Daily Doodle is a creative fundraising project for 2010 by Stina Jones who runs graphic design agency Creative Elements. She will be submitting a new doodle every day, 365 doodles in 365 days!

The aim of this artistic endurance challenge is to raise money for the charity Shelter, who do fantastic work with some of Britain’s most vulnerable people. Stina would be grateful if you could show your support by donating just £2 on her website at http://dailydoodle2010.blogspot.com.

The Leighton House Museum in London - one of the country's most remarkable 19th Century buildings and the home and studio of leading Victorian artist Frederic, Lord Leighton - is reopening its doors next month following a £1.6 million refurbishment.

The work on the house has brought it closer than ever to its original appearance when Lord Leighton died in 1896. Extensive new research has shed fresh light on the original decorative schemes of the house and as many of these original features as possible have been restored.

In addition, a staircase used by Lord Leighton’s models has been uncovered and will be accessible to the public for the first time. The reopening will be accompanied by a special exhibition of Leighton’s own collection of paintings, which have been brought together for the reopening including important loans from the National Gallery and Tate.

The collection includes works by many of Leighton’s contemporaries such as Burne-Jones, Millais, Alma-Tadema and Albert Moore.

Leighton House Museum will be open from Saturday 3 April and open daily 10am-5.30pm, Fri until 10pm. Closed Tuesdays. Tickets are £5; Concessions £1.

The work of photographer Jacob Perlmutter will be on display at The Orange Dot Gallery in Bloomsbury this month, showcasing his work from a three month trip around the United States.

It comes almost half a century since Robert Frank, one of America’s most loved photojournalists went around America photographing the country; the result of which being an incredible document of the times, The Americans.

Heavily inspired by street photography, the ever-changing dynamics and non repeat moments, exciting new talent Jacob Perlmutter decided to enjoy his own journey around America at the beginning of July 2009. Setting out both in homage to Frank’s journey and work, but also to document and discover how America has changed since then.

"I wanted to look beyond the obvious spaces of MTV culture and big stadiums, instead looking at the gritty underground movements of New York and the jazz clubs; the empty sounds of the landscape, the music of the wind and the birds and the solitary trucks and the man who whistles through his dry lips as he kicks a crushed can down a dusty path. Music through photographs where a moment has been captured, but the sounds resonate and hang" said Jacob, talking of the exhibition.

"I went to America with a set of images in my mind and came back with another in my hand," he added.

At the end of the three months Jacob returned with a collection of over 2500 photographs, a few tattered clothes and a host of tales and discoveries. The result of which, 88 Days, showcases a truly beautiful and insightful body of work from a very talented upcoming individual.

Alongside the exhibition, a 60-page book will also be available to purchase exclusively from the Orange Dot Gallery.

Born and bred in London, Jacob is a young, dynamic and talented individual who has produced and created some truly great work across film and photography. While his inspiration stems from street photography and the likes of Garry Winogrand and Robert Frank, Jacob constantly changes, develops and reacts with the world around him always striving to capture the non repeat moments and ever changing world around him.

The passion started in 2004 when Jacob embarked on his first trip to document culture in Sri Lanka. The same day Jacob arrived the Tsunami hit and with everything around him destroyed Jacob turned to his camera – externalising all his fears by documenting what was happening. Back in England and captivated by the power of photography ever since, Jacob has been growing and developing his interest in street photography.

While photography sits at the core of much of Jacob’s work, over the years he has also extended his creative touch, working actively in directing music videos and short experimental films for both personal projects and clients including Platform, Converse, New Era, NME and Pollocks. Currently working on and writing a feature film, Jacob has also just completed writing and directing two experimental films and has already put plans for a novel into the mix. One of his most recent photographic projects ‘88days’, which is the culmination of a three month photographic journey round America will be exhibited at The Orange Dot gallery in April.

To find out more visit www.jacobperlmutter.com.

Pianist and composer Joel Garten will play a passionate concert of his solo piano improvisations at the Tenri Cultural Institute, NYC on Wednesday, March 24th. Garten's piano work is intense yet contemplative, and at the nexus of free jazz and contemporary classical music; a meeting of the music of jazz improviser Keith Jarrett and classical minimalist Morton Feldman.

