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Retouching. I can has it – sort of.

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

My job needed some nice-ish pictures of Heineken bottles for a project we’re working on, so I went and picked up a six-pack and photographed them in a variety of positions (“Okay, lean a little in, nice, smile a bit, good…”) in a conference room while my co-worker held up a large white piece of paper behind them. When I finished, I realized that unretouched photos, even ones of bottles, look, well, not great. So I spent the five hours makin’ ‘em look purty. Take into account that I don’t really know how to retouch things, so I was making it up as I went along.

First of all, retouching is really hard. Every time you fix something, you notice something else that doesn’t look right. It’s an ouroboros of annoying. The main problem I came across (aside from having to edit out dirt flecks and light flares for what seemed like forever) is that Heineken’s bottle is darkish green and their beer is tea-colored. However, they like to give the impression that their bottle is bright green and their beer is golden and lit from the inside with a heavenly light, like an angel accidentally dropped a halo into it. I’m not going to get that effect taking photos in a conference room with natural light. So I did the best I could lightening and greening-up the beer, while not modifying the label or the cap, which didn’t need greening. I reiterate, a colossal pain in the patoot. Mad props to my retouching friends who do this for a living. My hat goes off to you.

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Art.

Friday, March 18th, 2011

Last weekend I saw the move Exit Through The Gift Shop and I feel a need to talk about it. First of all, it’s an excellent documentary. It got great reviews and is well-worth watching, and it’s streaming right now on Netflix, so go see it. That being said, I was infuriated by the last third or so of it. Here’s the basic plot summary (don’t read this next paragraph if you want the film to be a surprise):

There are street artists. No one has ever documented their actions. There is a crazy French vintage-clothing-store-owner named Thierry (Terry) living in Los Angeles who is obsessed with videotaping everything. His cousin is Space Invader, a well-known street artist. Thierry films his actions and is introduced to other street artists, including Shepherd Fairey. Shepherd introduces Thierry to Bansky, the most famous street artist ever. Other stuff happens. In order to edit Thierry’s heaps of footage of both Banksy and other street artists into a film without Thierry being involved, Bansky tells Thierry to make some art and have a small show, basically to get him out of Bansky’s hair. Here’s where I start to fill with rage. Thierry, who has no artistic training or skill or experience, rents a gigantic building in L.A. and hires a massive staff to make his “art”. He is clearly crazy, his artwork is utter pointless crap, but he understands hype, so he hypes the hell out of his show. When his show opens, tons of people show up, people who are desperate to be “cool”, Thierry sells all his crap art and rakes in a million dollars. Jessica bursts into flames. The end.

Here’s the deal, people. Artists aren’t the people who come up with the ideas, okay? We all come up with ideas, all the time. Good ones, dumb ones, weird ones, etc. “What if blah blah was a blah blah blah?” The artists are the people who pluck ideas, theirs or others, out of the ether and make them into something we can see and touch and feel. They are inspired by something and the make something in the hopes that you will feel the same way they do about that thing. I’ll give you an example from my own life. I worked with a guy named Jd at BBDO, and he mentioned to me that every time he went to a new job, shortly after he started everyone else was fired, a whole new staff was hired and everything started anew. Apparently this seemed to happen every time he switched jobs. It was a joke with him and his friends that he was like Kali, the Hindu God of Destruction and Rebirth. I thought that was a funny idea, so I made a ink drawing of him as Kali.

I did not have the idea. I heard it, I liked it, I executed it. Who’s the artist in this situation, Jd or me? So when you (and when I say “you”, I mean you, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst) hire a big ole staff and you wander in and say, “Wouldn’t it be cool to cover a skull with diamonds?” or “I think a giant sculpture of a balloon animal would be neat,” and then you leave the building while your staff actually makes the thing and you touch nothing, but then you go and take credit for all the work, that doesn’t make you an artist. That makes you a hype machine. Your staff is the artist. And I hate you.

By the way, I love the skull covered with diamonds and the giant balloon dog. That’s not the point.

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I made a thing.

Monday, March 14th, 2011

We here at Publicis New York have a window case that is two feet high and nineteen feet long, and living in it presently is a timeline of the company. It’s been the same timeline in the same design for at least three years now, and my boss (the CMO) has grown weary of it. He asked me to redesign it, so I promptly starting rummaging through my research books. A while back I saw an article called “Cutthroat Capitalism” in Wired Magazine and I thought it was a terrific marriage of positive and negative space, so I cut it out and put it in my book.

