Introducing the “beautifully refined, beautifully crafted” Lumia 925, Jo Harlow, executive vice president of Nokia’s smart devices, said: “The most innovative smartphone in the world did just get better.”

Nokia has launched its latest high-end smartphone with a new metal design and its most advanced camera yet.The Lumia 925 features a lighter and thinner body than its predecessors and an enhanced screen which can be read in bright sunlight.

The Finnish firm unveiled the device at a much-hyped London launch event, which Mission attended in support of the latest release. The reception was held at Victoria House, which had been decked out with a skate board ramp and dark room to show off the incredible smart camera – designed to capture 10 perfect high quality images at once – and its impressive low light capibilities. This function is also set to be extended to all Lumia Windows Phone 8 smartphones.

For more information see here.

British electro-pop band Fenech-Soler performed a breathtaking live set at mixed martial arts venue Leeds Cage last night (02.05.13) as part of the Nokia Lumia Live Sessions.

The second leg of the Lumia Live Sessions tour saw Fenech-Soler perform exclusive material from their second album, due out in the summer, ahead of multiple festival appearances including Boardmasters, Reading and Leeds.

The live gig was part of an ongoing collaboration between Nokia and music pioneers La Blogotheque, who have teamed up to showcase hot new UK music talent at a series of free gigs in amazing venues across the UK. La Blogotheque are a team of bloggers and videographers famous for helping to kick-start the careers of musicians across the world with millions of views across their video blogging phenomenon.

Fenech-Soler said: “To be the first band to play a live set in such a unique venue was incredible. When Nokia and La Blogotheque approached us to be part of the Lumia Live Sessions we jumped at the chance. With more and more talented musicians out there, it is so important that artists are given these opportunities to play in front of new audiences.”

Annie Kearney at Nokia UK, said: “The Lumia Live Sessions are all about enabling discovery, not only of new music, but unique venues, like The Leeds Cage, which is not usually used as a gig venue. Fenech-Soler have a huge year ahead of them with some really exciting releases in the pipeline, so we’re really excited to see them go from strength to strength.”

Featuring over 22 million tracks, Nokia Music easily caters for every taste, requires no registration or subscription and features no audio advertisements.

The Lumia Live Sessions tour has already been to Bristol, and will consist of four more sessions in different cities around the UK. The next session will take place in Liverpool, keep an eye on the Lumia Live Sessions website for more news on the next exciting artist to be announced.

Mission are proud to introduce Shaanti, a collection of students from the University of Manchester, who are about to embark on a nationwide entrepreneurial race to raise as much money as possible in 24 hours for The Prince’s Trust.

Starting tomorrow, 23^rd April 2013, Shaanti will be competing against other universities from across the country to raise as much money as possible for the charity. Each team will have to create, organise and run their own fundraising events.

Shaanti have to sell 300 t-shirts while other competitors will have different goods to sell. King’s College London are selling Indian soaps and running a silent auction whilst students from Bristol are selling jam, cupcakes and homemade treats.

Next have kindly donated all the t-shirts whilst the illustrations on them, inspired by India, have been created by the comedian Doc Brown and designers Sophie Cull-Candy and Bethan Buss.

Doc Brown said: “When I was first starting out as a rapper, as part of an initiative for disadvantaged young artists, The Princes Trust gave me the opportunity to perform at Earls Court on the same bill as Jay Z and Will Smith.

“It was the first time I remember thinking ‘anything is possible’ ”

These fantastic t-shirts will be available to buy through http://shaantimcr.bigcartel.com and around Manchester University.

This incredible video content:

Shot using twelve Nokia Lumia 920s, each filming from a different perspective, this action-packed video evidences the features of a phone with the best low-light performance in a smartphone to date, with the added benefit of Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS).

For the aerial shots one of the smartphones was strapped on to a radio controlled Cinestar Octocopter. The rest of the video was filmed using a combination of handheld, chest and head cam mounted phones – each shooting in 1080p HD.

Find out more here.

Mission worked with Campaign for Wool over the past two weeks to promote Wool House, a showcase that explored wool innovation for interiors, crafts and fashion. Leading interior designers demonstrated the extensive use of wool fibre within their work across seven individual rooms.

The featured designers were Donna Wilson, Ashley Hicks, Josephine Ryan, Anne Kyyrö Quinn, Mary Fox Linton of Fox Linton Associates and Kit Kemp. Their work sat alongside a huge art installation by acclaimed Dutch tapestry artist Claudy Jongstra, a unique 100 foot runner by Cristian Zuzunaga and a life-size crochet bear by Shauna Richardson.

Held at Somerset House, Wool House has proved to be the world’s biggest ever celebration of Wool and Mission are certainly honoured to have been part of it.

