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movimblog · 5 years ago

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(preview only*)

The audience for artists' moving image practices has grown extensively in recent years. Of course, the Internet has played a huge role in this. An ever-growing part of this audience is using the video-sharing platform Vimeo. This website was founded in 2004, just a year before YouTube, and since the beginning its peculiarity has been the support of high-definition videos. Compared to the Google-owned colossus, Vimeo represents a smaller presence on the Internet, the Alexa rank being 2 for YouTube and 131 for Vimeo.

For a lot of reasons which I won't discuss here, Vimeo is mostly used by professionals such as filmmakers, animators, motion graphic designers, but also by private companies and institutions, most notably the White House under the Obama administration. Artists working with moving image use Vimeo's services to upload their work, password-protect it and share it with festival programmers, curators and other professionals. They also publish teasers, trailers and excerpts of their works.

I can't tell you when (I wish I could), but out of this standard practice another quickly came: a lot of these artists started taking the password-protection off their works. By doing this, of course, the artists aim to reach a larger number of potential viewers. But this practice is linked to two common (and closely-related) film festival policies: in order to be considered for selection, the work submitted needs to be recent (with the limit usually being set as two years since its completion) and not publicly available online (that is, password-protected). For this reason, after their two-year festival tour, a lot of experimental films and videos were being set free from their passwords and released into the wild.

In this framework, one should also mention other interesting practices: when artists don't care about festivals and make their new works accessible to everyone, or when they finally publish their older works (sometimes remastered, sometimes never before released). There are also artists who come from the contemporary art world, whose works are represented and sold by galleries and shown in contexts other than those of film festivals. They too, for one reason or the other, are now playing the game of free online availability.

With an increasing number of interesting works made officially and freely available, a niche audience was born. One that is potentially growing—because the general interest in artists' moving image is visibly growing, but also because, within the demographics of artists' moving image fans, not everybody can easily attend festivals and visit galleries. Some live far from big cities, some can't move, some can't travel, some are still too young to travel. Not everyone has access to closed, selective online communities such as Karagarga. And I could go on with these examples for a while.

I recognise myself as part of that audience. As a fan, it's been a fascinating experience since I started paying attention to what was being made available online by the artists I liked. Between 2013 and 2014, I happily enjoyed the works of Portuguese artists João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva both in physical exhibitions (at the Venice Biennale and at the IAC in Villeurbanne) and online through their Vimeo account, where one can watch a selection of digitised versions of their already iconic slow motion 16mm films.

In the winter of 2016, I was discovering the contemporary North-American scene. Through blogs, newsletters and social media, names like Robert Todd, Margaret Rorison, Stephen Broomer, Dan Browne and Mary Helena Clark were popping up and there they were with their accounts full of previous works available to watch. I remember sitting at my desk, watching Mary Helena Clark's astonishing Palms (which, at the time, was the most recent work she had made available in its entirety) and feeling lucky to get to see such revealing work. It felt like a gift.

Whether it be purely strategical or emotional, releasing a piece of work online can be the easiest or the toughest decision to make for an artist. It can be the result of (quite a few) compromises: selecting only a few pieces to release, making them available for a limited time only, going back to password-protection because of the renewed interest of festivals in a certain piece. For a distributed or gallery-represented artist, the choice can be quite difficult. After all, we have to consider that nineteen years of Web 2.0 have taught us to use and share online contents in ways that can clearly clash with the traditional sense of authorship. In the case of this niche, it has become common practice to hold public screenings of pieces found on video-sharing platforms without asking for permission from the author. Surprisingly, this happens in contexts where a wide range of authorship regulations should normally be acknowledged, including film studies classes and exhibitions (See the Abounaddara / Triennale di Milano case).

In the winter of 2016, I was thus looking for a way to give something in exchange, to contribute to such a thriving exhibition of works. My contribution ended up being the online project The Moving Image Catalog. At first I only created a Facebook page where I posted links to videos. It gradually became a curated selection of works that attempts to link artists, practices and themes, in the form of a website, with a sort of index that was going to be a perpetual work-in-progress, and various social media pages. That was my small contribution—that, and the daily romantic act of (always) barely scratching the surface of this huge collection of works.

Growing up in a small town in northern Italy in the early 2000s, with almost no galleries and only three cinemas that showed only dubbed films (one of them was torn down to build an expensive clothes shop), being interested in moving images meant having to rent DVDs and watch TV, notably the RAITRE channel. RAITRE had and still has an all-nighter film programme called FUORI ORARIO, where one can catch the latest Lav Diaz, or a De Oliveira film, or a segment from an amazing and mesmerizing film whose author you'll never know (because the programmers like the idea of not presenting the segments). As FUORI ORARIO shaped generations of film lovers, my emotional attachment to moving images was also shaped by these nightly encounters in front of a small screen and not in a traditional screening room. Today, while I do prefer galleries and screening rooms to TV and computer screens, I consider the act of watching moving image works on Vimeo to be a highly aesthetic and emotional experience.

