Vision On will screen its short film, La Demimondaine, starring Iris Strubegger on February 12 at the ultra posh nightclub, The Box. Lorenzo Martone’s public relations and talent agency, ARC New York, will host the event for Ruffian designers Brian Wolk and Claude Morais.
The event will mark the first public screening of La Demimondaine.
See the official announcement on style.com.
Wrangler’s Blue Bell new spring/summer 2010 collection is fresh. But what’s really jaw-dropping is the way their website takes lookbook interactivity to a new level. A single male model wears six different outfits, and for each outfit, website visitors can control his movements. That means they can take off his shirt, push him around from side to side, even drag him across the floor. It’s an intimate virtual experience, and especially fun for the ladies.
More than just fun, however, AdFreak points out that the new interface, designed by Sweden’s Kokokaka, actually provides a solution to a real problem: it lets online shoppers know how clothes move and feel in real life.
Peyton Manning may be the star of the Indianapolis Colts, but it’s possible that for some Americans he’s better known as the jocular pitchman for MasterCard, Sony, Sprint, DirecTV, Gatorade, Oreos… and so on. Manning has been sports marketing’s undisputed champ in recent years, and so it will be somewhat odd tomorrow night when football fans tune in and don’t see him anywhere except on the playing field. The reason is that none of Manning’s sponsors will be running spots in advertising’s primo event this year.
The Super Bowl, explains Ad Age, is increasingly a place for lesser known brands. A small brand — think the flower delivery company TeleFlora, the shoe company Sketchers, or the gay-dating site ManCrunch, which made news (and got a truck load of free publicity) when CBS ultimately denied its ad this year — may pony up for the $3 million asking price but they may not have money for a big name pitchman, or may worry that the big name will overshadow the brand.
Check out Ad Age’s Super Bowl 2010 special report for the full Peyton Manning story, as well as plenty of other interesting stuff, including a breakdown of all featured spots and the marketing profiles of Saints fans vs. Colts fans.
© The Art of Retouching and Improving Negatives and Prints
Retouching, particularly the alterations made for magazine covers, has been much in the news this past year. While the attention may be new — thanks to the accessibility of Photoshop — retouching itself is not.
The fine-art photography blog Conscientious recently did a post spotlighting a book “The Art of Retouching and Improving Negatives and Prints,” from way back in 1941. It seems that back then your average joe could walk into almost any street-corner portrait shop and come out with a slightly-more-flattering-than-reality portrait for posterity. Someone of FDR’s stature meanwhile, with retouching and careful staging, could go his whole (extended) presidency without the general public realizing he was unable to walk.
Ironically, all the secrets of pre-computer-era retouching are nowadays just a mouse-click away. A digital copy of the 1941 book can be found here.
Got any art books that are collecting dust? Need to diversify your coffee table collection? This Saturday (Feb 6) MoMa and the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) will be hosting a free Art Book Swap. In exchange for your old book, choose from a selection of books donated to NADA. And it’s all for a good cause. Leftover books will be given to the Prison Encouragement Project, which supplies books to prison libraries.