At first glance we thought this was a campaign for sunglasses, but no. This campaign of massive vinyl stickers hit the bathrooms of Beirut’s trendy spots to draw attention to Riviera Privé. It is an exclusive beach, pool and bar and lounge area in one of Lebanon’s most famous hotels, the Riviera Hotel. Riviera is located right in Beirut city, facing the Mediterranean. The hotel has been a favorite destination of jet-setters since 1956. The Riviera Privé area has seen several reiterations of glamour and luxury, as has the hotel itself, but it is definitely the place for beach-loving locals who want to see and be seen. The sticker campaign created by République Beirut plays cleverly on this theme by implying reflective sunglasses and evoking the sense of being watched. - My guess is that not so long from now, a sunglass company will use this same idea.
So, first up on my movie list is one that I found by chance, my assistant and I were scrolling through movie posters, and she saw one with a teddy bear in it. That was probably the second best example of childish tendencies leading to a great find, the best example would be the plot of the movie itself. Seth McFarlane has cooked up a magical script that is sure to be absolutely hilarious in the movie ‘Ted’. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but the official synopsis is below. I would suggest just clicking the picture to watch the trailer and be surprised by the unique concept of the movie.
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane brings his boundary-pushing brand of humor to the big screen for the first time as writer, director and voice star of Ted. In the live action/CG-animated comedy, he tells the story of John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg), a grown man who must deal with the cherished teddy bear who came to life as the result of a childhood wish…and has refused to leave his side ever since.
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Click the pic to watch the trailer.
I posted a little about “Looper” not too long ago, and I had a few people tell me that I was so interested in the movie because of my proximity to someone who worked on the movie. But once again, I have to say that this isn’t true, even if I had no idea about how good this movie is already, I’d still be massively intrigued by the premise alone. Take a look at the official synopsis below, and click the picture above to watch the newly debuted trailer.
In the futuristic action thriller Looper, time travel will be invented – but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a “looper” – a hired gun, like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good… until the day the mob decides to “close the loop,” sending back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination. The film is written and directed by Rian Johnson and also stars Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, and Jeff Daniels. Ram Bergman and James D. Stern produce.
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Click the pic to watch the trailer.
As a DJ, this movie hits quite close to home. Not only was I brought up with Hip Hop all around me, but I was always told by my father that “rap isn’t real music”. Ice-T’s directorial debut goes to show the true essence of Hip Hop and proves to those doubters that this is an art form that is here to stay. It has grown, shifted, evolved, and shaped the course of culture forever. I’m a fan of the concept not only because of my place in the music business, but the fact that I’ve worked with several of the people in the film also peaks my interest in the movie. Click the pic above to watch the trailer.
Ice-T takes us on an intimate journey into the heart and soul of hip-hop with the legends of rap music. This performance documentary goes beyond the stardom and the bling to explore what goes on inside the minds, and erupts from the lips, of the grandmasters of rap. Recognized as the godfather of Gangsta rap, Ice-T is granted unparalleled access to the personal lives of the masters of this artform that he credits for saving his life. Interspersed with the performers’ insightful, touching, and often funny revelations are classic raps, freestyle rhymes, and never before heard a cappellas straight from the mouths of the creators. What emerges is a better understanding of, and a tribute to, an original American art form that brought poetry to a new generation.
During my tracking session with DJ Jeff Phantom last night, I stumbled across a song that struck me as kind of odd. Not odd in a bad way, but I just could not let the entire song finish. About half way through T.I.’s verse on Iggy Azalea’s ‘Murda Buziness’, I just kept starting the song from the beginning, over and over again. With a wild beat produced by Bei Maejor, this track found a way to fly to the top of my favorite track list before the first time I even listened to the entire thing. Check the method below.
The once unknown femcee from the Caribbean now known as Nicki Minaj seems to be on top of the world right now. The highest earning member of her crew, she’s currently basking in the glow of her sophomore album, and had a “little” party in Miami to celebrate.