About a year ago, I was checking the Vimeo account of an artist whose work I love and who is very popular today. Going to festivals and screenings, one gets to watch the films made by this artist. I was browsing this particular Vimeo account because the said artist's work was being gradually made available for free watching. Due to the prolific nature of this artist, I often visit this account. So, I was browsing, and I noticed a change. Placed between parentheses, a brief expression is now added at the end of each title:

(preview only*)

The asterisk directs the viewer to a disclaimer message which appears in the info section below the player. This disclaimer is addressed to professionals who intend to screen the films in public events (festivals, lectures, classes etc.). The artist asks them to contact the distributor. By doing so, the artist warns us that the Vimeo link should not be used as such for a screening. Again, the addition of the said disclaimer speaks volumes about the decisions involved for an artist when it comes to showing work online.

But let's adopt the perspective of a viewer, and not the practical purposes of the artist. Even if one understands that the disclaimer is intended for a specific category of viewers - those who use Vimeo to select works to be shown in public events - one's experience can be thoroughly modified by this indication. I consider that the sentimental experience I normally have when I watch artists' moving image works on Vimeo is not one that can be described as the “preview only” of another, possibly better, experience, such as the public projection.

Which brings me to a few questions I've been asking myself, and which I now would like to ask you:

Is there an emotional hierarchy in the aesthetic experience of watching moving images? Is this hierarchy genre-related? Should public screenings still be considered the only true experience?

Are we, as artists, paving the way towards acknowledging online audiences as audiences in their own right, and as important as the audience at public events? Or are we just riding the online wave in the sole hope of reaching more physical screening possibilities?

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nikolinaboldero · 6 years ago

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The Curve Gallery at the Barbican Centre.

23/11/18

‘Playing with scale, colour and texture, the installation takes visitors through the artist’s works in a variety of materials, including her distinctive figurative sculptures in polymer plastic, mythological rubber forms, a collection of bronze hands and feet, glass vessels, ceramic urns and eccentric miniature hats’.

‘Upritchard gently mocks institutional value systems and frameworks for how museums collect, display and interpret culture. Informed by rational and post- war Italian design, the hard stone and steel supports, shelves and glass cabinets diverge from the somatic sculptures and objects that adorn them’.

‘Her figures resist easy categorisation’, allowing for multiple readings.

Her figures are ‘based on centaurs inspired by the Parthenon beliefs, creatures from science fiction novels and Japanese folklore characters of Ashinaga-tenaga.

Which of the sculptures and objects you see convey notions of identity- gender identity, national identity or any other forms of identity?

In my opinion, the figure sculptures convey notions of historical and cultural identity. The gender of the figure is not clearly portrayed. The main focus is on the type of clothing the creatures are wearing. The clothing seems to be the link to their past, their origin, their nationality. For example, the tribal prints suggest that they have their own defined culture. The sizing of the sculptures is quite unusual, they are not the normal size of a human, all of the features are a lot smaller and more detailed. Everything about the sculpture appears very unreal, but the expressions on the creatures faces shows emotion, therefore it adds personality to these unknown creatures.

Upritchard mentioned herself that she wanted the figures to resist any form of categorisation, this might be because she wanted to shock the viewer. Today there are so many stereotypical opinions and understandings of what culture is and who belongs to which culture. It might be that she is trying to challenge this cultural categorisation.

The figures were inspired by Japanese folklore characters, Ashinaga-tenaga. This name suggests that the inhabitants of these two countries possess unusually lengthy arms and legs. The sculptural figures I saw in the exhibition had all of these strange features, one of the figures had multiple arms and legs. The figures certainly resisted any form of categorisation.

Would these objects work on their own- outside the context of the exhibition?

Personally, I think that all of the objects and sculptures work together really well because they all share similar characteristics or certain features which help build a stronger image of their identity. In the opening view of the exhibition you can see all these different creatures standing on separate podiums, one behind another. The layout of the exhibition feels like a story, in the sense that as you walk past one of the sculptures you move to the next and gather even more information. Some of the figures I think could work by themselves as they are very powerful and expressive, you can capture the meaning behind the sculpture without seeing all of the other work. Although there are some objects like little garments which would be used to dress the creatures which wouldn’t work by themselves. I think that this is because the garments are a link to the sculpture and if the sculpture is not there then you cannot understand the meaning behind it. I think that there is such a strong cultural and historical identity to the exhibition, each objects links to a specific space of time where the way of life was so different (religion, beliefs, duties).

What is the relationship between fabrics and other mediums used by Upritchard?

