Movie Stills: Why Change Your Wife?

Swapping color swatches for pattern, this week's movie stills are from Cecil B. DeMille's 1920 comedy Why Change Your Wife? featuring the gorgeous and incredibly adorable 18-year old Bebe Daniels. Although I hated the sexist and anti-woman message, the visual beauty of this film can't be denied. Stylistically post-art nouveau, the fashion and furnishings are still overloaded with ornamentation and geometric patterns. I really love how over-the-top glamorous everything looks. The variety of patterns seems never ending-- there's something different on every layer clothing and surface of the environment!

Abstracted Nature

Technically it's Spring, although I'm still wearing my winter boots and long coat. In honor of this (cruel) distortion I'm posting these ads from Glade Sense & Spray. The artists are abstracting and distorting the natural, geometric patterns flowers typically possess, into more free-form, free-flowing patterns. After liberties were taken with the visual representation of flowers, the viewer can still understand what he/she is meant to see.

via: www.ibelieveinadv.com

Mozambique Fashion Week 2010

 Check out these promo posters for last year's Fashion Week in Mozambique. The use of bold compliments really make these images joyous and lively, in tune with the spirit of the location. Traditional patterns fill the textiles, showing how much culture influences fashion. I included these as some nice examples for pattern week!

via: kissmyblackads

Pattern Inspiration

Computer-related/generated

Brocades/Victorian

Illustrative

Atypical

Canned Champagne

Yellow certainly plays a part in Dark Glamor. Gold is yellow, as are certain alcoholic beverages. Working the decadence angle, I feel the use of the color was very successful in the branding strategy for Paris Hilton's canned champagne, RICH. Aside from the fact that canned champagne in over-the-top glitzy packaging is extremely campy, I think it gets the message across.

Decadence and extravagance are the desired appeal here. There is no subtlety; it simply screams at you. Not to muddle the effect, no competing colors are used-- the scheme is absolute and straightforward. The sex appeal and decadence of the color are translated throughout the marketing campaign. From the nude celebrity, to the appeal of the product, to the coveted precious metal, yellow is the element which synthesizes all the implied themes.

If promoting a product titled "RICH," would there be a more natural choice than a hue indicative of a precious commodity? Yellow gold having a classic standing as a herald for wealth is a fool-proof choice. Tacky and obvious as it may be, the choice here was completely successful.


Other examples of using yellow to communicate wealth, privilege and decadence.

All or Nothing

 

David Benjamin Sherry doesn't mess around when it comes to color. There is no room for hesitancy. He goes big, bold and bounteous. His photos are like simultaneous celebration and exploitation of color. The brashness of hue and sexual tones make his works feel aggressive to me, but the immediate delivery of mood make them all the more attractive! Check out his portfolio!

davidbenjaminsherry.com

Let's Go On a Trip...

Lipton France is doing some amazing, beautiful and ambitious things to promote their Exclusive Collection. Experience for yourself the extend of the creative efforts on their site, where you will be treated to an absorbing sensory experience of orgiastic display of color and form. You will need working speakers and an effecting scrolling mechanism. You won't be sorry. 

http://www.lipton.com/fr