Garten creates heartfelt music that marries sonorous repetitive rhythms with dissonance and entrancing harmonies. The concert takes place in an intimate setting evocative of a studio recording session. This concert celebrates the release of his new CD "In the Studio," capturing the spontaneity and depth of works created and performed by Garten in his Toronto studio.

"I love that my music can reside outside of the mainstream, but connect with people in a sublime way that they didn’'t expect, they can feel the love that goes into it and have a new musical experience. I stay in the moment when I play, but at the same time I am transported to another world, so much so that I forget about the audience totally. There is this intensity and yet this calm at the same time," says Garten.

Though Garten has played in venues around the world, this is his debut performance in New York. This concert is a great opportunity to hear a fresh musical voice.

"I love the direct spontaneity that comes from performing a totally improvised concert, it allows me to express the musical voice that resides inside me with great freedom," says Garten.

Joel Garten was born in Toronto, Canada in 1981 and has been composing music since the age of eleven. Garten has given concerts on three continents, including a memorable impromptu concert in the Shar-Dor Medrassa in Samarqand, Uzbekistan. Garten has traveled to more than forty countries, absorbing various musical/cultural influences, including studying gamelan with an aged master in Bali, Indonesia. He is influenced by visual artists such as Pollock, Rothko and Giorgio Morandi, as well as by musical artists most notably Keith Jarrett and Morton Feldman.

"Probably includes honest MPs."

James Whitworth is a topical cartoonist and writer. He has contributed to a number of newspapers and magazines, including Creative Boom..."

Daily Doodle is a creative fundraising project for 2010 by Stina Jones who runs graphic design agency Creative Elements. She will be submitting a new doodle every day, 365 doodles in 365 days!

The aim of this artistic endurance challenge is to raise money for the charity Shelter, who do fantastic work with some of Britain’s most vulnerable people. Stina would be grateful if you could show your support by donating just £2 on her website at http://dailydoodle2010.blogspot.com.

Here's our first 'Project' for Creative Boom - a fun and collaborative new section which aims to get all of you involved creatively. And the brief is 'City life and Urban Freshness'.

What do we mean by this? Well - show us what you love about cities and what city life means to you. Be as adventurous as you like. Go out there, armed with your camera and take snaps of cities, their inhabitants and anything you come across. Something that's fresh, urban and contemporary.

You might want to go the extra mile and really get your creative juices going by introducing art, fashion, crafts or even just doing something fun with your friends. It's about introducing art into photography and bringing us something really unique.

Ideally, we're not after you digging out old photographs of city breaks you've been on. We'd really love you to go to town with this one. The photograph above is just an image I took during a city break to Oslo. The guy popping his head out of the 'Yellow Submarine', claimed to live there. He was very eccentric and interesting. He seemed to represent all-in-one our take on Norway, being the wonderful, creative and beautiful city that it is. Full of surprises.

Naturally, we're going to upload the best images we receive, post them onto Creative Boom under 'Projects' - so fantastic exposure for you - and then pick out a winner. Deadline for entries is end of April, so there's plenty of time to send in your contributions and have lots of fun with this.

Of course, we're going to give a prize for this - we haven't decided what that prize will be as yet but it will be good! We promise! So have fun and email your photographs to projects@creativeboom.co.uk.

It's shaping up to be another excellent year for fashion at Nottingham Trent University as students and graduates make the shortlists for a host of top national awards. Two graduates are in the running for the British Council's UK Young Fashion Entrepreneur of the Year Award, three students are challenging for the ASBCI Student Design Award, and one has reached the final stage of the Pringle and British Fashion Council Design Competition.

Fashion Design graduates Susi Henson and May Cortazzi - who are also part-time lecturers in the university's School of Art and Design - have reached the final five of the UK Young Fashion Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Susi runs lingerie, corsetry and bridalwear business Eternal Spirits, while May is the creative director of her contemporary and stylish ethical label, Regenerate clothing.