I think that the fabrics used on the creatures, sculptures, objects are very important to portraying the cultural heritage. ‘These sculptural forms and surrounding objects coalesce into a melting pot of traditions where no dominant culture persists’. The fabrics have these beautiful vibrant tribal patterns on them. In this exhibition, the fabrics are used as a form of dress, all of the surrounding mediums which make up the other objects are what have informed and influenced the development of the fabric. The objects are a source of inspiration as they include these similar prints linking to Japanese folklore, which is then reflected in the fabric/textiles.

This is a site-specific installation. What do you think Upritchard was trying to do with the space? How does the layout of the exhibition encourage you to move, look and feel?

A site- specific installation refers to when a work of art is designed for a specific location, if removed from that location it loses all or a substantial part of its meaning. There are no rooms in the exhibition, it is like a curve, where you carry on round till you reach the end and then you walk back the same way. I really like the layout because I think it feels like a book, where you continue to reveal more information as the book/exhibition continues. There are no closed off spaces. I would suggest that Upritchard used glass to display some of the objects so that there was this continuous thought process, development of ideas and meanings behind the work. Different heights were used in the exhibition, some objects were laying on the floor, others were held on these taller shelves. There is quite a lot of space around each sculpture or object which enables the viewer to move more freely and therefore take more time to engage with what’s on show. I felt bewildered when I entered the exhibition, I felt I was entering someone’s home who I have never met before, it was like an entire new culture had been presented to me.

‘As the exhibition unfolds the colour slowly weakens from the sculptures and the design components leaving only stone and rubber’. This suggests that there is an origin to the piece or work, it always relates back to historical context, and as much as we dress these unusual figured creatures to shock the viewer, these sculptures of stone and rubber are the originals.

Can it be regarded as a commentary on other museum exhibitions? If so, how so?

Following the exhibition and what Upritchard had said before ‘Upritchard gently mocks institutional value systems and frameworks for how museums collect, display and interpret culture’ I do think that this exhibition could be regarded as a commentary on other museum exhibitions. A museum is more than a collection of items, it is an opportunity to extend your understanding of art, explore the social, political and historical context behind pieces of work. When you enter the V&A there are so many blocks separated off from one another. If you want to go and see South Asian art then you have to head to the section and then you can see the exhibition. Cultures are separated off from one another. It may be that this artist wanted to challenge the viewer, show a more contemporary viewing of art, one where you chose what you wish to see in the art, what historical context you relate it to as opposed to the exhibition simply being titled/telling you what to think.

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yourballoonman-blog · 4 years ago

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Sculptures of Beer Mugs as Balloon Decor

Sculptures of Beer Mugs as Balloon Decor https://ift.tt/2WOybz3

With balloons, practically anything can be made to decorate your event. Even more so, there are so many different types of balloon techniques out there that something as simple as a mug can be made in tons of different varieties. Here I will show a few different types of beer mugs, explain a little bit about their construction, and I will discuss some positives and negatives.

Twisted Beer Mugs with Animal Balloons

Firstly, a beer mug made of smaller twisting balloons. This can be as short as 1 foot high and has a limited shelf life as the twisting balloons don’t seem to hold air as long as the large round decorator balloons. These two examples are actually even smaller than that and show that, even on a small scale, techniques or overall look can be different.

These are actually made exactly the same way, but with different colors used. The one on the left is all out of goldenrod with a white top. The one on the right is made with a clear balloon and a goldenrod on the inside to create the appearance of “beer” inside the mug. We will see this theme appear in more images further on in the article as well.

This photo was pulled from Balloon Therapy Blog where you can learn to make your own twisted balloon beer mug! They have a video and photo instructions for you to follow along.

Foil Balloon Bouquets with Beer Mugs

There are a number of beer mug themed foil balloons out there. Here is a great example of how one was used from Dorothy Wyst of Festive Balloons in Kaukauna, Wisconsin.

This particular bouquet is actually a “false bouquet” as a traditional bouquet of balloons is a helium-filled cluster of balloons with a weight. This is actually a more Earth-friendly green version which is helium-free. It utilizes some of the trending techniques of organic decor and some of the traditional looks of helium bouquets and mixes them together to create a fun delivery piece for their client.

Using a foil balloon, the beer mug is much more accurate than most other options and at a fraction of the cost. The constraints of this design are that foils only come in certain styles and sizes. Often, foil distributors can even stop printing popular designs making it very difficult to duplicate an exact image or style.

Dorothy was able to take the small size of the been mug here and elevate the single foil with some organic accents. The foil allows the theme to be intact while the organic round balloons added to the design help to create a larger, more impactful entrance piece to be delivered.

Even if you are set on a particular foil design, it can certainly be incorporated into classic or trending decor pieces to maintain a theme and keep with the overall look you are shooting for.

More examples of foil decor will be posted in the gallery at the bottom of this page.