Museum Anatomy (a project by Laura Spector and Chadwick Grayis) is a collection of documentary photographs of works from museums around the world that have been recreated onto the human body. The artwork goes through a significant process until reaching the final outcome, a photograph of Chadwick, sometimes unrecognizable as a human form, with an elaborate, detailed painting covering a portion of his body. The recreated paintings of these historic portraits recapture the subjects in their own moment in history. The resulting photographs reveal a unification of art combining antiquity, history and technology in a contemporary context.
Behind the Scenes of Waka Flocka ft Trey Songs “I Don’t Really Care” Official Video. Waka teamed up with Trey Songs on his Sophomore Album releasing his 2nd single off the Album.. You can download the Single “I Dont Really Care” off iTunes.com. Waka’s 2nd Album “Triple F Life” will be In Stores and Available for Download June 12th. Check the method below.
The Faculty of Law building is a new addition to the University of New South Wales’ Kensington campus and delivers a new and innovative learning and research facility for the University’s Faculty of Law and Taxation. Located on a high profile site on University Mall, the new 11,500 sqm four level building reflects the pedagogical model of this School of Law and through its form contributes to the urban definition of the landscaped Mall space. The building has been designed as a low rise structure to promote maximum interactivity between occupants in the building – staff, students and visitors. The building also provides strong connections back to the broader campus and to the public realm beyond.Light filled atria spaces, open staircases and landscaped courtyard spaces enhance this visual interconnectivity, providing a high amenity work and study environment for Law and University users.
With what seems like a constant need to chatter away on cellphones or listen to music with earbuds, a little quiet time may be in order. We’ve got the perfect place: the Guinness Book of World Records’s quietest room.
It’s so quiet the longest anyone has been able to stand it before beginning to go a bit batty was 45 minutes — to be fair, part of that challenge was to remain in the dark too. According to the Daily Mail, the “anechoic chamber” at Orfield Laboratories in South Minneapolis is 99.9 percent sound absorbing.
The Daily Mail reports the room is made with 3.3-foot-thick fiberglass acoustic wedges with walls made of insulated steel and a foot of concrete. Founder and president of the lab, Steven Orfield, shared some of his thoughts about why individuals find it hard to last in the room for lengthy periods of time:
“When it’s quiet, ears will adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You’ll hear your heart beating, sometimes you can hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly.
“In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound.”
And this is a very disorientating experience. Mr Orfield explained that it’s so disconcerting that sitting down is a must.
He said: “How you orient yourself is through sounds you hear when you walk. In the anechnoic chamber, you don’t have any cues. You take away the perceptual cues that allow you to balance and maneuver. If you’re in there for half an hour, you have to be in a chair.”
Because the chamber is so soundless, NASA has conducted tests on its astronauts in there to simulate what it would sound like in space. Orfield said manufacturers, like Harley Davidson and Whirlpool, have also used the chamber to test how loud their products are or to evaluate sound quality.
“Sneakercube” is an ongoing design project by Warsaw-based graphic artist Pawel Nolbert. I’m not quite exactly sure what the inspiration behind his pieces are, but never-the-less they’re quite the eye catchers.
The traditional models soaking up the spotlight now a days tend to be a bit bare-skinned. And by bare skinned I don’t mean nude. It’s a pretty well noted stigma that too many tattoos can be a bad thing, scare off possible employers, or have you stuck in a type-cast. But my personal opinion when it comes to women holding back from getting tattoo’s… f*ck that.
You know the situation. You want to go for a ride on your bike and mix some music at the same time. Normally you’d have to settle on just doing one or the other. Not anymore. My homegirl’s jaw literally hit the floor watching this. And even I don’t even know what to say. I mean, that is simply way too dope. I can totally envision crazy competitions that involve using your skills at both biking and mixing… and I really like what I see. The technology in question is called a Turntable Ride by Cogoo.
The music video premiere of ‘I Think She Ready’ featuring FKi, newly-signed Interscope rapper Iggy Azalea and Grammy-nominated Diplo debuts exclusively on SSENSE. The video was shot and produced in LA by founder of What You Steal, Alex 2Tone, whose previous video credits include Iggy Azalea’s “My World” and work with Dizzee Rascal and Danny Brown. The video was styled entirely by SSENSE, where you can shop Iggy’s, FKi’s and Diplo’s looks using interactive hotspot technology from wireWAX – every item featured is available to purchase directly through the video. Kinda interesting. Click the pic above to see the video.