Three students are also in the running for the New Look-sponsored ASBCI Student Design Awards, which required undergraduates to design collections for its 'True Brit' challenge. Fashion design undergraduate, Louise Howells, and fashion knitwear design students Sara Whitney and Ellie Marston, have been selected to create their designs after producing mood and inspiration boards, capturing what they feel makes Britain great.

Fashion knitwear design student Jo Bee, meanwhile, has been made a finalist in the national Pringle of Scotland and British Fashion Council competition. Jo produced research work, mood and inspiration boards, knitted swatches and fabrics as well as illustrations for a six-piece collection. The brief involved designing outfits for a menswear or womenswear collection which, while modern and innovative, also played on the heritage of Scotland.

In addition, a team of fashion marketing and communication students has been chosen to host a River Island Rocks event, a competition run by the high-street chain in conjunction with Graduate Fashion Week to showcase up-and-coming creative talent.

Harriet French, Charlotte Fallows and Anna Vitiello make up one of just four university teams hosting an event in March to devise, plan, market and execute an event with River Island to celebrate the best new local undiscovered talent in music, models and designers. A winner will be selected, with judges looking for the most professional event in terms of quality and management.

The achievements build on the success of last year's students who won an array of awards including first prize at FAD, first prize in New Look's Design Futures competition, and the UK finals of top marketing competition, L'Oréal Brandstorm.

The Dean of Nottingham Trent University's School of Art and Design, Professor Judith Mottram, said: "Students are encouraged to participate in national and international competitions and investigate potential links and sponsorship from industry in preparation for future careers. For so many to reach the final stage of judging is fantastic and shows the range of creative talents we have across the fashion programmes in the School of Art and Design."

I've been following the Red Lemon Club - a website dedicated to helping creative professionals to promote themselves online - for quite some time now and I've enjoyed reading each and every article its founder, Alex Mathers, has written so far.

So when I heard on Twitter that Alex was set to launch his own e-book, I was eager to download a copy for myself. Being someone who's passionate about everything to do with online and digital marketing, I was keen to see what Alex had to offer.

Well, he didn't disappoint. The '10 Steps to Powerful Online Self Promotion for Creatives' is a breath of fresh air and blows all other marketing e-books out of the water. Using friendly and no-nonsense language, setting everything out in an easy-to-follow guide - the e-book explains beautifully the 10 steps we all need to take in order to boost our profiles online.

As we all know, one of the toughest challenges we face as creatives is attracting and winning new business. However, thanks to the Internet we can now tackle self-promotion rather inexpensively and at the touch of a button. Alex has no doubt mastered the art of exploiting the Internet for online self-promotion and shares his own secrets of success to help others get the most out of the web and enjoy everything that is freely available to us.

From learning how to adapt and establishing your base to hooking up to social media and learning how to network and engage with your target market - this e-book presents everything you'll ever need to know about online promotion today.

It's a wonder where Alex - a digital illustrator from London - has found the time to construct something that has clearly been a true labour of love.

Born in Copenhagen in 1984, Alex also writes a contemporary illustration blog called Ape on the Moon. He also contributes to Design Taxi and has written for Inspired Magazine and Digital Arts.

Clients he has worked for include Singapore Business Times newspaper, United Nations Environmental Programme, International Reptile Conservation Fund, iStockphoto.com, Estates Gazette and Grabbit.net.

So if you'd like to find out more about self-promotion online, Alex Mathers' e-book '10 Steps to Powerful Online Self Promotion for Creatives' launches today. To grab yourself a copy, visit Redlemonclub.com/ebook.

Talk about JAM Hot! The team at JAMpr is celebrating after winning not one but two gongs at the Fresh PR Awards. The Northern Quarter based agency picked up the award for Freshest Use of Celebrity for its VELCROÒ brand Celebrity Art Challenge and Jaime Markey, founder and Managing Director of JAMpr, was awarded Freshest Young PR Professional.

On top of these accolades JAM was also a finalist in no less than five other categories: Freshest B2B Campaign – Tool Talk, Carl Kammerling International; Freshest Low Budget PR Campaign - The VELCROÒ Brand Celebrity Art Challenge; Freshest Media Relations Campaign - Results In The Recession, Kensington Financial Management Consultants; Freshest PR Stunt Or Event - The Kensington Financial Management Credit Card Amnesty 2009 and Freshest Small PR Team.