I wanted little ornate headers and footers to incorporate into the document. I remembered B. had recently sent me a link to the calligraphy on the bottoms of maps that was fascinating, so I looked at that as well.

So, combining some of the elements from both of those documents, I spent three days redesigning the timeline. The beginning part looks like this:

Here are some details where you can really see the things I pulled from my research.

Some of the pictures given to me were really low-res and pixelated, so I converted them into art. Like the radio announcer guy, I made him into stripes where the thickness depended on the amount of light and dark, and then for the bus, I traced it in Illustrator and made decisions about what I wanted knocked out and what I wanted solid. See, solutions to problems. When God gives you lemons (or low-res images), you make lemonade (or graphic icons). We’ll see if my boss likes it and I can continue on in this style.

Addendum: Alas, it was shot down. Too “wacky and dark”. But I don’t care. After shrieking into a pillow, I decided I’m going to keep working on it and add it into my portfolio. Always with the lemons / lemonade thing, I am.

Addendum to the previous addendum: It’s back! The head person likes it! She wants a deep red background, but other than that, I’m good! Hurrah!

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London, Part 8 (and done).

Monday, February 28th, 2011

Let’s look the leftover photos I have from the London trip.

Cricket and I were walking past the Millennium Bridge and we happened on this weird neat-o fountain. It looked like a ship with all kinds of wacky alchemy stuff attached to it. My favorite part was the figure in the back who looked like a giant-nosed Napoleon with an umbrella on his head.

St. Martin-in-the-Fields (real name) Church is one of the best churches you could have the pleasure of visiting. They turned their crypt into into a lovely tea room with stellar cafeteria-style food service (like lamb shank and roasted root vegetables, yummers) and you only feel slightly horribly guilty for enjoying tasty snakkies on top of the graves of people. You can also do bronze rubbings and listen to different kinds of live music. Cricket and I took the time to go up into the actual church-area and I was surprised at what I found. Their main window is clear glass, and in the center is a milky-white-stained-glass egg that is lit by special lights, so it looks like it is glowing. I think that is genius. Instead of having the whole bible story mapped out, they left a little to the imagination. And darn it if it doesn’t look ethereal.

London has a Chinatown, much like most other cities do. Theirs is much smaller than the one in New York. And they have a wall dragon as you walk in.

The lanterns are a really nice touch.

And their pharmacist has this great poster in the window. The tank illustration gave us the giggles.

We visited two major stores: Harrods and Hamleys. Harrods is one of the most famous department stores in the world, and I must say it is fancy. If you do go there, make a point to go to the food court. Holy Moses, it is glorious. They have every kind of food from anywhere in the world. It was mind-blowing. For example, here is a photo of a section of their terrines. Terrines are basically patés or finely ground meatloafs.

And that’s just one little corner of the magic. Another cool thing about Harrods are the 11,000 lights on the exterior.

Hamleys is a very old and very large toy store. Here is the lowdown on the floors:

5th floor: Boys — Action figures, vehicles, and an open cafe.
4th floor: Hobbies — Model kits, remote-controlled vehicles, model railways, Scalextric, etc.
3rd floor: Girls — Dolls, Arts & Crafts, Hello Kitty, Dress-up, etc.
2nd floor: Preschool — Toys for young children.
1st floor: Games — Board games, science, jigsaws; also a Build-A-Bear Workshop and Sweet Shop.
Ground floor: Soft toys — a wide variety of stuffed animals, and also a Marvin’s Magic section.
Basement: Interactive — Lego, construction toys, Red 5, novelties and GAME (retailer).

I don’t really care one way or the other about toys or games, but I did geek out really hard when I got to (wait for it) the Harry Potter Wand Store section.

Every wand for any character from the film. So exciting! It made me believe, just for a moment, that there’s a train that could take me to Hogwarts.

Now, everyone says the British are more elegant and reserved and classy, and I am inclined to agree, based on the fact that they made an opera of (not making this up) Anna-Nicole Smith’s life. Really. And it’s at the Royal Opera House, not some avant-garde experimental theater space. That’s pretty wild. (It got great reviews, by the way. I would have tried to see it, but it opened after I left.)

Two final random shots: One, an old ship with a terrified-looking deer as the figurehead which I found really funny for some reason.

And a men’s store’s spring window display. The smallest figure is spinning while only wearing underpants. You can almost hear him saying, “Whee! I’m nakee!”

That’s it. That’s my trip to London. If anyone has any questions or queries, feel free to contact me. I have 300 other photos that I did not share here which I would be happy to show you.