To explore the world’s fascinating seabeds, the Turbine watch adopts an original design that is as symbolic as it is functional. The rounded contours of the 11-blade upper rotor subtly evoke a submarine propeller. Spinning freely above the SuperLuminova-coated surface, it creates the illusion of an entirely luminescent dial that naturally gains intensity at night or in the darkness prevailing at great depths. Dive times are measured by a rotating inner bezel ring on which the average 20-minute duration stands out clearly thanks to a play on colors and volumes. The Arabic numerals, the main hour-markers as well as the subtly black-rimmed hour and minutes hands are also coated in Superluminova, thus enabling them to stand out against the background when it is lit up by the effect of the turbine in motion
Knowing your colors is something you probably stopped focusing on after pre-school. A vast majority of us see a color wheel and don’t think twice, but for a graphic designer, color can mean everything. The Color Game is actually more like a test, designed by Maria Munuera and Mark MacKay, and tests matching some colors arrangements in an allotted time. Click the pic to take a shot at it.
Exclusive premiere of Drake‘s official music video “Take Care“, which features Rihanna. Fans have been waiting for this video to surface since the leak of the on the set photos of Drake and Rihanna holding each other. Take Care music video was directed by Yoann Lemoine.
With the brand new TV Spots out online on for the upcoming Avengers flick, I started looking around for any new info, and came across a series of posters courtesy of Toys R Us. The 12 designs dropped yesterday, but I’m sure will be around for quite some time. Check the method.
‘Scott Pilgrim vs. The World’ is oddly, but deservingly one of my favorite movies. After seeing the flick, it might be a bit easier to imagine the films star in an actual band in real life, but take a look at a few actors who might be a little harder to imagine making their own music.
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Ryan Gosling: Dead Man’s Bones
Considering all the Grammy-winning talent that came out of season six of the All-New Mickey Mouse Club—Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera—it shouldn’t come as a surprise that another member of that cast, Ryan Gosling, is one half of a two-man band. Dead Man’s Bones began in 2005 when Gosling and Zach Shields began performing their light goth music for friends. They released their first album in 2009, which Rolling Stone described as “Arcade Fire, Tom Waits and the cast of Sesame Street performing a Kurt Weill musical.” Most impressive, they played almost all the instruments on the self-titled debut (which includes the track, not to mention that Gosling taught himself piano and cello. As in, Hey, Girl, did you know I can play the cello…?)
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Zooey Deschanel: She & Him
Although she sang a bit in Elf and always dreamed of having a musical career, Zooey Deschanel truly found herself as an artist when she sent a demo to musician M. Ward in 2008. “Her voice doesn’t sound like anything else that’s out there. All I really had to do is press record,” Ward told Billboard about their collaboration, She & Him. “I feel like she secretly had been working on a first record for years but kept it under her hat and focused on acting.” That first album, the cleverly titled Volume One, contained those early Deschanel songs as well as covers of the Beatles and Smokey Robinson. With the release of Volume Two, Spin declared: “If Zooey Deschanel didn’t exist, indie rock would’ve invented her…fans of ’70s AM Gold will sip this stuff down like so much well-aged chardonnay.” The duo also released a Christmas album last year, and is it too much to hope that She & Him expand “Who’s That Girl? It’s Jess,” the micro-theme song of Deschanel’s sitcom, New Girl?
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Jason Schwartzman: Coconut Records
While the filmmaking talents of Jason Schwartzman’s family are vast—his mother is actress Talia Shire, his uncle is Francis Ford Coppola, his cousin is Nicolas Cage—it’s also easy to overlook his grandfather, Oscar-winning composer Carmine Coppola. Fittingly, the indie actor also has an indie-rock side. His first band, Phantom Planet, became famous for the song “California,” the title track for the Fox show The O.C. But since 2006, Schwartzman has performed as a solo act, Coconut Records, and released two albums, Nighttiming and Davy, which Pitchfork praised, saying, “while Davy‘s lyrics are fed by a network of autobiographical arteries, this source material only fortifies the record’s moderately angsty life-in-your-twenties concept with concrete, ground-level detail.” And fans of Schwartzman’s late, great HBO series Bored to Death will also recall that Coconut Records performed the show’s jazzy theme song.