Fresh PR judges said of JAM’s win of the Freshest Use of Celebrity: “An innovative campaign, which nicely aligned the brand with an ideal target audience, had good celebrity endorsement and used creativity to get the message across at every stage. Good results on very little expenditure from JAMpr.”

For the Freshest Young PR Professional, judges commented: “Making a huge leap of faith believing in her own abilities Jaime has taken a gamble and set up her own business, using her own money to do so. Ticking all of the right boxes and showing strong growth, the judges have seen range of work, much of it shortlisted, and know that JAMpr and Jaime are a force to be reckoned with.”

Commenting on the wins, JAM’s MD, Jaime Markey offered: “We are over the moon to have won two Fresh PR awards. Winning awards for our work is proof to colleagues and clients that JAM continues to deliver exceptional results and award-winning campaigns.

“This year is proving very successful for all at JAM towers, with these awards following on the back of four account wins since January.”

JAMpr’s Freshest Use of Celebrity and Freshest Young PR Professional awards join recognition from the CIPR who awarded JAMpr Silver for Outstanding Small Consultancy at the Pride Awards 2009.

Influential marketing magazine, The DRUM, also voted JAM as one of the top 20 start-up companies in England, based on its successes, client base, pedigree of previous careers and general tenacity.

JAMpr’s client roster includes Rectory Foods, Equivet, The Safety Group, Accommodationforstudents.com, Conferences:UK, XYZ Property Management and Carl Kammerling International.

Ren Kapur, Director at The Chartered Institute of Marketing, has today called for more employers in the creative and media sector to get involved with education. Kapur, who herself is an Employer Champion for the new Diplomas, is determined that school leavers will benefit from the experience of employers and that this will help prepare them for the realities of the workplace.

“The 14-19 reforms are a much-welcomed initiative to support young people and employers working together for the future of our country. Business can be tough – mistakes can be costly and the right advice hard to find. I want young people to leave school well prepared to understand the challenges and opportunities that enterprise has to offer. Young people come into life with so much wonderful ambition and energy – which we can either stifle or encourage. Diplomas encourage and support our best instincts and that is why I am so proud to be a part of the champions Network.”

Led by schools and colleges across the country, Diplomas were introduced to provide young people with more choice and to help them better develop skills they need for further study and employment. The combination of theory and practice has been devised to give all young people a well-rounded and academically robust education, enabling them to experience different styles of learning in different environments.

Most importantly, the flexible content and structure of the qualification has been designed so that young people can progress in any way they choose after completion, whether they opt to stay in education or move on to the workplace. To this end, the involvement of employers – over 5,000 of them to date – and universities has been crucial.

"Call the RSPCA, that's far too long to wait to eat."

James Whitworth is a topical cartoonist and writer. He has contributed to a number of newspapers and magazines, including Creative Boom...

Daily Doodle is a creative fundraising project for 2010 by Stina Jones who runs graphic design agency Creative Elements. She will be submitting a new doodle every day, 365 doodles in 365 days!

The aim of this artistic endurance challenge is to raise money for the charity Shelter, who do fantastic work with some of Britain’s most vulnerable people. Stina would be grateful if you could show your support by donating just £2 on her website at http://dailydoodle2010.blogspot.com.

Here's another freebie from Arron Davies, a freelance graphic & web designer from Wales. He made this particular design because he's a fan of Dr Who and has 'never found a graphically dedicated website elsewhere'. In fact, Arron claims this Wordpress theme to officially be the first one dedicated to the famous time lord.

The theme has been tested in all browser and is in full working order. Arron has also thrown in some css3 text effects that work in all modern browsers apart from Internet Explore, but this doesn't affect Internet Explore users.

The header features a trailer of the new series with the new doctor being played by Matt Smith. This video is easily replaceable. For any support on this theme - although the installation process is the same as installing any other theme - he recommends you contact him via email at support@digitalmaggot.com.