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London, Part 2.

Sunday, February 20th, 2011

And we’re back! So, London. Let’s start with the Tower of London. First of all, that’s a misnomer. There’s a bunch of towers in a walled area. It should be called the Towers of London. Plural. It feels good to get that off my back.

The weather was really, really good. I know! I was surprised as well. It made hearing all about the various horrible tortures and beheadings so much more pleasant. There also was a nice view of the strange London skyline. That building in front there is called The Gherkin.

The Tower of London is famous for housing The Crown Jewels. Sooooo pretty. This was one of my favorite moments of the trip. I showed Cricket the magical, magical shiny hats and asked him which was his favorite. He informed me that he really liked the door. Yep, the big giant steel door. Some of the finest jewels in the world were directly in front of him, and Cricket was digging the enormous steel bolts on the door. DUDE, BIG SHINY ROCKS! THE BIGGEST AND SHINIEST! THEY DON’T GET BIGGER! OR SHINIER! Fine, go look at the door. Sigh.

They also had a lovely collection of suits of armor. Here is Henry the Eighth’s.

Everybody assumes that the big bulbous codpiece is due to Henry being really, umm, gifted. I read somewhere that it’s actually because he had The Syph and anything touching his junk was really ouchy, so there was a lot of padding in there to keep Mr. Happy from bumping into anything hard, like a big metal suit of armor.

I also learned about Edward the First. He reigned from 1272 to 1307. He was 6’2″, which nowadays is pretty tall, but can you imagine in 1270? It must have been like being surrounded by Oompa-Loompas all the time. Anyway, it got him his nickname Longshanks and they had to build him a special bed because his whole lower half would hang off all the pre-existing beds.

Cricket was really excited about this gun. Once he explained it to me, so was I.

I might screw this description up a little, so please forgive me, I know close to nothing about firearms. Back in the day, you fired a shot and then you had to do this whole procedure with the powder and the musket ball and the flamey stick, it was a slow and tedious process. If you look closely, this gun has two barrels – and two firing mechanisms. You could fire one, and then quickly fire the other.

This was awesome. You know, if you went somewhere in the United States and they had a vermin problem, they would shut down until the problem was taken care of. In the Tower of London, they have signs like this.

How freakin’ great is that? “Keep a lookout for my friends and family!” And an adorable Quentin Blake drawing! It makes the spread of pestilence so cute. Sadly, I saw no rats. Disappointing.

I did see ravens, though. The other thing the Tower of London is famous for is the ravens. Ravens are really, really large crows. Really large. Like small turkeys. I, of course, am obsessed with them. There are presently six of them living in the Tower, and I made friends with the green-anklet one. Here is a picture of Green-Anklet hanging out near my feet.

And here he is sitting on a cannon and saying, “Blaaaaah!!”.

If you are planning on visiting the Tower of London, you should know there are a million stairs. And not just normal stairs, oh no. Awful 15th century stairs, all weird heights and jinky angles and tight spaces. My calves were tender for two days after. Now, anyone who knows me knows I am about as far from an athlete as it gets, so chances are this won’t be as much of a problem for you, but still. Lots and lots of awkward stairs. Up, down, spiral – it’s like a stair fetishist’s dream come true. Just so you know.

Now, signs. Crickets loves a good foreign sign. Since he has brought it to my attention, I am now aware of signs. Here are a few.

I am very immature.

Tee hee hee. Also:

Snort. Giggle.

This was my favorite sign. It was often all by itself, so I had no idea what it was referring to. This was the conversation that went on in my mind when I saw it.

“DON’T DO IT!”

“Huh? Do what?”

“AT ANY TIME!!”

“I…I don’t know what-”

“JUST DON’T DO IT!!!”

“Okay…I’ll try not to?”

“NEVER!! NEVER DO IT! EVER!!”

And then The Mad Hatter and the March Hare tried to shove the Dormouse in the teapot.

At my job, the proofreaders often have a difficult time with documents that come from the UK, because even though we speak the same language, some of the grammar and punctuation rules are different. For example, they use commas way less frequently. There was this sign in the bathroom:

And Cricket had to listen to me yell,

“Guests are reminded to take care when standing or walking on wet surfaces. For additional safety COMMA! non-slip rubber mats are available in the bathroom and also from Housekeeping. Moisten the base of the bath first COMMA! then place the mat in the bath.”

Dating a Grammar Nazi is fun.

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Scrapbook.