As a result, we’d like to share with you all of the highlights of the showcase:

The Demonstrations:
Spinning demonstrations, Rug Weaving with Jason Collingwood, Scarf Weaving on a table loom with Wendy from The Handweavers Studio, Tapestry Weaving with Freya from Dovecot Studios, Henry Poole Co. and Saville Row Bespoke tailoring demonstrations, Mattress Side Stitching with Danny Harris from Vi-Spring.

The Workshops:
Tom of Holland Darning Classes, Sublime Design knitting, Debbie Bliss knitting presentations, Rowan Yarns workshops, Jamieson&Smith Lace Knitting master class, Melanie Porter’s Knit a Lampshade workshop.

The Events:
The Sheep Parade. Meet the Designers Event hosted by Giles Kime from Homes&Gardens, Wool House Master Class with guest speakers Oliver Platts (director of Jonstons of Elgin) and fashion designer Mark Fast.

Of course….a visit from HRH Prince of Wales to close the showcase.

Mission were also responsible for the social media outreach across all digitial platforms to encourage visitors to share their experiences of #WoolHouse. The reaction we received was amazing.

Twitter: 2.3 million impressions

Facebook: 1.7 million impressions

Instagram: 1,109 pictures posted using #WoolHouse, @CampaignforWool and @SomersetHouse

Hundreds of Professor Green fans flocked last night to see the London-born rapper make his 2013 live debut with a storming set list which included favourites such as Remedy and Read All About it.

The exclusive gig was the culmination of Barclaycard’s celebrations to mark London life being made easier now contactless payment technology is available on Transport for London (TFL) buses across the Capital.

Barclaycard transformed a former Victorian goods depot in King’s Cross into the look and feel of a typical London Bus Station with Professor Green performing against a backdrop of vintage Routemasters.

Professor Green said: “Being a London lad born and bred, I have been using public transport all my life so I was happy to headline the Barclaycard Contactless Gig which celebrates this new form of payment on London buses.”

Barclaycard is proud to be working in partnership with TFL to help provide the technology to support buses across the Capital now accepting contactless payments. Contactless payments make it easier and more convenient for customers to pay for their travel on London’s transport network.

Nick Clements, Managing Director for UK Consumer Cards said: “We wanted to celebrate the fact that Londoners can now use contactless cards to pay for journeys on TfL buses, and Professor Green’s London roots made him he is the perfect artist to help us do this.

“Offering our customers access to music and entertainment is a priority for Barclaycard along with bringing them the latest in payments innovation. We want to make our customers lives easier and with buses all across the Capital now accepting contactless payments, we believe it’s a quicker and more convenient choice than paying with cash.”

Since Barclaycard brought contactless technology to the UK in 2007, it has become recognised as the fastest and simplest way to pay. Retailers all over the UK are turning to contactless; these include Waitrose, M&S, McDonalds and Tesco. You can use your contactless card to pay for purchases under £20.

On Thursday 21st of March, Mission hosted the launch of Animal Flow, Equinox’s newest fitness class that is set to be this year’s top fitness trend.

For over 20 years Equinox had been leading fitness innovation from personal training to group fitness, whilst catering to an exclusive clientele including celebrities, business leaders and art and fashion influencers.

Equinox London launched in the Kensington Roof Garden complex in 2012, the first international opening outside of North America. It continues to be at the forefront of fitness innovation whilst maintaining its luxury appeal and sophistication.

The most recent addition to the fitness program, Animal Flow, centres on the idea of returning to the body’s intrinsic rhythm and primitive movements whilst dispensing with the use of weights. Equinox’s newest class goes back to basics, drawing inspiration from the natural and powerful movements of the animal kingdom.

Direct from New York it incorporates modern workouts like parkour, gymnastics, free running, acrobatics, break-dancing and capoeira, and is set to take the fitness world by storm.

Mike Fitch, creator of Animal Flow said: “For years, I loved lifting weights, but the unnatural movement stressed and inflamed my joints. I decided to see how my body would react to a pure body weight discipline. Freestyle animal movements using all four limbs, sculpted my physique, improved my posture and increased my range of motion.”

Lashaun Dale, national creative manager for Equinox Group Fitness “Animal Flow trains the body to move as it was designed to move. This is Equinox’s wildest class in every sense of the word. The class moves with the effortless grace and power of animals. Fluid transitions and intense switches create a continuous flow of movement.”

Members of the Equinox gym in London will be able to participate in Animal Flow from June this year.

Evil by Joe Stephenson

They are not the posters you would usually associate with saving the world. Instead of polar bears or a planet on its last legs there are pictures of North Korean dictator Kim Jong- il with “devil eyes” and the woman in the famous Psycho shower scene.

