My inspiration blog - by Eline Kwantes

Augmented reality mirror enables testing Shiseido makeup

Interesting concept! Already saw things like these before, but not actively used in stores. Isn't this great? As a woman I think this is a very good invention: never walk out of a makeup store looking as a clown anymore ;-)

Found via Springwise.

The Working Proof: selling art for charity

Well... not all the money goes to charity, but about 15% of the earnings. At theworkingproof.com, artists can submit their work and choose their own charity they would like to support.

The Working Proof is an interesting concept, although I'm a bit disappointed they only add new work on a weekly basis. Why not more? Think this could really work well and the platform will probably be an inspiration to others.

Inspiring presentation - Design outside the box - DICE 2010

Spotted at Twitter (via the Dutch @marketingfacts), this is a presentation on game design you must see. Also contains some interesting insights from the speaker on ClubPenguin and Webkinz. Very inspiring and extremely funny (especially at the end), so start watching!

The state of the internet - impressive movie

This impressive movie by Jesse Thomas is both inspiring and give so (too?) much information. Looks very nice, so worthwile to take a look! What the state of the internet is today in numbers:

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

Via Dutchcowboys.nl.

Chiquita banana viral campaign

Like this funny campaign for Chiquita bananas, by DJ Neff! Includes viral stickers on the bananas themselves, but also video, sticker creator and game... Read everything about it here on DesignBoom.

Found via YoungMarketing.nl.

New way to browse Etsy - PicClick

You know I'm a great fan of Etsy's, can roam around the site for hours and hours...

PicClick, also working with eBay, now introduced a new way to browse through all the handmade items Etsy offers. It is way more visual and less text. You can view all the posted articles, or look trough them by category.

According to PicClick, people can sift through content a lot quicker on the web if you use visuals in stead of text. Totally agree, although looking at a huge amount of pictures also gets boring after a while (but text even more).

The PicClick Etsy looks like this:

 

Can imagine that a lot of other sites are going to be inspired by this new way of browsing. Who needs all the text websites offer us anyway? Ok, for a news oriented website text might be really necessary, although you see even them moving to more image and video content... As far as Etsy goes, it enhances the user experience a lot. Maybe the search results will look like this too in the future.

One disadvantage: there is still a lot of junk items in the overview. What would really be great is if the editors, or specific groups (maybe my own?), would be able to feature stuff up on a tool/page like this...

Spotted articles inspiring me to feature this at Creativity-Online.com and Mashable.com.

PleaseRobMe.com

Putting all your info up on different social media platform, is not always a smart thing to do... Recently some not so very kind people decided to break into my house - very annoying! I especially don't mention stuff like "I left home just now" on Twitter or Facebook, but a lot of people do. And robbers are of course very happy with the info you provide them with. Especially if you have a public profile, they can easily find out where and when they should be at a place.

 

The platform PleaseRobMe.com makes use of this info, to provide people with insights into what the consequences are of posting 'delicate' information like the above... It seems to have started out in a blink, but they would like to continue with a professional organisation, so they say: "We want to offer this website to a professional foundation, agency or company that focuses on raising awareness, helping people understand and provide answers to online privacy related issues."

Found via DutchCowgirls.nl.

Vote for Art - college appearal crowdsourcing project in US

Hi you all! Sorry that it's been while since I published something fresh up on Inspiration Blog. Was on holiday for several weeks... Fortunately some of my readers dropped their inspiration (and projects) in my inbox, so have enough coming up for the coming period!

This article I dedicate to a project called "Vote for Art", started by Jeremy Parker, the 24 year old 'president and founder'. VoteforArt.com is a new startup backed by the large apparel company David Peyser Sportswear. It is kind of similar to Threadless but with a collegiate focus.

The idea is that Vote for Art hosts competitions for designers, who can submit their design to the website. They work on a specific project for colleges around the US. Some examples of the latest project for Perdue University:

What Jeremy says about his project: "Vote For Art will give artists from all over the world the opportunity to break into an industry that before now has been impossible. We are not only helping artists get there work seen and paid for, but our goal is also to make college apparel a little bit cooler. College apparel is pretty boring and unoriginal, vote For Art is going to change this."

Since the project started recently, the website still has quite some "coming soon" messages up there. Nevertheless, I think it's really inspiring. The project shows us an original view on something that has not been changed for ages, Jeremy has real guts getting started with this project and wish him all the best!

Meet Thounds.com: creating & sharing music

This fresh social-music-network is very interesting to take a look at. Thounds.com has just been released and wants to connect all kinds of people creating music. Thounds will facilitate for them to share, debate on, collaborate and create music together...

"Thounds gives way to inspiration, by cutting the recording process to a simple action. Users can record and share their music ideas very easily because third applications or soundcards are not required, hence people will record live instead of uploading audio files." Founding fathers are Francesco Fraioli, Davide Bartolucci and Gian Maria Girardi.

Thounds - what music are you thinking? from Thounds on Vimeo.

Absolutely inspiring person - Gary Vaynerchuk

Ok, I'm a bit late in sharing this - for my Dutch readers at least - since Gary spoke at the Dutch Emerce eDay last week...

Here's a short clip from his presentation and see a lot more at Gary's website.