Flat Variations of Beer Mugs

As with all types of art, beer mugs (or any sculpture of balloons) can be portrayed a number of different ways. Here we will share a photo from Debbie Medrano from Balloons and More out of San Diego, California. In her rendition of the beer mug, she has chosen to make a larger scale sculpture and has incorporated some additional colors to give the illusion of a filled glass and to really help sell home the idea that it is an actual filled beer mug.

There are a few things I really like about this particular design where it may outshine some of the others we cover. Firstly, it can take up less space. Being a relatively flat design, this mug is only about 2 to 3 feet wide. Because of this, it can go against a wall, be a photo opportunity, or can fit in places where there may not otherwise be a lot of room for a larger, “more accurate” depiction of a beer mug.

Construction for this is essentially 3 full sized columns, placed next to each other to create an “image” of a mug. Then, accents are added to create the handle and the foam. Because of this, sometimes this can be priced lower than a full scale 3-dimensional mug. That said, it also depends on the techniques used.

This particular sculpture was placed outside, which caused the clear balloons to oxidize and go from their natural clear look to a more powdered look. This is GREAT for a beer mug made in this way as it helps give the appearance of a “frosted” glass. Any “imperfections” caused by the natural oxidation process only helps the sculpture look more accurate. I LOVE this effect. It is not every time a sculpture can use nature to help look better, but when it works out it makes any artist happy.

3 Dimensional Beer Mug Designs

There are a ton of 3 dimensional design options when it comes to beer mugs. Because of this, I have decided to put together a small gallery of photos for you to see some pictures. I will then speak of a few different styles shown and how they vary based on circumstances, style, and possibly pricing. From a consumer’s perspective, it may or may not matter the exact technique, but they do all have their pros and cons. I will try to cover some of these to the best of my ability in the following section.

Indoor and Outdoor

One of the first things a balloon decorator will ask when trying to determine the techniques they will be using is whether or not the sculpture will be indoor or outdoor. With indoor decor, colors tend to stay more true to themselves. Outdoor decor has a tendency to oxidize and discolor fairly quickly. Outdoors, the balloons move from their shiney state into a more velvety matte finish. This is a natural process of the balloons and is nothing to be worried about. However, it will change the look.

Outdoor pieces tend to look much better when there is less use of clear in this particular design as it is very obvious when the clear begins to oxidize. Some sculptures use this to their advantage and have the natural oxidised look resemble that of a “frosted beer mug”.

Stacked versus Woven

When it comes to the actual technique of building the beer mugs in a larger scale, there are two main techniques that are used of decorators. (There are more, but only 2 examples shown here.) The easiest way to see an example of the stacked example is to look at the baseball mini beer mugs hanging for the Tampa Bay Rays event in the gallery above. These sculptures are stacked, have a uniform outer appearance, and create a slightly different look and feel to that of the woven designs. Another example of a stacked design is that of AyrBalloons where clear balloons were not used on the outside and the crisp golden color of the beer shows more prominently.

Most of the other examples shown here are woven examples. Most notably, the sculpture by Balloon Designers shows one of the benefits of using a woven technique. It can be scaled rather easily and each balloon bubble is uniform in size and shape. (That only means it is easier for the balloon team to create and follow a recipe.) This is also a technique used by many companies that employ multiple artists as it is able to be broken up in smaller sections that a crew can tackle all at the same time.

There is another type of weave / stack that is pictured here, specifically with the HUDY 14K mug. That particular mug is made slightly different than the others and is another technique. It gives more of the stacked look with a more woven style.

Each of these different types of techniques have there ups and downs for the artist, for the environment, and for the end look. Each style uses different types of balloons, has supplies that cost different amounts, and has a different level of skill required to complete.

Small versus Large

It is interesting to note that the difference in size does not always mean a difference in price. A sculpture that ends up being 3 feet tall might be the same or very similar price to something that is 6 feet tall. If the only difference is the amount of air put into the balloon, that doesn’t make a huge difference. A great example in the gallery above comes from Jenn. She has a photo of 4 balloon beer mugs that are different sizes.

Though her smaller beer mugs and larger beer mugs do in fact take a different number of balloons, a similar effect can be created in some techniques by using different sizes of balloons. Sometimes costs can be similar when the labor cost is the same, the balloon material cost is the same, and the only difference is the size balloons are inflated to.

Another thing to consider is that size can determine the technique used as well. If one wanted a 1 foot tall beer mug, it would be best to use a twisting technique in one of our first examples in this article. For a 3 foot tall mug, the best technique is likely a stacking technique like what was used in the Rays event. For a 6 foot tall mug, there are a bunch of different options that can work with stacking and weaving. When we get to a much larger size of 10 foot and larger, it seems that weaving is by far the best method to use.