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

One of the things I learned in college was keeping folders of inspiration. Before the Internet, during the dark ages when you couldn’t find anything you wanted at your fingertips in a split second, I kept a filing cabinet of inspiration. Everything I ever saw in a magazine that was of interest to me, I pulled out, labeled and shoved in its corresponding folder. Now with the beloved ‘net, I still do that, but on a much smaller scale. I now keep three-ring-binders of inspiration. Anything design-wise that strikes my fancy, I drop into a folder on my desktop labeled “scrapbook” and every month or so, I assemble them on pages, print them out and put them in my binder.

You’ll notice that just on these pages, we have: a book cover, a soccer ball, a wreath made of wire, logos, illustrations, a beer ad, graffiti, music posters, a pair of shoes, a web banner, etc., etc. Sometimes I’ll forget I liked something and I put it in there already, so I’ll have duplicates. I don’t berate myself. I like to that I liked it so much I put it in there twice. Like this crazy-ornate calligraphic letter (I think it’s an F).

Or this delightful Coca-Cola ad.

And even that freakin’ wallpaper I keep complaining about in commercials and music videos.

Now, if anybody thinks I use this for plagiarism, they aren’t really correct. What I do is when I am asked to create a design project and I’m not quite sure how to approach it, I ask myself, “Well, what am I trying to evoke in the viewer? Do I want them to feel a charming whimsy, or do I want it to feel like strong and powerful, or mystical and underwater, or bleak and sparse…?” Then I go through my scrapbooks and Post-It tag all the pictures that make me feel that way, and I assess why. I take those elements and incorporate it into my own project and hopefully I get the response I want. I use it as a starting-off point when I’m a bit stumped. And if you do anything like me, whether it is drawing or painting or designing or collage or embroidery or whatever, I highly recommend creating one of these for yourself. It takes that stress out of the beginning of the project.

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T’raveling to T’ronto.

Sunday, January 16th, 2011

I bet you’ve been wondering where I’ve gone. I have been working like a dog. Brutal brutal work. I was busting my butt at my normal 12-hour-day-pace, and then I was asked to go to a high-end casino/convention hall for a meeting, which would kill my Saturday, Sunday and Monday. No problem, I packed up a bunch of laptops and clothes and plugs and dongles and clickers and toiletries and took a car to the casino, where I got to spend a lovely evening not gambling. I don’t gamble, so most of the charms of casinos are lost on me. But I did get to eat good food and sleep in a mad-comfortable bed and take a 900-degree shower where I came out looking like a boiled ham (that was my desired appearance, strangely enough. I like very hot showers.). I came back to the office on Monday evening expecting a nice relaxed week, but no! I was immediately told not to unpack because hey, you’re flying to Toronto tomorrow for another meeting! Jolly fun! Here’s the problem: I don’t mind working. I HATE HATE HATE flying places for business. To begin with, flying is a hassle of epic proportions. Now add two big ole heavy laptops and a projector to your carry-on, all of which you must unpack and lay out for the scanner along with your shoes and jacket and other possessions of DANGER!, and you have a colossal pain in the posterior. I make a very poor pack-llama. But for the bulk of this trip I was kickin’ butt, until The Incident. The pitch team and I were holed up in a meeting room at one of our sister offices, Publicis Toronto, which is in an old factory. The benefit of that are the giant windows and the wide-open spaces. The not-good thing is that the floor subtlely changes height all over the place by about and inch and a half. All over. So when everyone went to dinner, I decided to stay behind and work on some stuff, the CCO kept me company, and I got a phone call. So I’m not rude, I went into one of the cubicles waaaay on the other side of the building. I jabbered away, finished my call, and stepped out of the cubicle, not noticing the distinct difference in height. I then proceeded to collapse on myself like a fat deck of cards, lightly twisting both of my ankles, but mainly twisting the hell out of my right knee. I laid there like the Heisman Trophy on my side, making hissing and groaning noises and trying not to poop myself from the pain. Which is how my company’s CCO found me. Awesome. Really dignified. I made it through the meeting on the next day and got home with my 40-pound, $6,000 carry-on luggage, but I did it all while hobbling like Frankenstein. What tiny shreds of sex appeal I had blew away in the breeze when I entered the room with my stiff-legged Weeble penguin gait. Here’s the best part: I called my mom that evening of The Incident to inquire on the best type of care (apply ice). I then asked her to make a doctor’s appointment with an bone-n’-joint doctor. The next day she tried to make an appointment but they asked for my insurance info, which she didn’t have. So she called Cricket and asked him if he knew it, and she also called Börrke at the office and asked her. Now that Mummy had informed the entire planet of my debacle, I kept getting text messages like “ARE YOU OK????” and “Call me!!!! R U in a hospital?!?!!!” and the like. Lots of unnecessary drama. It turns out that I have what the medical community likes to call “a boo-boo”. Basically I just twisted it, now there’s a little swelling and a lot of ouchies, but it should go away by itself in ten days or so. Moral of the story: Jessica better not have to travel for work any time soon, because it sucks so very hard. I swear to God, I will go all Münchausen and break something on myself every time until they stop making me go.

