CONSTRVCT Interactive Fashion Collection Reaches Its Funding Goal. Time to Design!

above: a dress and t-shirt made by designing digitally online and then printed and sewn for you by CONSTRVCT.

Having successfully reached their funding goal on kickstarter ($11,250 were pledged of their $10,000 goal), you're bound to hear more about this unique idea by Mary Huang & Jenna Fizel.



CONSTRVCT is an interactive fashion collection. You can design your own wearables that are then printed and manufactured for you. Custom designed art and images are uploaded to your choice from various classic garment silhouettes, digitally printed on jersey fabric and then sewn in your size and packaged by CONSTRVCT.



It is a new system of digital bespoke, where the web and computer driven design and production mediate the creation of unique designs. The name "Constrvct" refers to this act of creation. The collective goal is to create a social fashion label that reflects the creativity of the people who wear the clothes.

How it works:
Starting with a few classic silhouettes, everyone is invited to create their own designs by uploading photos or images that are turned into digitally printed clothing on double knit cotton jersey like simple dresses and t-shirts.

The example shown below is using a photo that Jenna took of stained glass in Barcelona:


When a design is ordered, the artwork and the cutting pattern are printed onto fabric with inkjet textile printing (this allows them to create production runs of 1 in a streamlined manner):


Voila! - Mary wears a dress made from Jenna's photo of the stained glass:


For the Jersey dresses, sizes US 0-16 available, in standard, petite, and tall. They can also do custom sizing.

The clothing can be custom sized, and your name printed right into a tagless "label" on the garment. Plus, custom packaging with your fabric swatch and initials:


Their larger vision is to be able to achieve truly crowd-sourced fashion design, where anyone can publish their own fashion collection, with full production and retail ready to go.



The team, shown above, is Mary Huang and Jenna Fizel. Mary in NYC and Jenna in Boston, they have backgrounds in building cutting edge interactive experiences and have a history of creating exciting ideas in experimental fashion design.


CONSTRVCT

You Can't Make This Sh*t Up. New York Crowd-Sourced Content Compiled & Curated.

New York Writes Itself was created as a crowd sourced and branded content idea in New York City by the Village Voice and Leo Burnett NY. Designed to be shared through social media and cultural influencers, the branded content reached audiences in a direct way where they could enjoy and share the content; a website to which people can contribute, an art exhibit, an ongoing blog and a bi-weekly web series.

The entire effort has won several awards including a Cannes Titanium Lion for branded content integrating user-generated content.

THE CONCEPT:


Village Voice is an editorial channel that has heritage of capturing the real, uncensored voice of New York. The challenge was prove this brand position, and at the same time, re-establish the Village Voice as the go-to source of arts and culture. The objective was to re-establish the Village Voice as the real uncensored voice of New York, and a brand that is in touch with New Yorkers and the cultural scene of the city. Their strategy was to create a campaign that would not just advertise the Village Voice, but would give New Yorkers a new way to get involved in the creation of cultural content with the brand. Therefore, they created ‘New York Writes Itself’, a crowd sourced content platform designed as a place for New Yorkers to write down the amazing things they see and hear on the streets of NY every day, and see them turned into editorial and creative content. The first execution of the project was a letterpress art exhibition in which the city’s leading letterpress artists brought real words heard on the streets of New York to life letter by letter.

THE NEW YORK TYPES LETTERPRESS ART SHOW:


Various printers and designers then turned the words of New Yorker's into beautifully designed letter-pressed posters that were shown in an exhibit. Every piece of art in the show was inspired by a person, scene, or quote witnessed in NYC.



THE CHAIRMAN BI-WEEKLY WEBISODES:



The Chairman is a bi-weekly webisode series that launched a month ago. The 'Chairman' himself is a New Yorker who reads a small excerpt from the official NYWI script in each episode. With the engagement of a story teller he reads to us from his iconic yellow leather chair which is placed on the streets of New York.


see the episodes here

The audience were drawn to New York Writes Itself through integrated channels including: - newyorkwritesitself.com, the hub of the consumer generated content which fueled the campaign - Social media including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Village Voice newspaper and villagevoice.com - Editorial content including Village Voice and earned media - Key cultural influencers and bloggers who targeted relevant sub-cultures in the creative community - Street poster campaign on the streets of NYC.

‘New York Writes Itself’ was hugely successful as a piece of branded content: over 24m media impressions to date. Held at the Art Directors Club in New York, the exhibition achieved a record attendance. 2m unique visits to NewYorkWritesItself.com, 52 articles of earned media in editorial channels outside the Village Voice including New York Times and CBS News. $15,000 revenue generated in sold artwork of which 100% went to the artists involved. New York Writes Itself has made such a strong cultural impact, Village Voice has made it a permanent piece of its arts and culture content. An Off-Broadway play and comedy series are currently in production as is new content to come.




Get involved as a Scribe at newyorkwritesitself.com, and your everyday experiences of New York just might become part of the next New York Writes Itself experience, which could take the form of music, writing, photography, a short film or more.

Keep sharing your stories.