If an item is hung from the ceiling, that might determine the best size. If a mug is wanted for a picture spot, that might help determine the size. The budget, the location, the weather, the end use… These are all things that help determine which type of mug to use.

Special Thanks to:

In this section, we had a number of photos submitted for use in the article and I wanted to give a big shout out an thank you to all of those that provided examples. Listed below are the names, companies, and locations where I had the information. I also linked to their sites as well in case you wanted to reach out to them as well.

Dennis Scott of iloveballoonanimals.com out of Arlington Heights, Illinois. Steven Jones from Balloon Designers in Issaquah, Washington. Ayriel Rush from AyrBalloons in Fort Hood, Texas. Leah Weddle of Cincy Balloons in Cincinnati, Ohio. Jenn Nyikos at Fun by the Yard in South Bend, Indiana. Glen LaValley at Glen Balloon Guy in Edmonton, Alberta.

In Conclusion

No matter what your theme, ask your balloon decorators what they think would work best. Give them a little time to look up photos, find examples, and to come up with some ideas that will work best for your event. Myself, and all the other amazing artists listed in this article are happy to help. Just give us a call for your next balloon sculpture and we will be more than happy to put together something fun for you too!

Cheers!

More Photos of Beer Mugs from my balloon friends around the world!

Additional Thanks to: Melissa Sherk of Balloon Canada in a Box from London, Ontario. Ray Walsh of Blue Collar Balloons in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.

As always, we are more than happy to help you at YTE Events and Balloon Decor, based out of Tampa, Florida. Just contact us via our contact form and we will put together a quote for your event and help create those magical moments we all love to remember.

Sculptures of Beer Mugs as Balloon Decor by: YTEevents

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minnievirizarry · 6 years ago

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10 Creative Brands Making Instagram Stories Now

You might understand the basics of how to use Instagram Stories, or heard marketer’s top ideas for Stories engagement. But we know that, even when you have the facts, sometimes you need a little creative inspiration to get your social content machine whirring. That’s why I’ve done some scouting and found the early adopters of Instagram Stories. Here’s what the savviest, most forward-thinking brands are doing with Instagram Stories right off the bat, along with tips on how you can replicate these tactics for your own organization.

1. Beyond Yoga

Yoga apparel brand Beyond Yoga, widely renowned for their supple and durable yoga pants, posted an entire Instagram story following a woman getting through her workout in their gear.

What Your Brand Can Try: This is one of the most effective techniques a brand can try on Instagram Stories, especially retail brands. Instagram Stories enable your brand to get followers so close to your product they can feel it breathe and can connect to it more deeply.

Yes, your dress looks beautiful in that highly stylized Instagram photo — but what does it look like on a real woman’s body, moving around? That’s the question a prospective customer is going to want to know the answer to during the consideration phase: right before they click through to visit your website and purchase your item.

2. Pacific Northwest Wonderland

Pacific Northwest Wonderland used Instagram Stories to get followers to click through their bio link with a limited-time promotion.

What Your Brand Can Try: Give a limited-time promotion or offer a shot on Instagram. It doesn’t have to be a huge giveaway — experiment with small tokens like stickers to see what kind of participation you get.

Instagram Stories offer the perfect venue for this kind of promotion, because you are reaching people who care enough about your brand to follow it, ensuring that you’re cultivating a community and treating your existing followers well instead of giving away swag to people unlikely to become advocates. You might find that your engagement rate on Instagram Stories involving promos is greater than on other networks, though you will have to conduct regular testing to make sure this hypothesis is true.

3. Aritzia

Clothing brand Aritzia used Instagram Stories to highlight the press pick-up it got.

What Your Brand Can Try: Use Instagram Stories to remind followers of pick-up in more “traditional” media outlets. This is a great way to lend your brand legitimacy, especially if you are a smaller or more niche brand. It also pushes your followers towards more brand-related content they can indulge in.

4. BarkBox

BarkBox, a monthly subscription box service for dog toys, treats, and goodies, put together a cute Instagram Story consisting of multiple clips from a “doggie interview” between an employee and a delightful little pug. It was hilarious and adorable.

What Your Brand Can Try: Put together an Instagram Story that actually tells a story, leveraging the skills and creativity of your employees. Go beyond just snapshots and videos from “a day in the life.” There are plenty of these out there, and one more probably won’t make your brand stand apart.

But don’t tell just any story: tell a story likely to resonate with your social media audience, which includes some kind of reference to your product or company culture. For instance, BarkBox’s Instagram Story features a dog and tells a humorous, engaging story — all without coming off as salesy or forced.

5. E! News

Unsurprisingly, E! News has taken to Instagram Stories like a fish to water. Click through the gallery below to see screenshots of one of their latest stories, which gives a daily rundown of the latest entertainment news with pictures and clear, bold text overlay.

