We’ve talked about the lomography; the ultra low-tech return to photography, but the great thing about lomography is the community of users. People come together and make amazingly creative projects with these little plastic cameras. The Staple Design group has proven to be the pinnacle in the collective with their latest project.

Following the guidelines of Chakra, Staple Design sent out a mission statement of color codes to the lomography community and commissioned a few stand out photographers. After collecting thousands of images, the Reed Space is hosting an exhibition and the launch of the book “Colorsplash Chakra” for the photographs from the project. But it doesn’t stop there, they’re also releasing a special Chakra Edition Colorsplash Camera. To kick it all off, there is a party tonight at the Reed Space. If you are in New York send an email RVSP to lomo [at] stapledesign.com — and hurry, space is limited. We would not recommend bringing your fancy digital SLR to document the event, instead try a pinhole camera; it’ll get you street cred.

Emoticons are that part of the Internet we make fun of tweens for using, but mockery quickly turns into imitation, and next thing you know you’re trading text messages with your girlfriend by giving her a kiss :*. Until you see a book of typeface focusing solely on emoticons, you won’t understand how attractive emoticons can be. Designer Allison Wilton just finished her BFA with a thesis project that takes sixteen hand crafted art books and explores the born digitals with “aspects of the World Wide Web that bombard society daily.” The books were on display as a part of her BFA graduate show and hopefully they will see the light of day again soon. The books showcase a well-designed project, but her newly launched website puts her in the category of names we expect to see atop the design world.

London is so awesome this summer you should forget the price of airline tickets and high exchange rate, and just bite the bullet. May we make a recommendation? How about the Hide and Seek Festival (June 27th through the 29th)? We mentioned it a little while ago in connection with Snap-Shot-City, and now it’s here! The Southbank fest features everything from lectures on the future of play to digital/real world mashup, and even a tour guide who pretends London has turned into Tokyo. Brought to you by the Blast Theory Artists group and more, these alternative reality games are touting themselves to be the future of fun. Almost all the events are free, have a look at the list and sign up for something.

Sometimes the best thing about catching an arena rock spectacle isn’t your favorite headliner, but the chance to see some pretty amazing opening acts before they start selling out arenas. If you’ve already snatched up tickets to the late summer leg of Coldplay’s North American summer tour (hitting a venue near you from July 20th to August 4th) we recommend you arrive at the show extra early to catch supporting act Santogold. The Brooklyn-based band fronted by Santi White busts out bombastic, bass-heavy tunes that mix elements of indie rock, punk, reggae and electro music that will add a little bounce to the step of Coldplay fans getting their quiet chill on.

What do you do if you want to be a standout artist in a saturated genre? If you’re Swedish born Theresa Andersson, you approach the challenge in a non-conventional way. Andersson, who played every instrument on her new album, drew inspiration from her surroundings and combined them into 12 tracks recorded in her kitchen-turned-recording studio. “Hummingbird, Go!” is a musical journey with sounds reminiscent of the music you may have found on the radio 30 years ago. The music of each instrument (wine glasses, a violin, and vibraphone among them) is relatively simple but there is a complexity in how they are layered. The album is slated for release on September 2nd. Pick it up for a wonderfully relaxing, laying on your hammock on a Sunday afternoon, experience. In the meantime, you can watch her music video for “Na Na Na”