Label Lovin'

Here are a few of the labels I am absolutely loving at the moment.

1. For Love & Lemons

For Love & Lemons is based in LA and BFF's Gillian Rose Kern and Laura Hall are the creative minds behind it all. They have delicate feminine designs, specialising in lingerie. They're look is distinct and instantly recognisable. Find them online here. 

        

    2.  EKAY 

Ekay has a variety of bright and intricate items. Shells, tie-dye, lace and tassels; these are a few of my favourite things. It's still quite a small label, but she's definitely got the goods. Find them online here.

     3. Dyspnea

Dyspnea is an Australian label that describes tim selves as, "the lovechild of Rhianna and Noel Fielding, Beyonce and Russell Brand". If that doesn't give you a good idea of what Dyspnea are, think candy, pom-poms and fairies. You can find them online here. 

Read about my Boston riots article for Maxviral.com

I am finding it hard to find time to write a new weekly post. So to combat this, and compromise with my conscience, I am going to just upload past works and stories of mine with a bit of a critique, overview and background about the process of writing the story. I'm going to start with one I wrote up this week for Maxviral.com.

I am currently interning at Maxviral.com as a journalist. It is a click-bating-type website that upload content about trending topics. It's a very different kind of writing that I am used to, and I'm not entirely sure if I have particularly high respect for the work, but I have definitely learnt a lot from being there so far. I have learnt much about marketing and also website function including uploading stories and working with metadata, focus keywords, tags etc. All this knowledge is obviously very useful in the age of digital journalism.

This story was written as part of an in-office interview challenge where we had to interview anyone of our choice from Reddit AMA and put the Q&A into a story. This challenge was developed to give some of the other interns a chance to exercise interview skills. I found a journalist who covered the Boston Riots and asked him about his experience and opinions.

Read more about it here. You can see some of my other stories on Maxviral here.

I can Sia clearly now

I am discovering my love for Sia all over again.

Well actually...I suppose I'm only a few years too late in discovering any kind of love for her at all.

I had initially only ever heard her major singles dating back to 2009 with "You've changed" and "Clap Your Hands" in 2010. Then of course, in 2011, she teamed up with David Guetta and released "Titanium" which still resonates with many people, today, four years on.

I always thought she was decent, but never took the time to research her or look into her albums or other singles.

Sia Image

So for me, listening to "Elastic Heart" for the first time and then watching the film clip, made me really ponder what amazing talent this woman has.

"Chandelier" is definitely a stand out track of hers which really demonstrates her immense soprano vocal range, but also reveals the grit and emotion she can illustrate with her voice.

Not only is she an incredibly vocalist there's no question she can write a damn good song! Having written for greats such as Christina Auguleria, Kylie Monogue, Kanye West, Rhianna and so many more, she's pumped out hit after hit.

Her artistic flare is also displayed with each music video she releases - especially with the help of super-star Maddy Ziegler!

I currently have "Elastic Heart" and "Chandelier" on repeat and am looking forward to discovering more of Sia's music.

A photo that represents ME

To correctly portray myself in an appropriate career light, I initially wanted to post a photograph of me at a music festival or gig. The photo I had in mind was this:

Me at Splendour in the grass 2014. 

Unfortunately I wasn't happy with the quality of the picture and it wasn't really recent enough. So I was forced into the art of self-photography. I tried to take photos of myself with my instruments and they all turned out too "try-hard". So instead, I opted for a different side of me. I went outside and sat on my balcony so that the natural light was doing it's job and took a photo of myself, on my iPhone, with my plants in the background. I'm hoping this photograph communicates my love for nature and the outdoors which is an integral part of ME.

Header

When creating a banner for my page, I kept to the colour scheme but also wanted to select a picture that communicated music and night life.

I'm hoping that once I get this blog up and running, I will use it to continue writing about music but also review the gigs I go to, especially those in the Brisbane area. Therefore, I felt that this banner not only has the name of the blog within it and works with my selected colour scheme, it also demonstrates a little of what this blog is about.

The name, Beats Per Minute, is a musical reference usually reffered to in its abbreviated form, bpm, which determines the tempo, or speed, of a song. I chose this title as one that I thought tied in with the kind of theme and look I was going for with this blog, but also when I created the URL I shortened it to 'beats-pm' which I think appropriatley represents night life - live music (beats) at night (pm).

Unfortuantely, to fit it in the header banner above, I had to stretch the image just enough so that it didn't appear distorted. This is how it looked before I uploaded it into the template:

Colour me happy

The colours I chose for my blog, probably aren't colours I would have normally gone for. My favourite colour is yellow and secondary to that is hot pink. I thought this combo may have been a little bright and girly for the kind of look I was going for this time around. The last few years though - judging by my bedroom - I've started to incorporate Turquoise into that mix.

The colour pallette I've gone with is made up from two shade of Turquiose, or one of mint if you like, paired with grey, white and black to keep it a little edgy and simple.

When researching the meaning of the colour Turquoise, the first definition I came across fitted what I hope this blog will live up to.

"Turquoise helps to open the lines of communication between the heart and the spoken word. It presents as a friendly and happy color enjoying life." - Colour Psychology

A mixture of these cool colours with a bit of pop, as well as neutral colours produces a clean white background with black text which makes for easy reading with a calm, happy and pleasant surrounding.

MyPod

The top 10 most played songs on my iPod:

1. Seeing Angels - The John Bulter Trio
2. Rhyme and Reason - The Cat Empire
3. Withdraw - Kimbra
4. White Blank Page - Mumford & Sons
5. The Suburbs - Arcade Fire
6. Seven Devils - Florence + the Machine
7. Prisoner - The Jezabels
8. Better Than - The John Butler Trio
9. Clovis' Son - Josh Pyke
10. Like Eating Glass - Bloc Party

I've included links for all songs so feel free to check any of them out! I'd also like to make special mention of a few of my other favourite artists who didn't make the list: Missy Higgins, Boy & Bear, Django Django, Sarah Blasko, Regina Spektor, The Smiths, The Black Keys and Radiohead.