What Your Brand Can Try: E! News knows what people are coming to them for: entertainment news. They deliver just that, in a straightforward, “let’s keep it moving” way. If you want more, they recommend going to their site, but they’re giving followers an entirely different avenue for consuming their content and tailoring delivery accordingly.

Try telling an Instagram Story which straight-up “tells the news” your audience will be interested in. If you aren’t sure what kind of news this is, or you think your audience is too varied to hone in one subject area they’d all want to hear about, conduct an audience analysis and then experiment with posting Instagram Stories which appeal to the different interests you find within your audience(s).

6. NBC Olympics

The NBC Olympics Instagram account is killin’ it right now with Instagram Stories. It recently posted a “socialception” Story in which it used Instagram Story to spread awareness about their upcoming Facebook Live video broadcast.

What Your Brand Can Try: Congratulations! You now have another promotional social channel. Keep your followers abreast of brand events (both on- and off-line) using Instagram Stories. This imbues event-based content with a different, immediate sensibility than good ol’ fashioned Instagram posts.

7. Travel + Leisure

Travel + Leisure recently used Instagram Stories to play a game with its followers, asking them to guess where in the world the brand was:

What Your Brand Can Try: Get playful with Instagram Stories. Curiosity is a natural human emotion, and if you keep followers guessing, you’ll keep them watching. Travel + Leisure knows what people are coming to them for: good trips, good food, and good wine. But they also know that people don’t just want to come along for the ride — they want to be stimulated, challenged, and delighted.

8. UCLA Athletics

UCLA Athletics uses Instagram Stories to go behind the scenes at practices and games.

What Your Brand Can Try: This should go without saying, but use Instagram Stories to go behind the scenes. If people are following your team or brand, they’re likely big fans of yours. Make them feel closer to you by spotlighting your team members and drive brand awareness by showcasing your unique personality.

9. The Outbound Collective

The Outbound Collective, an app devoted to helping folks discover amazing outdoor adventures, activities, and events, tells Instagram Stories which take followers along on their trips. This screenshot, for example, is a video from a trip to the Columbia Gorge:

What Your Brand Can Try: Outbound Collective Instagram Stories have a lot of teaching moments in them. It’s like following an expert or amazing tour guide around a beautiful place (but not an obnoxious one, an awesome one). Try this yourself: find an expert in your space, and have them give a tour you think your followers would be interested in.

10. J.Crew

J. Crew posts Instagram Stories that are cohesive creative journeys — with hella strong CTA’s. They provided a unique early access deal through Instagram with a pink-infused story:

What Your Brand Can Try: J. Crew does something very important in its Instagram Stories: it stays true to its larger brand creative vision and vibe. Keep this in mind, no matter what kind of content you end up creating for this new feature.

Try telling an Instagram Story which features a CTA — J.Crew’s direct CTA with the sunglasses and the “limited-time-only” urgency is smart, because it is great way of testing whether this feature is worth their time and resource investment. If the sunglasses move from Instagram Stories, they’ll know it’s definitely a method they should keep using. If not, they’ll have to consider tweaking their strategy. This is an important analytical reminder for all you smart marketers out there.

If you already use Instagram Stories in your marketing plan or are itching to try them out, be sure to track the success of your efforts with Sprout Advanced Analytics powered by Simply Measured.

This post 10 Creative Brands Making Instagram Stories Now originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/creative-instagram-stories/

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sydneyhongdevblog-blog · 7 years ago

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How People Play game

There are many ways of people enjoy playing game, following are my own opinions on how people play game. Do note that all these are just my personal opinions based on my understanding and research done on June 2017. If you are interested to know more, you can click on the link that provided below.

Premise 1: People enjoy having power

Do you believe if I say having power able to bring happiness? Well, a group of researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel have done some research and survey on over 350 local adults. The result of the survey have proven power will able bring happiness to people. They published an article about it in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Sources: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797612450891

The researcher suggested that “power” people have was able to let them do what they want in life. The results indicated that people who feel powerful in any context tend to be more content, this also creates a feeling of authenticity in life.

By leading people to be true to their desires and inclinations -- to be authentic -- power leads individuals to experience greater happiness, - Yona Kifer and colleagues

In the survey, the powerful people felt 16% more satisfied in their life comparing to least powerful people. This tends to happened more often in workplace, as the powerful colleagues are 26% more satisfied with their job than least powerful colleagues.

However, when comes to friendship and romantic relationship, the power-based discrepancy in happiness was smaller. The researchers believe this is a sense of community rather than hierarchy, so having power in these situation are less important.

Sources: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/201304/power-makes-people-happy https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130128143016.htm http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3820-powerful-people-happiness.html http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167216634064?rss=1 https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/people-want-power-because-they-want-autonomy/474669/

Besides that, power is one of the element of fun written by Pierre-Alexandre Garneau published on Gamasutra back in 2001. In the article, he mentions power involves the “capacity of having a strong effect, of acting with strength."

