It is sadly nearly four months since Yves-Saint Laurent died. A leading figure in fashion, he led from the front. He worked tirelessly on making everybody look good. Yves himself said that “dressing is a way of life.” He was an inspiration to many with his stylish pret-a-porter lines. In fact, before him fashion was only available to the few. Yves was committed to making sure that we could all present ourselves better.
Our appearance is shaped by our clothes. We are what we wear. Words in many cases are second to what people see of us. And that is down to designers like Yves. Designers like Yves make words that we PRs play with redundant.
If we look good, we start better, which is why for many PRs dressing up our clients for the media and their benefit is part of our job. As they say, first appearances matter.
In the lead up to the last Paris Fashion Week Yves Saint-Laurent house commissioned the following promo. They wanted atmosphere and style, items so important when presenting a brand like YSL. The video was shot in London and shown behind-the-scenes after their show in Paris earlier this year. It is the kind of promo that presents a brand as it should, without any compromise. Brands like Yves Saint-Laurent understand the value of visuals. They dress us and the promos that we make dress, for many PRs, the companies we work for.
See for yourselves [and I suggest you go big screen!].
News and publishing companies, redesigning their business?
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009A lot of rumours are floating around at the moment about how publishing companies are developing digital platforms for the print offerings.
Condé Nast recently showed off a concept video of Wired’s supposed iTablet application at Wired’s New York store. The video shows Wired magazine as an interactive title that’s updated with not just print but video content. Techcruch meanwhile have seen a demo of Sports Illustrated’s concept for tablet computers (above). The Wonder Factory have worked with Sports Illustrated’s publisher Time Inc to create a video that like Wired’s concept shows how Sports Illustrated would work (below).
These are interesting times for the news and publishing industries. I said some time ago that Apple could come into the market with a tablet based device that would aggregate your favourite titles on an iTablet. Such system would use iTunes to work and manage your subscriptions. The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story at the end of October claiming that Apple had in fact ‘sent specifications of the device to Australian media companies in an effort to sound out whether they would be interested in delivering their content to the tablet.’ None would go on the record though.
And Rupert Murdoch is very much considering putting up a paywall in front of his titles while taking these off Google. This could well help the news industry bring in much needed subscription income.
The fact is that news and print as we know will have to evolve and provide more that just words and pictures if people are to subscribe. The evidence though is pointing to the fact that media companies are redesigning their business and their offerings.
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