July 3, 2010

Cristobal Balenciaga

Dubbed the ‘couturiers’ couturier’, Cristobal Balenciaga was one of the most highly respected haute couture designers of all time. A prolific designer, whose career spanned a period of over 35 years, he is credited with creating every major fashion silhouette during that time. His big and tall mens clothing fashions appeared regularly on the front pages of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar magazines.

Having trained as a tailor in San Sebastian, Spain, Balenciaga was able to apply his skill in creating simple, elegant and sophisticated forms of big mens clothing. His greatest talent was an ability to mould garments into sculptural shapes. He also elaborately beaded or embroidered the surface of his fabrics, so that the sumptuous fabrics were highlighted by magnificent surface textures, an art that welcomed revival following the depression years.

Balenciaga opened his Paris salon on Avenue George V in August, 1937, just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. It is, perhaps, for this reason that he is better known for his late 1940s and 1950s work. His clientele included the rich and famous, as well as members of royalty. Among them were Pauline de Rothschild, Mona von Bismarck and Jackie Kennedy. His favourite models were ‘Colette’ and ‘Bettina, middle-aged brunettes whose figures and coloring were similar to those of his best clients. Balenciaga’s astute business acumen and his genius for exquisite design ensured a very successful couturier career.

He chose fabrics that were naturally stiff, such as taffeta, velvet and layers of organdie, as they held their shape and complemented the defined forms of his garments, including his famous black ‘Pumpkin or ‘Balloon dress of 1950, his white organdie ‘Flamenco’ dress and his black and white ‘Fishtail’ dress, both designed in 1951 - and later his range of big and tall shirts.

While the dominant color for evening wear in the 1950s was black, daytime colors included brownish-red, yellow ochre, turquoise blue and mauve - the colors of his native homeland, Spain. It is significant that they also became the signature colors of the 1950s fashion period, and indicative of the influence that he had over fashion at that time.

Balenciaga’s clothing often referenced both historical and non-European cultural garments, drawing upon past fashion styles. Inspirations included the sixteenth-century farthingale skirts seen in paintings by the Spanish master Diego Velasquez and eighteenth-century flowing coats depicted by the French rococo painter Jean-Antoine
Watteau.

In the early 1950s, Balenciaga’s work reflected an oriental influence with mounted collars and three-quarter ‘kimono’ sleeves. He transformed the silhouette by broadening the shoulders and letting out the seams, thereby removing the waist, making this ’semi-fit’ styling very fashionable. These loose, unfitted garments became, by 1957, the prototype for the kite-shaped ’sack’ dresses made famous by his disciple, Hubert de Givenchy.

Expertly constructed, lavish and profoundly romantic, Balenciaga’s clothing characterizes the best of haute couture. His work is now part of the collection of every major art museum in the world and his fashion house, following his retirement in 1968, became part of the Gucci group with Nicolas Ghesquiere appointed as head designer.

Filed under Arts and Design by James

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January 29, 2010

Important Design Aspects That Make A Good Catalog

Graphic design’s significance in a catalog is immense as it plays its part just like an efficacious salesman. A catalog displays a range of products that enable a customer pick a specific product after discussing with relatives, friends or peers. Therefore printing and designing of the catalog must be appealing and compelling, so that customers find it impressive enough to think of buying the displayed items.

A catalog must efficiently concentrate on products and see that they do not get eclipsed by other factors. Thus without any negligence, you should first focus on the colour combination and layout of the main graphic elements so that the product pictures in the catalog do not look trite to the customer. Any contemporary graphic design software can display you how the different patterns will look, and by making use of the colour picker tools, you can easily choose a palette that suits you.

The second thing to deliberate upon is how all the text will be displayed on the catalog. You can also check out the suitability and effectiveness of various fonts and colours beforehand by making use of graphics tools. You must keep in mind while incorporating text that it should include all the main benefits of the products, but this data must be displayed in a concise manner.

Adding design elements to the catalog must be he next in line after the preliminary layout with text and images is finalized. Modern graphic design with smart looks gives the catalog a certain flamboyance that is needed to keep the consumers hooked and interested in the offering. For such graphic designs, either an expert designer can be hired or if you are creative enough and have some idea of this area then you can do it by your self.

Graphic design software come with specific pre designed features that can be effectively used to design your catalog with comfort and convenience. This will enable you to create designs of high quality with minimum effort.

Once the above mentioned steps have been followed, you would require a good printing firm to print the desired amount of copies of the catalog for distribution to customers. It is always advisable to ask for a professional opinion on your catalog design, so you can allow a good designer from the printing firm itself to recommend and make the necessary changes on your design before it goes for printing.

Discover how creative catalog designs can accelerate your business growth using qualified graphic design professionals. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

Filed under Arts and Design by Dennis Smith

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January 27, 2010

Tips For Event Photography

If you focus on event photography you can make quite a bit of money. It is a varied and widely sought after field of photography.