Lets take Diablo II as an example, the mai goal is to make player as stong as they can. Everything player do in this game is make them get to this goal as close as they can, from leveling up from beating up monsters to items drop.

The goal for most strategy game are also surround the element of power as the player need to build base to create more powerful army than the opponent in order to win the game.

Power is also a great motivation for the player to move on in many way.

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Game: Final Fantasy 7 (skip to 1:24 for example)

In many of the Role-Playing Games, having sound effect playing when leveling up able to let player feels they have truly become more powerful ad felt good about it.

Game: Fallout 4

Another great example from First-person Shooters and other games involving a single multi-characters is giving player able to customize character and doing improvement. In order to make player more powerful as the game progresses, giving some statistics and ability to improve them would make a game more interesting.

Sources: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/227531/fourteen_forms_of_fun.php?page=4 http://gel.msu.edu/winn/Serious%20Game%20Construction%20Worksheet.pdf

Premise 2: Torturing is a form of power

First of all, what is torture? According to one of BBC article, torture has been used as a punishment, to intimidate or control people, to get information or just to gratify sadistic impulses.

Governments have used torture to keep themselves in power, to enforce their particular political philosophy, to remove opposition and to implement particular policies. -BBC

Breaking wheel, also known as the Catherine wheel or simply the wheel, was a torture device used in 18th century. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_wheel

The first use of torture was happened way back in 530 A.D. when Roman jurists used torture methods to force prisoners to speak the truth. Skilled torturers would use methods, devices, and instruments to prolong life as long as possible while inflicting agonizing pain. During 12th century, Medieval torture reached its peak and by 14th century, torture has become much more sophisticated with the advancement of medieval torture devices.

From 14th century until the end of the 18th century torture was a very common activity and most of the Medieval European country used it part of their countries legal proceedings. Skilled torturers would use methods, devices, and instruments to prolong life as long as possible while inflicting agonizing pain.

Sources: https://www.elitereaders.com/history-list-of-torture-techniques/ http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-10-most-gruesome-torture-techniques-from-medieval-e-1626942115 http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/torture/introduction.shtml http://www.apt.ch/en/what-is-torture/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture https://worldwithouttorture.org/2012/10/11/ten-facts-to-know-about-torture/

Surprisingly, the Roman Catholic Church were heavily involved in medieval torture to extract a confession, not information. Because the Church are like sitting upon the high hill of morality, they did not want to burn anyone until they had a confession from the persons own lips. From there, they justifying the sinner being burnt to death or hanged. So they used torture.

In Germany, torture devices are actively used during witch trial from the period of 16th to 18th centuries.

Those accused of witchcraft were portrayed as being worshipers of the Devil, who engaged in such acts as malevolent sorcery at meetings known as Witches' Sabbaths.

Once the ‘witches’ had given in and confessed under torture, they were taken from the cells and put… well, I guess, right about where you’re standing… where more than 600 of them were burned alive! - Mike Stuchbery

From 1626 to 1631, the Würzburg witch trial are one of the largest mass-trials and mass-executions seen in Europe alongside with Trier witch trials, the Fulda witch trials, and the Bamberg witch trials. With 157 men, women and children in the city of Würzburg, Germany, were burned alive at the stake, with 219 executed in total in the city, and over 900 burnt altogether over the entire area.

The persecutions were orchestrated by Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn, Prince Bishop of Würzburg, and his nephew Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg, in the years after the Catholic re-conquest of Germany in the 1620s.

Sources: https://www.quora.com/Who-were-the-people-who-invented-torture-devices http://www.medievalchronicles.com/medieval-torture-devices/ https://www.thelocal.de/20140523/history-of-witch-hunts-in-germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%BCrzburg_witch_trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_the_early_modern_period

Conclusion: In game, torturing is a way player feel powerful

In this world, there are many type of Sims player, and most of us spend hours on finding new and creative ways to kill our Sims.

If you never heard of Sims, this game are actually a life simulator that can control sims characters’ fate. The game first launched back in 2000 and it gave us the absolute power to do what we want with the sims.

When people are immersed in virtual environments, a phenomenon called the disinhibition effect may be evoked, -Berni Good

Another reason on why people are able to accept torture acts in game was because the art style is cartoonist where nobody take it seriously and no one was harm during these process. Most of the way to kill the sims are more of accident and natural way, like locking them in a room without window, door and food, etc.

Sources: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/games/2017/01/i-want-cheat-him-and-set-him-fire-why-are-we-sadistic-towards-our-sims https://www.vice.com/sv/article/kwk9zv/why-did-we-all-want-to-kill-our-sims

Some of the player even make a torture chamber, make sims live like a slave and keep working till they die. There are also many players share their experiences and even make blog post about their proud work.