The concepts are those of a host of top creatives who have been inspired to take green action for a campaign launched by environmental charity Do The Green Thing in the run-up to WWF’s Earth Hour on Saturday. The messages are simple: use less electricity; eat less meat; avoid waste; recycle; and walk more.

Patrick Cox, the man behind the London 2012 Olympics logo, is one of a number of world-renowned designers and writers to create the posters. They include Tom Uglow, a creative director at Google, Eddie Opara, Pentagram partner and one of Fast Company’s 100 most creative people in business, Sophie Thomas, Co-Head of Design at the RSA, and Dan Germain, Creative Director at Innocent.

Cut your shower by Michael Beirut

Mr Cox said: “I’ve always loved Do The Green Thing’s ability to stay away from the earnest do-goodery of the green movement. They that know a dig, joke or nudge is way more effective than another photo of a polar bear.”

Naresh Ramchandani, co-founder of the award-winning charity with Andy Hobsbawm and partner international design studio Pentagram, said: “Creativity is a powerful tool, able to inspire, seduce, provoke and persuade people to do things that they otherwise would not have considered.

“That’s why Do The Green Thing uses creativity to inspire people to be greener. We’re applying one of the most powerful tools we know to the biggest problem we’ve got.”

Hot by Dean Chalkley

For more information on the campaign go to the Do The Green Thing website and to see all of the reinvented posters click here!

The Campaign for Wool is excited to announce WOOL HOUSE: the world’s biggest ever celebration of Wool, taking place from the 13th to the 24th of March in London’s historic Somerset House. Mission have worked closely with The Campaign for Wool to launch a 12 day showcase that has been curated by renowned designer Arabella McNie. From interiors and crafts, to the world of fashion, all aspects of our favourite natural fibre will be available to explore.

Leading interior designers have used the extensive use of wool fibre within their work across seven individual rooms. Each room presents different textures and uses of wool, the featured designers are Donna Wilson, Ashley Hicks, Josephine Ryan, Anne Kyyrö Quinn, Mary Fox Linton of Fox Linton Associates and Kit Kemp. Their work sits alongside a huge art installation by acclaimed Dutch tapestry artist Claudy Jongstra commissioned especially by the Campaign for Wool for WOOL HOUSE.

Also featuring at Wool House:

- Cristian Zuzunaga will be showcasing a unique 100 foot runner
- Rug weaver Jason Collingwood will be taking up a working residence within the building
- The uncannily realistic Crochetdermy skills of Shauna Richardson will be displayed in the form of a life-size crochet bear

With a series of wool-led designer talks, a programme of interactive workshops and a special educational and innovation room, using hi tech tablets to demonstrate the processes wool undergoes on its journey to the consumer, Wool House is set to educate, as well as inspire awe.

For the fashionista, there will also be three rooms celebrating the importance of wool in the fashion industry, including showcases of fine woven fabrics and live tailoring. And to top it all, the central courtyard of Somerset House will play host to some very special guests of honour from the 14th of March.

To see the full list of events please visit: Campaign For Wool/WoolHouse.

To follow the official live feed for Wool House, please follow @Campaignforwool on Twitter and join http://www.facebook.com/thecampaignforwool?fref=ts.

Los Angeles 23.02.2013: Mission worked with Montblanc to host a pre-Oscar charity brunch with UNICEF at the Hotel Bel-Air to celebrate the launch of the 2013 Signature for Good Collection. Montblanc debuted the new collection to reinforce its long-term commitment to children’s education and UNICEF.

Through this initiative Montblanc aims to give children access to quality education. Between 1 March 2013 and 31 March 2014, Montblanc will donate a percentage of all sales from the collection with the hope of raising at least $1.5m to support the UNICEF education programmes worldwide.

Academy award winner Hilary Swank made a special appearance at the brunch to speak about the importance of the Signature for Good initiative and shed light on her recent visit to Ethiopia with Montblanc and UNICEF.

With a heritage deeply rooted in the culture of writing, Montblanc has always been committed to the support of education and literacy. For nearly a decade, Montblanc has taken an active role in supporting UNICEF’s efforts to enable more children to learn how to read and write, with several global initiatives together raising over $5 million dollars to date. Mission are excited to work with Montblanc and continue this ongoing partnership with the new “Signature For Good” Collection, which is built upon the success of the first “Signature For Good” initiative launched in 2009.

As Caryl M.Stern, President and CEO of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF says,
‘Thanks to our partnership with Montblanc and the vital contribution to UNICEF’s work, UNICEF has provided more children a quality education that will significantly better their chances in life. The impact of their investment is truly noticeable and we are grateful for the contribution they make in raising global awareness for UNICEF’s work with vulnerable children around the world.’