Here’s how you can do it

Cover only events where it is hard for people to take the pics themselves and where they will want to keep their memories frozen in film.

One idea is to go to kids sports events. Get permission from the coach to click pics for the parents watching and then start clicking away. If you turn up with a great big telephoto lens like the ones used for pro coverage of events, you will be taken seriously. Make sure you get all the children doing great action shots and then hand out flyers to all the kids’ parents watching with your web address. If you can write down the parents email address so you can email them the URL of you site then upload the pics to your web site that day and email everyone. If you have a simple shopping cart set up you can make money in a few hours as people pop in to see the pics and buy them for $20 or more a pop.

You can do a similar thing with weddings. Take all the normal pictures as part of the wedding coverage but then get your URL printed on the wedding invites and all the other wedding materials and also get an email list of all the wedding guests, offer the couple a nice 20% discount for doing this and then take lots of extra pics at the wedding of the guests doing all the things they do. Upload all the pics to your site and send the emails. You will then make a lot more money than the 20% discount it cost you because then 30 or 40 people will be also purchasing your pics at $20 or more a shot straight from your site. Charging a higher price for high res pics is also a great money spinner.

The trick is to find a corner in the market where you can excel by being the best photographer in the room, and offering an easy way for people to buy your photos.

Dog shows, fashion shows, horse shows, car shows, livestock competitions, rock shows, - the list goes on. Keep your eye out in the events section of your local paper to see what is happening. Always ask for permission to shoot pics and if you need to offer the people 10% of the income if feel you need to so you can get easy access.

Learn more about Singaporean Event Photographer and discover more about Wedding Photographers. You are welcome to reprint this article - but get your own unique content version here.

categories: ebusiness,photography,events,photographers,hobbies,arts,business ideas,wedding photography

Filed under Arts and Design by Peter Wong

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December 17, 2009

Motion Picture Critiques Of Some Outstanding Motion Pictures That You Can Have Tonight

When you unearth a couple of good services that you are interested in buying downloads from, regard what sort of agreement you’d like to have. Do you assume you’ll only download a few movies? If so, you possibly will do best paying per film. Maybe you like to get a complete collection of all of your most wanted motion pictures. You can obtain a membership online, as well.

First-rate information about some of the greatest movies that you may have never heard of is right here. Enjoy this list of movies that are “oldies but goodies”. Bear in mind that you can download any of them you select directly to your own computer in the convenience of your own house.

Bewitched - Isabelle is a witch, living in the San Fernando Valley, and trying to not use her supernatural powers. She finds herself being wooed by actor Jack Watt to play the role of Samantha the witch in a remake of the old 1960’s sitcom Bewitched. What a strange twist of fate.

Die Hard - In position to commit the perfect crime, terrorists have commandeered a Los Angeles high rise, and are holding everyone hostage. There is $460 million in the corporate safe that the terrorists want. Everything is going according to play. Uninvited, so the terrorists don’t know he is there New York cop John McClane is the lone hope to stop the terrorists.

Down Argentine Way - Entertaining 20th Century Fox musical with Grable in the film that raised her to celebrity falling in love with slick Argentinean horse breeder Ameche. Miranda is excellent in her first American motion picture, acting infectious Brazilian music with her own band and look out for the Nicholas Brothers, who do a dynamite forte number. Picture postcard color all the way through. Cast includes Don Ameche, Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, Charlotte Wood, Carrol Naish, Henry Stephenson, and Leonid Kinskey. (90 minutes, 1940)

Philadelphia - Andrew Beckett is a gay lawyer who has Aids. He is dying of the disease. He was fired from the conformist law firm he worked for because there was fear of contracting the illness from him. As he battles to live on, he selects to sue the law firm, to help further the cause of other Aids victims. His originally homophobic lawyer, fights through his bias to fight for this cause.

The Iron Horse - Mythical, quiet film in reference to creating of the transcontinental railroad, entangled with unsurprising human interest subplots engaging surveyor O’Brien, darling Bellamy, deserter Kohler, etc. Might appear trite this current day; however it’s critical to note that this movie fashioned what later was known as stereotypes. Cast includes George O’Brien, Cyril Chadwick, and Fred Kohler. Gladys Hulette, J. Farrell MacDonald. (119 minutes, 1924)

The Seniors - 4 collegians open a fake sex hospital, which mushrooms into a multi million dollar business. The movie is alternately stupid and sarcastic, with some harmless nudity thrown in. Cast includes Jeffrey Byron, Gary Imhof, Dennis Quaid, Lou Richards, PrisciIla Barnes, Alan Reed, Edward Andrews, Robert Emhardl, and Alan Hewitt.

When you have a computer you will find tons of things you can do with it and many things you can discover from it. One of the things that you can learn how to do is learn how to where to download free movies. It is great to be able to watch your favorite movie wherever you go and when you want to download films, the exchange to play on your psp is not as easy as it appears.

Filed under Arts and Design by Ahmad Foster

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