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Jada Pinkett Smith: Wicked Wisdom
Her husband became famous as the Fresh Prince of rap, and daughter Willow had a hit song about whipping her hair, so why shouldn’t Jada Pinkett Smith want to rock out every once in a while? In 2002, Smith (performing under her middle name, Jada Koren) formed the hard-core metal band Wicked Wisdom, which opened for Britney Spears and in 2004 and played at Ozzfest the next year. In 2006, Wicked Wisdom released a self-titled album and also appeared on David Letterman. And no less a critic than Sharon Osbourne was impressed with the band’s talent. “I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went to see Wicked Wisdom play,” Osbourne told Billboard in 2005. “But let me tell you, I was blown away. When you see and hear Jada with her band, it’s apparent that she has nothing but love and respect for this genre of music.”
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Adrian Grenier: the Honey Brothers and Kid Friendly
Actor Adrian Grenier doesn’t just moonlight as a musician, he moonlights from his moonlighting—Grenier is a member of two New York bands. In 2002, he joined The Honey Brothers, a new-wave folk act whose members include a musician who, improbably enough, shares a name with Jeremy Piven’s character on Entourage, Ari Gold. “I was a fan before I was a member,” Grenier said of The Honey Brothers, who are touring this spring. “I think they’re just delightful people and musicians. I was drawn to them immediately because of the good nature of the music but also the really catchy, hooky style as well.” And when he’s not playing drums with The Honey Brothers, Grenier fronts the Brooklyn band Kid Friendly.
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Ed Westwick: The Filthy Youth
Taylor Momsen’s band, The Pretty Reckless, may get all the press, but her Gossip Girl co-star Ed Westwick also had a successful music career as the front man for the British indie-punk band The Filthy Youth. While the group has benefited from Westwick’s series—two of its songs were featured on Gossip Girl—the 24-year-old actor himself has put his Filthy Youth career on hold since he’s been in New York. Though Westwick did tell Teen Vogue to put another band together someday—“You haven’t heard the last of me yet.”
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Malin Akerman: The Petalstones
While filming 2003’s Utopian Society, director Francesco Sondelli asked Malin Akerman to sing a few songs with his alternative band, Ozono. She was a hit—and the group soon changed its name to The Petalstones and made Akerman its lead singer. The Petalstones released an album in 2005, Stung, but then Akerman’s acting career took off and she left the band. But not completely. In 2007, Akerman married The Petalstones’ drummer, Roberto Zincone.
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Michael Cera: Mister Heavenly
In Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Michael Cera played the bass guitarist for Sex Bob-omb who must defeat six ex-boyfriends to win the girl of his dreams. In real life, Cera had a brief flirtation with similar superheroics when it was reported that he would be joining the indie supergroup Mister Heavenly—which includes Modest Mouse’s Joe Plummer—as its bassist. Except it was too good to be true. While Cera did tour with the band a bit, the group’s publicist told L.A. Weekly “[he] did not record nor was he ever a permanent member of the band. Just a friend of the band who was helping them out when they were in need of a bassist.” And Mister Heavenly’s Ryan Kattner backed that up. “Michael is a buddy, never toured before, good bass player, but he’s not playing on the album,” he said. “When the band formed a year ago, we thought it would be fun to have him on the road, but it’s been kind of a distraction. I hate the girls screaming ‘Michael.’”
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Hugh Laurie: Band From TV
When Heroes star Greg Grunberg had an idea to form an all-star charity cover band made up of television celebrities, there was little doubt as to what to call it— Band From TV. Among those who jammed with Grunberg on drums were House’s Hugh Laurie (who sings and plays keyboards), Desperate Housewives’ James Denton on guitar, and former Bachelor Bob Guiney, who provides vocals. (Over the years, there have also been cameos from Teri Hatcher, Jorge Garcia, and even the Today show’s Lester Holt.) Thanks to Laurie, Band From TV even contributed a song on House, but the good doctor has also had a successful solo career. In 2011, Laurie released his debut album, Let Them Talk, a collection of old-school New Orleans jazz and blues tunes that was well received. And for those who mourn the end of House, Laurie and his quintet will be going on a world tour this summer.