In an unrelated note, I love how Canadians say the word “sorry”.

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Washington D.C. – Roller Derby and the Zoo.

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

As you can probably deduce from the title, I went to Washington D.C. to visit a friend of mine, Moss. And we went to the Roller Derby. And the Zoo!

First, Roller Derby. I had never been to it, and I’ve always wanted to go. For those of you that don’t know, to simplify it down to its raw basic nature, it’s a bunch of strong women rollerskating with other strong women pushing each other out of the way, often knocking each other down and getting points for their team in the process. While it’s similar to every other sport in the world, the thing I like about this particular activity is the sense of humor. For example, the participatin’ ladies all have really swell nicknames. And they pick numbers that are related with those nicknames. My favorites:

Ovary Action – 28 Days
Chinese Cheker – 5354
Hoova Dayum – H2O
Marion Barrycuda – 311 (remember, this is Washington D.C. – ergo, funnier)
Dyke Diggler – 13 inches

There’s also HaBitchual OffendHer, Rachel MadHo, Lois Slain (she’s a reporter in real life, so that’s extra-cute), Ivana Tripabitch, Peaches N Cruelty and Wham Slam Bambi. The warm-up round was “Grinches vs. Santas”. The regular players had festive holiday nicknames like Blitzkreig Blitzen and Thumpa Coal, and they came out before the game and were introduced by the announcers. The grinches (dressed all in green) skated around the track in the shape of a Christmas tree, and the Santas (dressed all in red) formed the shape of a sleigh. Even the lead skater had a blinking red nose.

I tried to take pictures of the “jams”, as they’re called, but those girls move FAST. So here are my shots.

The next day Moss and I decided to see the pandas at the Zoo, but first we toddled off to experience the magic of chili. There’s a place in Arlington called The Hard Times Cafe. They have four kinds of chili. And they will put any combination of those chilis on a variety of substances. I chose half Texas chili, half Cincinnati chili on tater tots. Excellent decision, I must say.

Outside the Mecca of chili goodness was an oldey-timey truck…

…with a statue of a horse on the back, wearing mittens on its ears and fake antlers, and this sign propped up on its side.

Which is awesome.

Moss also showed me The Spite House. Here’s the story: A guy owned a house. He also owned the seven-foot alleyway between him and the house next door. People used to cut through the alleyway all the time, which really cheesed his crackers. So, Grumpy Guy built a house in the seven-foot alleyway, which is supposedly the thinnest house in America. It is called The Spite House and people do live there.

Now, on to the zoo. We did in fact see a panda, but he was far, far away, so I couldn’t take any pictures of him. I had never seen a panda before, and sure enough, they look like a soft, pillowy, black and white bear-shaped object. Which is nice to know. We also saw Indian elephants, a tiger, orangutans and a male lion roaring, which I had also never experienced, even though I have been to Africa a bunch of times, so that was so very cool. It is astonishingly loud and the sound really carries. It reverberates in your abdomen. I found a video of a lion roaring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOaQmkAlhUA

Does anyone who reads this watch Dirty Jobs? There’s an episode when Mike Rowe goes worm-grunting. You shove a wooden stake into the ground, rub an iron thingie over it, and it makes a groany sound. This causes the worms to come to the surface. You collect them and sell them to fishermen. The lion’s roar made me feel like a worm being grunted.

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/dirty-jobs-worm-grunting.html

Here are some of the beasties I got to take pictures of. The bestest one was the red panda. Normally, when I see red pandas, they are in trees and they are napping. This was the first time I saw red pandas sauntering around, doing red panda stuff. I got some great shots of what might possibly be the cutest animal in all of creation.

So cuddly.

I was in the small mammals building, and there was a window casting a sunbeam right into the meerkat’s habitat. And a meerkat was standing right in it. It was precious.

And other meerkats were just standing around because, you know, that’s what they do.