Credits
Executive Producer: Jeremy Fox Leo, Burnett NY
Village Voice Publisher: Josh Fromson
Village Voice Promotions/Marketing Manager: Christina Pettit
Village Voice Web Editor : Nick Greene
Village Voice Online Operations Associate Manager : Tara Mcguiness
Chief Creative Officer: Jay Benjamin Leo Burnett NY
Creative Director: Michael Canning, Leo Burnett NY
Creative Director : Kieran Antill, Leo Burnett NY
Cultural Architect: Max Goodwin, Leo Burnett NY
Managing Director: Tom Flanagan, Leo Burnett NY
Village Voice Media President And Chief Operating Officer: Scott Tobias
Village Voice Marketing Director: Rosemary Raposo
Copywriter: Michael Canning, Leo Burnett NY
Art Director : Kieran Antill, Leo Burnett NY
Creative Intern: Skyler Dobin, Leo Burnett New York
Web Developer: Avant, LLC
Music: Comma Music
Production: Radical Media
Artists:
Keystone Design Union
Center for the Book Arts
Center for the Book Arts
Swayspace
Tarhorse Press
Peter Kruty editions
Production: Bill Thomas
Editors:
Beast
Nice Shoes

Information, images and some of the text, courtesy of The Village Voice, Cannes Advertising Festival and Newyorkwritesitself.com

Capturing Toy Soldiers With Mini Blue Helmets All Over The World.

The engaging interactive Miniscule Blue Helmets on a Massive Quest was spearheaded by designer Pierre Derks, a project which has also spawned a new book.



Starting in the Hague in Holland, the task engaged people all over the world to shoot photos of 50,000 little plastic toy soldiers wearing hand-painted blue helmets, hats or berets from over 60 global locations. The blue helmets and berets are a nod to the colored helmets worn by the UN Peacekeepers.






The mass manifestation of the Miniscule Blue Helmets in public space implies that the potential of getting confronted with a heavily armed blue helmeted soldier is within reach of a global audience. Although it is obvious that the encounter is rather different from running into a real-life UN Blue Helmet [shown below], it might just trigger the same questions and feelings about their presence and deployment.




The photos, shot by varying individuals, are then uploaded to a global Google map with a geo tag so you can access where the image was shot and by whom.



The Mini Blue Soldiers Google map can be viewed as either terrain or satellite:


Click upon the icon of the little blue helmets on the google map and you'll get the location, the name of the photographer and the opportunity to view the photograph.



There's no end to the places these little soldiers have been captured. From inside a little apartment in Amsterdam:

to on the ledge of the Grand Canyon:


Eyewitnesses of the quest have submitted hundreds of photos like the ones shown below:








The Book:


Miniscule Blue Helmets on a Massive Quest, the Book by Pierre Derks

“Tiny in size, huge in scope”

The book ‘Miniscule Blue Helmets on a Massive Quest’ by Pierre Derks shows the worldwide intervention of 50,000 plastic toy soldiers with blue hand-painted helmet, beret or hat by means of 500 selected photo's of the mini Blue Helmets on locations in more than 60 countries. An international spectrum of specialists shares in the book their reflections on the project and their expertise on topics that are related.

The book contains text contributions (written in English) by: Susan Manuel, Roger Stahl, Jonathan Vickery, Patrick M. Regan, Jos Morren, Linda Polman, Matt Groff, Christ Klep en Damon Stanek.

The open nature of the project has led to a fascinating variety of outcomes that contributed to the layered meaning. An example is the adoption of the project by Dutch Blue Helmet veterans who took part in the UN mission in Lebanon (70's / 80's). Jos Morren (Association of dutch military war and service victims): “Frank bought 2,000 of those little green men and painted the helmets blue himself, constantly carrying them with him and leaving them in tactical spots. (...) Eric took it more slow, but became inseparable from his one Miniscule Blue Helmet. Very handy, because if you lose touch with the world because of a psychological blockade, you just put your little buddy on the table. Very effective in such a situation. Out of the blue, those boys were suddenly given a healthy, creative form of self medication, through the art of Derks.”

Order the book here

The publication is made possible with the support of Fonds BKVB (The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture). The project expanded in collaboration with LhGWR and the TodaysArt Festival.

Stickers With A-Peel. Chiquita Banana Design Contest & A Little Brand History.

above: 6 of the 18 winning designs, all of which are shown later in this post

"I'm a Chiquita Banana and I've come to say...." Okay, most of my readers are probably too young to remember the legendary jingle, so I'll just get to the point.

The Chiquita brand just ran a design contest in an effort to both refresh the brand and elicit consumer engagement. They asked people to submit new designs for the stickers that are placed on their bananas, which they have been doing since 1963. Note that you can still use their sticker generator to create your own online sticker and then purchase that design from Zazzle.


above: the current Chiquita brand sticker was designed in 1986

Each entrant was limited to submitting no more than 25 designs. The designs had to be on a white background and in the classic Chiquita sticker shape and could not use "Miss Chiquita", the brand mascot, in any way, shape or form. Entries had to include the outer blue ring and the design had to be contained within what they term "the yellow racetrack."


above: the company mascot, Miss Chiquita, as the 1944 version by Dik Browne and the current version drawn in 1987 by Oscar Grillo, was not allowed in the new sticker designs

50 designs were selected as finalists based on the following criteria
* Creativity (30%)
* Visual impact (30%)
* The extent to which the sticker embodies the following five Chiquita brand attributes :Fun, Family-friendly, Youthful, energetic, Fresh (25%)
* The extent to which the sticker can be recognized as a Chiquita banana sticker (15%)

A person could have no more than one design in the 50 finalists which were then posted on the sticker-contest website. The public was then invited to vote for their favorite sticker design.


above: 8 worthy finalists designs that did not make it into the winning 18

Before I show you the 18 winning sticker designs, here's a little brand and sticker history:

Miss Chiquita was introduced in 1944 and Chiquita was the first company to brand a banana. The idea of the stickers came along in 1963 and believe it or not, they are still put on by hand so as not to bruise the fruit.


above: The brand used posters like this one from 1950 before putting stickers on the bananas.

The very first drawing of Miss Chiquita in 1944 and stickers from 1963 to the present:


Now, the 18 final winning designs which will be appearing on bananas in November.












Be sure to see all 50 finalists because there were some great designs that should have made it into the final 18. See all 50 finalists here

Go here to learn more about the winning designs.