspaper before you start working. It is located in a creative hotspot and thus you don’t only find people working there but also the latest book signings or presentations. The place is a veritable hidden oasis with its garden and for the Urban Nomad the perfect location to get away from the hustle bustle of quick and dirty working to something that is healthier.

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Swedish clothing brand Elvine recently launched the Creators Inn by Elvine. They offer hotel-like accomodations for free to young creative people visiting cities like Gothenburg (where Elvine is based) and Stockholm (in the Scandic Hotel). Aim of the initiative is to promote the local area and give something back to travelling young talents like musicians, DJs, designers, artists, writers, etc whose presence can contribute to building up a more interesting cultural environment. Elvine is looking for partners supporting similar initiatives elsewhere.

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25 students at the prestigious Seoul National University in Korea took to their university campus to promote global warming awareness. The Information and Multimedia Culture majors collaborated with D’Strict, a leading Interactive Design Firm, to create the exhibit “Scorching Tomorrow”. Together they turned the exterior wall of the Cultural Center of the university campus into a social message space. The building itself was used to show the effects of increasing temperatures and the ultimate submersion under the extra water generated by the melting of the poles. A sophisticated beam projector was used to display a series of realistic high resolution motion images of the walls deteriorating because of the weather conditions. This important academic institution allowed this in order to give the next generation and future leaders environmental awareness.

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The disaster in the gulf of Mexico, caused by the drilling platform of British Petroleum (BP) blowing up, has been truly devastating for the area. But accidents happen. What truly has people up in arms is the manner in which this could have happened and what has been done since. Anger is rampant because once again we realize that a lovely and thoughtful slogan, Beyond Petrol, can be such a horrible lie. This anger has turned a lot of people creative. After seeing the creative backlash against BP it snowballed into Flickr groups and worldwide contests around the BP logo. Amateur photoshopping has come out of the kitschy shadows of the internet and into the mainstream.

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Like our number 11 Louis Vuitton, ESPN, an American sports broadcaster, doesn’t really have that tight of a connection with the World Cup or football for that matter. Of course it’s a sport and they present news on it, but the attention for it outside of the MLS reporting and the World Cup once every four years it’s not like its European or South American brethren. This World Cup however they decided to change and have grabbed it as the opportunity to connect with a wider audience. Their World Cup match trucks are riding through Los Angeles and New York and are showing World Cup matches on their flat screens while also serving award winning food. You can track where they are via their twitter handles @ESPNWCTruckNYC and @ESPNWCTruckLA. The also commissioned a series of world cup murals that they commissioned. Local South African illustrators AM I Collective were commissioned by Wieden + Kennedy to make murals depicting the 32 teams in the World Cup. The collective took pains in presenting the stories of the countries and not just the players. The style of the murals also pays homage to our number 6, Africanized Movies Posters (via Find Design and Cool Hunting)

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Despite its sheer awesomeness, FELA!, the award-winning with-music-infused play based on the life of the Nigerian Afro Beats pioneer Fela Kuti, fell just outside our African World Cup Top 11. Our number two however does have a link to Fela Kuti’s legacy of innovation. Both the Congolese-Belgian Baloji and the Ghanaian-American Zakee Kuduro are pushing music boundaries and at the same time paying homage to their African musical routes and wings. Karibu Ya Bintou, the collaboration between Baloji’s and the legendary Congolese band Konono N°1, like the above featured video Independence Cha-Cha, is just such an example. Zakee Kuduro, the eleventh grade school teacher who became a dj and is now also a producer and artist on the Green Owl label (affiliated with acts such as The Very Best, MIA, Santigold and Spanck Rock) is bring together several worlds at world. In his DJ sets he infuses mainstream music from the former West with African music with a focus on West African freedom music called Ku Ku Bass. In his music he pushes it even further creating his own musical voyages like in Sane Eba (listen here) which features the Ghanaian artist Anbuley (via Knotoryus, OkayPlayer and Hip-Hop Wired)

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When art and football collide some of the most interesting thoughts on both worlds are materialized. In the exhibition entitled “One Shot!” in contemporary art space BPS 22 in Charleroi, Belgium, 40 artist’s works that engage a conversation with the world of football are displayed. But it’s not just artists that are provoking discussions through difficult questions. Alex Garnett of Mixco presents us not just with a bowl, but with a bowl that pushes you to ask several questions at once. The “Footbowl” looks like what a collaboration between Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol would have produced all the while pointing towards the significant South African investment in the World Cup perhaps in detriment to its own population’s wellbeing (more on that in our Totally Uncool Find). The exhibition “…For Those Who Live In It: Pop Culture Politics and Strong Voices” in MU in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, speaks especially those South African investments from the past and the manner in which that is shaping the current crop of emerging South African artists. The exhibition features South African artist who have grown up after the abolishment of Apartheid and present their own experiences and questions surrounding the future of South Africa. (via Africa is a Country and Cool Hunting)

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UNICEF commissioned Young & Rubicam South-Africa to come up with an innovative way of dealing with the problem of children who are put to work as soldiers. These children are kidnapped and robbed of their childhood as organizations as War Child remind us through their projects. However UNICEF has noticed that people have become numb to these images. It’s part of the visual and historical vernacular when talking about Africa. Y&R came up with a campaign that pushed the envelope in an eye catching manner that worked beyond the level of pity and more than 15.000 sites took notice of the toy soldiers. (via Science of the Time and Jan van Mol’s Design Top 15)

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The Creative Africa Network is an initiative of puma.creative. Puma.creative on its own is one of the arms of PUMAVision. PUMAVision “comes from a vision of a world that is better than the one we know now – a world that is safer, more peaceful and more creative”.  With their creative aspect they mean to reengage imagination and its usefulness for understanding, dealing and solving the problems of today’s world. Right now PUMA.creative has launched two creative networks, the Creative Africa Network and the Creative Caribbean Network. The Creative Africa Network focuses on the projects from, with, about or dealing with African art, congresses, symposia, initiatives, calls for papers etc. It is a network through which people of all colors and creeds can connect who are involved with Africa in one way or another.

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The videocassette not only revolutionized the porn industry but also changed the landscape of televisual distribution technology and societies forever. The videocassette coupled with the emergence of the 16mm camera democratized moving visual content technology. There is even an obscure interview of Dutch football legend Johan Cruijf talking about one of his newest purchases: the 16 mm camera. In Africa the introduction of the videocassette was also cause for social change. But whereas in Europe the social change was towards individualization in Africa the videocassette, the television and the generator brought movies to villages, true group viewing. The traveling cinema was born. To advertize which movies were going to be shown local artists were commissioned to make posters for the movies. These posters are one of a kind and are now being sold on websites like Ghana Movie Posters upwards of US $200. (via Boing Boing)

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In October 2006 Dr. Mo Ibrahim set out to support further development of good governance in sub Sahara Africa; he set up the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. Every year the foundation considers whether or not there are eligible candidates to receive the prize and then rewards an African leader with US $5 million and US $20,000 annually for life thereafter. This year, just like last year the prize committee decided not to hand out the prize. With the high level of excellence expected a return on investment must be insured and the candidates’ body of work could not insure that as the press release suggests.

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