There were also degus, which are small rodents that live in South America. They do a great deal of napping. And look, there’s a degu napping on another degu! Awwww.

In one of the habitats there was an armadillo being all invisible and buried underground, but if you looked up OMG burrow owls! Teeny tiny owls that live in holes in the ground! So happy!

Elephant shrew. Prehensile snoot. Lotta rooting around in the ground debris.

Poisonous froggies.

And the lamest scientific name ever. So not creative at all.

It was a lovely trip. I may have to swing by Washington D.C. again soon.

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All I want for Christmas is a nap.

Saturday, December 25th, 2010

Ugh. I keep forgetting that my work has ebbs and flows, and this time of year is always horrendous. I have had to work so flippin’ hard these past two weeks, I haven’t had time to blog. Or bathe. Or keep my sanity. I do apologize that my posts have been so slackerly, but hopefully the upcoming months will be less work-consuming. I hope.

Now, things I have seen in my travels in New York. But first, there was this sidebar on Buzzfeed.

I thought it was magical. I didn’t click it. I like the version I have in my head better.

I work across the street from a Mrs. Field’s Cookie-Procuring Facility, and in the window they were displaying this.

Yeah, taking a heart-shaped cookie and flipping it upside-down to make Santa’s face isn’t working. His beard looks like a butt and the blob of red twisty frosting representing his mouth looks like a very special holiday sphincter. Next time, use an oval-shaped cookie.

I also work down the street from Koreatown, where many restaurants and bars and karaoke lounges. One of them had this sign outside.

I think they meant “Happy Hour”, but every time I walk past the sign it feels like a frat boy is yelling at me. “Come in here! You’ll be happy all friggin’ night!!”

In keeping with our wordy theme, I often complain about the unnecessary use of apostrophes, but recently I came across the absence of an apostrophe and it made me equally sad.

Awww. Unhappy emoticon here.

This dress caught my eye and made my day.

It looks like a regular black cocktail dress, but through the use of expensive ruffled ribbon and oddly-shaped sequins, it became beautiful and unique. Hey! People at home! Pay attention! A little elbow grease can turn ordinary garments into fancy-pants evening wear! Heed my words! DIY clothes need not be horrifying! Thank you!

I was on my way to Times Square, and I passed a pop-up Sanrio store in the middle of Broadway. And parked next to it…

It’s a cute little Smartcar covered in Hello Kitty heads! And a truck covered in other characters! So adorable!

Anyway, Merry Christmas to you all. I’m off to have Chinese food, as is the way of my people.

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Macy’s Christmas windows.

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010

I tend to only get excited about Saks Fifth Avenue windows and Barney’s windows, but this year I was super-pleased to read this article:

http://theater.lohudblogs.com/2010/11/17/proof-of-purchase-at-macys-windows/

That’s my alma mater, y’all! Since I graduated from the Theater Design Tech program at SUNY Purchase with a degree in Set Design and I work across the street from Macy’s, I felt obligated to check out my former classmates and their activities. So the other day I sauntered across the street and checked out the windows. Here are some pictures to give you an idea.

They built the whole thing out of paper, which I think is a great idea. I think they did a swell job with the forced perspective and all. They even did the animatronics as well (we’ll get to that later). It bothered me that the characters they built didn’t match the style of the environment at all. I also think that while there are spots where the paperwork is spectacular, there are some spots where they didn’t push far enough with the material. That being said, I can’t judge them at all because who knows how much time they were given or if some Macy’s bigwig came in and gave his opinion and even though it was crap, they were forced to follow it. I don’t know the politics behind the making of the windows. So I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. Here are some of the more beautiful paper details.

And there was one window that gave me chills because it looked EXACTLY like draftings I had to make when I was a sophomore. I mean, uncannily similar. And since these people took the same classes as me, it’s very possible that it is taken from those draftings. I had a really rough time at college (entirely my own fault, but still) and it took me right back there, like a ‘Nam flashback.

Ahhhhhhhh.

Each window had some form of animation, things sliding into frame, things sliding out, etc. and my favorite was the village with the tree in the center.

The whole village lifted up, but if the tree didn’t move forward, the hole cut out for it would scrape the paper off the tree, so they have the tree tip forward when they lift the set. It was neat. I made an animated gif for your enjoyment.

Ah, it was delightful. Here’s a picture of the wee children enjoying the experience with their eyes full of wonder.

Hopefully this week I’ll have a chance to run over to Saks Fifth Avenue and see what they have goin’ on window-wise.

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