It all started as an experiment — a test to see if there were others out there like me.

I like having nice things, eating well, traveling. I know these things have an impact on the world around me, and I don’t want to leave a trail of destruction in my wake. I also don’t want to sacrifice the things that make me happy.

The thing is, consumers (and if you’re reading this, you are one) are the biggest force for change. Every single day, we make hundreds of decisions that affect the world around us.

What if, rather than being reminded that we’re part of the problem, we felt motivated to become part of the solution?

The good news is that human creativity and generosity are making it easier for each of us to live the lifestyle we want while changing things for the better, every day in every little way.

Chefs making outstanding meals using local and seasonal produce. Designers upcycling everything from fashion to furniture, to make stuff that’s even better. Entrepreneurs building successful businesses that solve more problems than they create.

These are the companies I want to see grow and succeed. The ones making a real difference in the world and in their customers’ lives. The ones carrying out a vision where everything we make, do and buy does more good than harm.

So I made it my mission to spread their stories in order to make more people aware of them, inspire more shoppers to buy from them and challenge more companies to act like them.

What began as a handful of articles on a self-built website has become Thoughtful, an online magazine that champions lifestyle, design and culture making a positive impact. Rejecting any hint of guilt, we show how easy it can be to live well in every way.

Our community of creatives and trendsetters is leading a movement to take conscientious consumerism out of the niche and make it desirable and accessible to everyone. Together, we’re spotting examples of how to live more thoughtfully all over the world, and using #thisisthoughtful in social media to identify and recognise them.

We collect all these posts on our website and share the best in our newsletter and social media—regular reminders that a better world isn’t just some conceptual future state, but part of our lives today that maybe just needs a little nudge.

#thisisthoughtful serves as a platform for inspiring random acts of thoughtfulness too. Leading up to the holidays we put loads of little origami envelopes all over London, each containing a lucky penny and a note encouraging people to pay it forward generously to people in need. We open-sourced the envelope template so that anyone, anywhere could get involved. People were making and finding envelopes far and wide, from Amsterdam to New York, Canada to Russia, Colombia to The Philippines.

The first step was seeing if there were others out there like me. Now that I know there are, I’m eager to connect us all through shared stories, projects, experiences and more.

View Thoughful here. For more about Daianna, see her twitter account here.

More: Website | Instagram | Facebook| Twitter

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GSA Communication Design ’14 is a blog featuring work from final year Communication Design students at The Glasgow School of Art.

A selection of works from their blog:

Sandwiching negatives by Cecilie Osnes

Nancy Haslam

Their next upcoming event is their Work in Progress Show on 31 January at onecubeortwo in Glasgow.

More: Website | Twitter

I decided to set up Racket Racket in the early part of the summer of 2011 after a bit of an epiphany moment on a long car drive from London to Glasgow, when the whole concept for it became very succinct in my mind. It was at that point that it all fell into place, I suppose. The fact that I didn’t have ‘a blog’ had been niggling away at me for the best part of the last ten years and I had always, maybe somewhat ambitiously, hoped that when the time did come it would be something more thought out, considered and expansive than your average music blog, something less ephemeral and throwaway than much of what exists out there already and something distinctly different from your average contemporary online music magazine.

I took inspiration and education from my time as station manager at Radio Magnetic (a truly invaluable three years of experience) and also from a handful of websites and blogs I had been frequenting regularly for years, London based Test Pressing being one particularly strong influence. The concept I defined in my head during that long journey home was to establish an online magazine which would act as an outlet for me to share and explore my own, fairly niche, interests and obsessions in terms of music (and to a lesser extent art, design and film) as well as the interests and obsessions of certain key people who have specific and idiosyncratic tastes which I trust implicitly – many based in Glasgow but many from further afield. The name I chose essentially means ‘an illegitimate organisation making an extremely loud noise’ – the Racket Racket.

On the site, since launching in Dec 2011, there have been articles and features from some notable and respected cultural voices including JD Twitch, DJ Dribbler, Douglas MacIntyre, Bruce Morton, Stuart Cosgrove, Neil Macdonald, David Barbrossa, James Pole, Brian Sweeney, Paul Benedict Henderson, Jennifer McColgan and Alan Bissett. As I mentioned earlier, all of these people have tastes, opinions and viewpoints that I respect and value hugely. The aim or manifesto, if you like, is to explore ‘alternative pop culture’ from through the decades and around the world. Most of the content on Racket Racket is music-focussed simply because that’s my first love and has been my major personal preoccupation since I was about 7 or 8 years old. And especially, although not exclusively, it’s music from the past and from the peripheries. Mixes, documentary videos, interviews and features make up the majority of the posts so far and there will be lots more of all of those things in 2013. Because that’s what floats my boat.

Some of the most popular articles of the past year have included JD Twitch‘s conversation with legendary UK dub producer Adrian Sherwood, Douglas MacIntyre’s Run Run Run series, DJ Dribbler’s account of a rave at The Tramway in 1989, Brian Sweeney’s Happy Mondays Texts, Stuart Cosgrove’s two part social history of the Zoot Suit in the USA; and interviews with Stuart Leath, Peaking Lights, Ken McCluskey, Albion Venables and Django Django have all gone down rather well too.

One particular area I’m going to be focusing on in the new year is the ‘mix‘ side of things. In doing so, showcasing and promoting DJs and vinyl collectors and enthusiasts around the world who I admire deeply and who, perhaps, go a little unnoticed on the larger and more mainstream online music platforms. I think it’s really important to give these people the exposure they deserve as well as providing a place, in Racket Racket, for local DJs I’m a fan of to show off corners of their record collections that they don’t often get the opportunity to. The music they listen to at home rather than what they would be expected to play in a nightclub on a Saturday night. The weirder and more experimental the better, really. And also we’ll be starting a regular feature ‘spotlight’ (for want of a better term) on independent record shops, again, around the world: Monorail, Rubadub, Underground Solush’n, Redlight Records, Growing Bin, Piccadilly, Sounds of the Universe and so on and so forth. So, there is basically lots of exciting stuff to look forward to next year!