Redstor, a leading provider of cloud storage services and data protection solutions, has today appointed Jargon Public Relations as their retained UK public relations agency after a competitive pitch.

The brief involves promoting Redstor’s expertise in building cloud services and the company’s expertise in providing solutions based around data management and protection to the commercial and public sectors. Jargon Public Relations will also publicise the Redstor Online Backup service which was launched in 2005 and has over 10,000 servers, 9,000 PC's and over 350TB’s of customer data under its protection. Redstor’s partner business, built around Redstor’s substantial online platform, currently supports over 130 partners and several thousand end user customers.

Jargon Public Relations will run a media relations campaign focused on the education and technology media as well as a number of business-to-business vertical markets. The campaign will highlight Redstor’s depth of expertise within the education sector. Redstor has an established portfolio of storage solutions and managed services as well their cloud storage capability.

Paul Evans, Managing Director, of Redstor says “Jargon Public Relations demonstrated a good understanding of the media and our market. We worked with the agency as a project during this year’s BETT Show, the program was a success and resulted in their full time appointment.”

Simon Corbett, Managing Director and founder of Jargon Public Relations said, “We are delighted to have been appointed by Redstor. The company’s ‘cloud’ services are exciting and interesting and the business has some fantastic customer success stories for us to publicise. Very few organisations match Redstor's experience with on-line backup, managed services and storage. Redstor has been operating within this market since 1998. The three person account team will offer an understanding of the issues within the education and technology markets and will work to deliver outstanding media results.”

Brand Learning, the leading international specialist consultancy in building marketing capabilities, today announced that it has achieved the coveted third place in The Sunday Times Top 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 2010.

Brand Learning was also awarded the maximum, three-star ‘outstanding’ accreditation by Best Companies Ltd, the organization behind the Top 100. It surveyed over 200,000 employees in 997 companies and carried out an evaluation of each organisation’s key processes and policies to provide an independent assessment of success on the key factors proven to contribute to high employee workplace engagement.

This year saw 1,086 organisations applying to achieve 'Star Status', a 37% increase on applications in 2009. Of these, 900 made it through the process and since September over 276,000 employees from these organisations have been surveyed. In total, 410 organisations achieved ‘Star Status’ success but only 50, including Brand Learning, achieved the coveted Three Star Status.

Mhairi McEwan, co-founder and managing director of Brand Learning, comments: “It’s only our third year of entering these awards so we were delighted to make the Top 3 - all credit to the very special team of people who work for Brand Learning. And we found ourselves sitting at Table 33 on the night when the list was announced. Three is clearly our lucky number!

"We were number thirteen in 2008, then five in 2009 and now we’ve reached the Top 3 and our scores went up in most of the categories surveyed. But we are not complacent and we have got a lot of work to beat that!”

Brand Learning helps clients drive profitable, demand-led growth by enabling organisations, and the individuals within them, to excel at customer-centric marketing.

Creative communications agency, The Bank, and media agency, the7stars have launched an international campaign for revolutionary mobile operator Truphone.

The campaign supports the Truphone Local Anywhere service – a new global mobile package which offers local rates and local numbers on one SIM and is specifically targeted to businesses and consumers that communicate frequently on an international basis.

With the UK and US being the first countries to offer the new service, the campaign will launch in London on 1st March with TV, outdoor and press advertising featuring the line ‘Turn global communications on its head’. This will be shortly followed with a US version of the campaign idea.

Creative work playfully captures this idea with the UK TV commercial opening on a typical New York City street scene. Everything appears normal as we follow a man dressed in black and green (Truphone’s brand colours) as he walks down the street.

However, at closer inspection we notice that all communication has literally been turned on its head and is upside-down: a hotel sign reads ‘Local Anywhere’; street signs say ‘No Roaming’ and a the bar is called ‘Stay Connected’ – mobile and communications-related names which also play to the brand’s product benefits. As our protagonist turns the corner we are seamlessly taken to a typical London street where again signs such as ‘Post No Bills’, ‘Rate Watchers’ and ‘To Let – No Contracts’ are flipped.