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Maya Rudolph: The Rentals
As the daughter of singer Minnie Riperton (“Loving You”), Maya Rudolph has an impeccable musical pedigree, which she often displayed in Saturday Night Live impressions of Whitney Houston and Beyoncé. Last August, the Bridesmaids star also showed she could do a mean Prince—or in this case, Princess—when she performed with a reunited When the Dog. And back in the ’90s, Rudolph was a member of The Rentals, a band formed by former Weezer bassist Matt Sharp. In 2010, Jimmy Kimmel asked Rudolph what it was like when The Rentals went on tour with Alanis Morissette. “The road is dudes,” she quipped. “With ladies sprinkled in between.”
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Christopher Mintz-Plasse: The Young Rapscallions
He may make a living doing comedies, but Christopher Mintz-Plasse takes his music very seriously. The Artist Better Known as McLovin’ formed The Young Rapscallions in 2007, and five years later he still considers their sound pure garage band. (Particularly because they often rehearse in Mintz-Plasse’s parents’ garage.) The Young Rapscallions released their first album last year and gave it a title, Everything Vibrates, that makes Mintz-Plasse, who plays drums, blush because it came from a friend’s story about watching a sex show: “He was just telling me he was up late one night watching some weird sex show where they had a bunch of toys,” he said in an interview last year “He told me that everything in that show vibrated, and I thought the name Everything Vibrates sounded cool. So lame.”
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Ricky Gervais: Seona Dancing
The concept is almost hard to believe, and he is practically unrecognizable in the old videos, but back in the early 1980s, Ricky Gervais formed one half of a Bowie-esque new-wave duo known as Seona Dancing. In 2008, when David Letterman played a clip of one of their two hits—in which Gervais is whippet-thin and sounds like he could open for Tears for Fears or Psychedelic Furs— Gervais joked, “Immediately after that video was shot, I saw a Pizza Hut—and I’ve never looked back.”
Looking at David Copithorne’s images is sort of like wearing those drunk goggles police officers make you wear for five minutes in high school to scare you out of having a good time and potentially killing yourself with booze, if those goggles were also mixed with acid. At a glance, the photographer and filmmaker’s landscapes look normal, until you realize they’ve been distorted and disrupted through obscure effects that offer a new perspective on our reality.
His latest series, 3D Geometric Photography, was shot on location in Brazil and consists mostly of beaches and rainforest landscapes, with geometric-shaped digital interferences layered on top. The shapes act like virtual magnifying glasses, highlighting parts of the photos. The artist says, “My motivation and dedication is to capture these amazing scenes that are not perceived by nonprofessional eyes.”
Awesome skateboarding videos are all over the place, but can still be relatively hard to pin point. The Zenga Bros video from Halloween 2011 is one I’m glad I caught wind of though. From the crazy costumes, to fireworks randomly blasting off, to just the location the skaters chose to shoot, this Skate flick is a serious eye catcher.
Instagram rocketed to 30 million iOS users in 18 months and was named iPhone app of the year in 2011. It is one of the best apps for taking and sharing photos from the iPhone. Its square images and assorted image filters let anyone make retro, techno and pretty pictures out of mundane shots of their kids, pets, food. Instagram’s Android version, released last week, got millions of downloads immediately. But $1 billion, if true, is still a crazy number. Instagram doesn’t make any money. Nor did it say it was focusing on revenue. It is still chasing big users. Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s CEO, wrote this to calm down his users in response to the deal. An excerpt:
It’s important to be clear that Instagram is not going away. We’ll be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network. We’ll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience.
It’s not clear what the Facebook deal means for the Series B funding round that may have closed last week, led by Sequoia Capital, Thrive, Benchmark and Greylock at a reported $500 million valuation. But the fact that Facebook would pay 2x what the company was supposedly worth within a week’s time suggests this is a defensive move. Facebook has the money (almost $4 billion in cash on hand as of December 2011), and certainly isn’t desperate for more users, most if not all of whom are already on Facebook (which greatly influences the price-per-new-active-user Facebook is paying. See crude math below.)