Before that though, Racket Racket has just reached the ripe old age of one and I’ve organised a free party on Friday 28 December at The Brunswick Hotel, Glasgow to celebrate. This will be the third free party we’ve hosted since launching, with each one showcasing three of our favourite local DJs in the intimate and sweaty basement environs of the Brunswick; and they’ve all been really successful nights. David Barbarossa, James Pole, Brian D’Souza, DJ Dribbler, Pro Vinylist Karim and Dirty Larry all deserve a special mention for their huge efforts with the first two parties. For this one – our Christmas-come-first birthday party – we are totally thrilled and excited to have Optimo’s JD Twitch, Hot Mess’s Simonotron and Racket Racket site designer and my girlfriend, Denise (AKA Din Daa Daa) playing the dance records from 9pm till 2am. If you’re free and in Glasgow on the 28 it should be a fantastic night.

Looking forward to the year ahead you can expect to see, as I have touched upon already, regular exclusive mixes and features, articles, interviews and short videos as well as (all going well) a slightly more adventurous event or two consolidating and encapsulating the ethos of the site’s content in ‘the real world’. A site redesign is scheduled for the early part of the new year which will make more of the archive of content on the site already and how that’s presented to the user. All of that as well as Issue 2 of our side project, the So & So fanzine – a physical zine dedicated to the creative musical endeavours and projects happening in the city of Glasgow – which was featured on Central Station back in July, 2012.

I am sincerely grateful to everyone who has been encouraging and supportive over the last year as well as to everyone who has contributed. And hope you continue to approve of the racket we, the racket, are trying to make.

Where to find out more:
Website | Facebook | Twitter

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Who:
Glasgow based photographer, Andrea uses the alter ego Flannery O’Kafka for what she terms as Melancholy Merry-Making. This mother-of-five documents her ‘making’ process through daily life on her blog where you will find a mix of family snapshots, portraits, commercial/editorial work often featuring her children.

Harris Tweed Fashion Show, Hillhead Bookclub, Glasgow’s West End

Why we like it:
Flannery O’Kafka blogs openly in a photo-diary style. Her strong talents as a photographer are plainly evident in all of her work, whether it be an editorial shot or a quick snapshot of one of her kids; her compositions are well-considered and beautiful.

Sisters in Babiekins magazine published

Hidden treasure:
Amongst all the photos of O’Kafka’s children, we stumbled across this rare and rather striking self-portrait of O’Kafka herself.

Self-portrait

Where to find out more:
Website | Facebook | Twitter

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Who:
Step into the Parlour is a blog by Graphic Designer Melanie Smith.

Why we like it:
Melanie posts finished designs as well as her work in progress, which lets her followers clearly see her development.

Hidden treasure:
We uncovered Melanie’s postage stamp design below celebrating the centenary of Alan Turing’s birth with elements relating to secrets and code-breaking.

Alan Turing Postage Stamp Design, 2011.

Where to find out more:
Blog | Facebook | Pinterest

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Why we like it:
Drawing, painting and sculpture are all explored in Hackett’s amusingly unconventional style. We like her brazen attitude towards topics such as streaker Erica Roe and naked rambling.

Hidden treasure:
Drawing other people’s intimate moments was posted last summer and caught our attention.

Where to find out more:
Website | Twitter

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Who:
Struan Teague is a Scottish illustrator and artist who has created designs for bands such as Blank Canvas.

Blank Canvas Record Artwork by Struan Teague

Why we like it:
Struan’s attractive freehand style grabbed our attention and we love how he uses it in a multitude of media.

Hidden treasure:
We found an inkjet and woodblock print on Struan’s Flickr here. (It has a dinosaur in it… what more can we say?)

Where to find out more:
Website | Tumblr | Flickr

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We took the quiet roads

What’s in the blog:
Stewart’s Studio is a blog by Edinburgh based painter Stewart Bremner. Bremner writes religiously every Friday about his painting.

Why we like it:
Stewart tells it like it is and does not gloss over his hardships. Take a look at his post It’s Not All Plain Sailing where he describes how he overcame ‘painter’s block’.

Hidden treasure:
We’re loving Bremner’s font series where he mixes collage with his abstract works. See them here.

Where to find out more:
Website | Facebook | Google+

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Get involved:
We Are Unfinished Artists invites all craft workers, artists and makers to submit discarded works and also join them in creating new pieces from their collected fragments.

From September, they will be running weekly workshops at mac Birmingham where people can bring submissions, work on any pieces that spark their interest, and help to construct the final exhibition. If you would like to sign up to the workshops visit the mac website.

Find out more:
Website

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

Tutt Tutt is the alter ego of Lincolnshire based illustrator Sonia C Whitehead who works in graphics, publishing and print.

What’s in the blog:
Tutt Tutt’s blog is a mix of documentation of works, as well as posts about her current Degree Show.

Why we like it:
As well as pleasing patterns, we like that Tutt Tutt’s blog is really all about her work. Tutt Tutt is new to blogging and sees it as a “virtual journey.” We hope she continues on this journey as we sure do like seeing her work.

Hidden treasure:
Tucked away in one of her posts, Tutt Tutt’s illustration for children’s book Alice in Wonderland is so good, we just had to share it:

Where to find out more:
Read Tutt Tutt’s blog here.
Follow Tutt Tutt on Twitter.
Like Tutt Tutt on Facebook.

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