When the TV ad launches in the US, the scenes are purposefully reversed so our man walks from London to New York. In print ads, London scenes from the TV work will run in US media, with New York scenes in UK media to reflect the international appeal of both cities.

Press ads are planned to appear in a mixture of transatlantic in-flight magazines and business-to-business and consumer titles, whilst TV advertising will be shown on business relevant TV channels – all specifically targeted at the international community.

The outdoor element of the campaign will use a mixture of backlit traditional and digital screens within Heathrow airport to target international travellers. The product will be available to buy on BA, Virgin, South Africa Airways, Easyjet and BMI flights. A fleet of Truphone liveried taxis running between London and Heathrow will continue the message.

Ian Pond, chief marketing officer at Truphone said: “Truphone Local Anywhere is a huge launch for us, with enormous potential and something that really fills a gap in the market. It’s an innovative product that really changes the rules and that we know will appeal to people with an international lifestyle on both sides of the Atlantic, and eventually in many more countries.

“We wanted to get our name out there with a polished campaign and some clever media targeting that would immediately establish us as a credible and reliable player for the international community. The work that the7stars and The Bank have produced is intelligent and distinctive campaign that represents the changes Truphone is bringing to the mobile communications world.”

Will Phipps, head of planning at the7stars added: “When launching a product like this, it matters enormously that targeting is clever enough to reach the right people – and with Truphone Local Anywhere making its debut on both sides of the Atlantic we’ve produced an incredibly hard working and creative media plan that will see the brand make its mark on the right people in exactly the right place.”

Tristan Connell, managing director at The Bank said “We have found the experience of working with Truphone hugely rewarding and sought to develop a campaign for the launch of Truphone Local Anywhere that not only did justice to a genuinely innovative brand, but got people talking. We wanted to move away from conventional telecommunications advertising and felt the idea of ‘turning global communications on its head’ did just that, by cleverly challenging and rewarding the viewer as well as living up to the truth behind this pioneering product”.

"The rest of the pack look down on me because I haven't got an ASBO."

James Whitworth is a topical cartoonist and writer. He has contributed to a number of newspapers and magazines, including Creative Boom...

Creative Boom is nearly eight months old and as you know, we're always finding ways to improve and update the site. One of the requests on our Facebook fan page was to be even more collaborative and fun by introducing regular creative briefs.

So welcome to 'Projects', where we encourage you to get creative and email in your submissions, responding to different briefs. Something that you'll be able to add to your portfolio, CV or just do for fun. We might even throw in some prizes for the winning submissions.

This is open to everyone who loves being creative - not just designers and illustrators. We're after contributions from photographers, textile and craft makers, artists - or just anyone who loves being creative.

We'll be launching our maiden Project soon! We're currently asking you on our Facebook fan page for some ideas on the initial brief. So join in and add your thoughts.

Rising folk stars, Wheeler Street, fresh from live appearances at Glastonbury and the Cambridge Folk Festival have announced the release of their new single, ‘The Pirate Song’ out on the 22nd March 2010.

This is the first release since the seven-piece’s critically-acclaimed debut album, Roodumdah. ‘The Pirate Song’ has been released in partnership with Kent-based record label, Tin Robot Records. In promotion of the single, the band will be holding a launch party in their hometown of Maidstone at the Corn Exchange on the 29th March.

Wheeler Street are fast becoming regarded as one of the best new young folk bands in the UK. Described by Mike Harding of BBC Radio 2 as “indecently talented”, “raw and immediate” and “totally brilliant”, their unique brand of off-kilter folk-rock has won them radio and media attention across the globe and this single release marks the beginning of a defining year for the “new faces of folk” (Kent Messenger).

Wheeler Street are the third act to have signed to Tin Robot Records, the new independent label that is helping to change the face of the music industry by supporting and investing in new music. ‘The Pirate Song’ will be available from all good download stores including iTunes from the 22nd March. There will also be a limited edition physical copy available at the single launch party.

The Pirate Song single launch party will be held at the Corn Exchange, Maidstone, on the 29th March. Tickets are £8/£6 concessions and Wheeler Street will be supported by Scott Brunger.