Fred Wilson has said that Facebook is really about photos and this only underscores that. The mobile-social photo sector is still amorphously led but if anyone is harmed by this deal it is Yahoo. Facebook is really going after its Flickr property here, to put the nail further in Yahoo’s coffin. (To its discredit, Yahoo hasn’t done anything with Flickr lately). Zuckerberg is playing chess, making a defining move in how it stands in the photo space. It’s like what Google did with YouTube.
One problem this will solve for Instagram’s 30-something million users is that sharing an Instagram photo on Facebook from your phone pretty much sucks right now. Here comes the much needed integration: bigger photos, more detailed info about the filters, etc. Right now all you get when you post an Instagram photo on Facebook from your phone is a small link and a thumbnail image. A better integration will stimulate more sharing through Instagram.
But a $1 billion for 30 million users that pay nothing for the service? Sounds crazy but consider this: Instagram is getting bought for $33 per user. Facebook is supposedly trading with a market cap of close to $100 billion and has 850 million users, giving it a value of $117 per user. So it looks like a decent bit of funny-money arbitrage, using well-endowed Facebook shares to acquire users and solidify hold of a strategic asset at a lower valuation. We don’t yet know how much of the deal is in cash vs. stock, so this calculation could be less favorable sounding but it still makes sense with Facebook currency.
Here’s a video Forbes editor Michael Noer did with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom for our 30 Under 30 special. According to Wired’s Mike Isaac, Systrom netted $400 million from the sale.
Kirsty Mitchell is a fashion photographer from Kent, England. The beautiful vast of lavender hues draw you in with her overwhelming concepts labeled ‘Wonderland’. The vibrant colors, the intricacies of every foreground and background, the costumes and the concept all make ‘Wonderland’ an immensely intriguing body of work. Check the method below.
Looks like Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar have found the perfect ingredients for a new single. On Monday (April 2), K. Dot paid a visit to L.A.’s Power 106 morning show Big Boy’s Neighborhood to premiere “The Recipe,” his new joint featuring Dr.Dre. Before playing the record for the first time, Kendrick and Dre explained to Big Boy the meaning behind the breezy tune. ” ‘The Recipe,’ it’s one of those things that everyone in the world can relate to,” Kendrick said. Dre called in to the studio to reveal what the three key ingredients to his and Kendrick’s recipe are: “The original title was ‘Women, Weed and Weather.’ That’s what represents L.A.”
Jaguar has released new details of its latest model at the New York Motor Show, as it continues a turnaround set to see it become a global luxury car brand. The new F-Type is the spiritual successor of the Jaguar E-Type, one of the world’s most legendary roadsters and now a much sought-after collectible around the world.
Revealed at the New York event, the F-type will launch as a convertible with a range of engines and will offer just two seats, putting it in the same range as other performance models such as the Porsche 911 and Mercedes-Benz SL.
Performance wise, it’s believed that the aluminium model will offer a top speed of over 180 mph (289 km/h) and a 0-60 mph (97km/h) range of under five seconds.
In a video designed to underline the driver-focused nature of the new car, Formula One star Martin Brundle commented “the first thing I noticed is that it turns in beauitfully, it’s got so much grip my ribs are in the side of the seat.”
The F-Type production model will be revealed later this year and is expected to go on sale in 2013, Jaguar said. The paint job in the photos isn’t necessarily my swag, but I’m sure in a solid color the car looks even more beastly.
At first glance we thought this was a campaign for sunglasses, but no. This campaign of massive vinyl stickers hit the bathrooms of Beirut’s trendy spots to draw attention to Riviera Privé. It is an exclusive beach, pool and bar and lounge area in one of Lebanon’s most famous hotels, the Riviera Hotel. Riviera is located right in Beirut city, facing the Mediterranean. The hotel has been a favorite destination of jet-setters since 1956. The Riviera Privé area has seen several reiterations of glamour and luxury, as has the hotel itself, but it is definitely the place for beach-loving locals who want to see and be seen. The sticker campaign created by République Beirut plays cleverly on this theme by implying reflective sunglasses and evoking the sense of being watched. - My guess is that not so long from now, a sunglass company will use this same idea.