Sources: http://imgur.com/gallery/l5ppq

If the above is true then the following could be helpful when developing video games (torturing game) in the future as an artist:

Varieties of death animation for characters

Varieties of pre-rendered for environment and props

*Do take notes that these are just my personal opinions. *

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blackpjensen · 8 years ago

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How to Turn Your Website Visitors into Qualified Leads

In 2011, Google conducted research about how consumer habits have changed. The findings coined the term “zero moment of truth,” referring to the moment when a prospective customer finally reaches out to a company for an estimate, consultation or to make a purchase.

The results of the study yielded an important number: 70 percent. The percentage refers to the fact that, on average, buyers are 70 percent through their buyer’s journey before reaching out to a company for their zero moment of truth.

How the zero moment of truth impacts landscape companies

I talk to a lot of lawn and landscape companies throughout the country and they are usually unaware of not only this statistic, but also the phenomenon in general. Prospective customers are spending a minimum of 70 percent of their buyer’s journey online researching their green industry options before ever filling out a website form or picking up the phone to call you.

In fact, it’s very common for us to see a prospective customer on one of our clients’ websites visiting the site two to five times, and viewing 10 to 20 pages of content, before they ever fill out a form requesting more information.

The problem lies when visitors don’t like what they find on your website. If it doesn’t answer the questions they have, help them to consider options or get to the point where they perceive you as a viable contractor to work with, they are moving on to one of your competitor’s sites.

Converting lukewarm website visitors into qualified leads

If you remember any quote from this article, remember this: “Not everyone who is on my website is ready to buy right now, but it’s my job to get them there.” It’s a reality to embrace, not to be frustrated by.

Think about this. The majority of your website traffic are people just becoming aware of their problems and considering potential solutions. They’re not in the decision stage yet. This is particularly true for green industry companies who sell services with a longer buying cycle, such as large commercial maintenance contracts and elaborate design/build projects.

But it’s also true of smaller ticket items like lawn care programs and plant health care packages. Consumers don’t want to be ripped off, so they are taking control of the sales transaction and making sure they are choosing wisely way before they let you pitch to them.

So how do you take a lukewarm website visitor, who still has more research to perform, and help them convert into a qualified lead for your company? How do you nurture these leads to help them become more and more interested, to reach their zero moment of truth?

Using automation software for nurturing leads

Sales and marketing automation software has become popular in the past five to seven years because of its ability to track a user on your website and automatically deliver them meaningful content that meets their unique context.

Without automation software, the burden is on a website visitor to find all the resources they need. Maybe they browse a few pictures of projects you’ve completed, read some general information about your services, and possibly read a few blog articles that may be relevant to them. Yet, they may still not be ready to pull the trigger and reach out to you. So, they leave and may never return to your website.

However, automation software continues to deliver valuable content, your content, to the lukewarm website visitor, nurturing their recent interest and giving them additional opportunities to get back onto your website to learn more. It keeps them active in their buyer’s journey, while you help them move closer to their zero moment of truth.

Here are some examples of lead-nurturing tools that will convert lukewarm website visitors into qualified leads:

Blog subscription widgets: The simplest of automation, subscribing to a blog will allow someone to receive new articles as they post, delivered to their email inbox.

Lead generation offers: A graphical call-to-action (CTA) is placed on website pages and in blog articles. It targets people still researching and not ready for a free estimate. For instance, at the end of an article about landscape lighting, there is a “Landscape Lighting Planning Guide.” Clicking the CTA takes the reader to the landing page where they are asked for minimal personal information in a required form. Upon entering their info, they are redirected to the page containing the in-depth guide.

Additional CTAs: Within these guides, there are additional CTAs that give them more helpful content (like another guide), or then offer up a free consultation since they now have gotten more info, sending them further down the marketing funnel.

Customized follow-up emails: Automated emails, based off a website visitor’s actions, can provide even more relevant information. For instance, a person who downloaded a lead generation offer of “8 Considerations Before Building a Backyard Pool” gets a follow-up email with two suggested pool- related blog articles as well as a link to the pool patio gallery on your website.

Automated sales signals: Another great feature of a fully integrated sales and marketing solution is the ability to set up automation that will assign website contacts to a specific salesperson, based on their actions on the website. The salesperson could get a notification that someone downloaded the Lawn Care Hiring Guide and that they are located within their territory. Instead of ignoring the lukewarm website visitor, now a helpful team member is personally addressing their needs.

And this is just the tip of the lead-nurturing iceberg. Automation software can be customized to address hundreds of opportunities to improve relationships with not only your prospects, but also your customers.

Challenging your sales and marketing mindset

Think about how you buy. You search online until you find what you are looking for, and you want to make good buying decisions.

Your lawn or landscaping company’s strategy needs to respect and meet its potential buyers where they are on their journey, and give them customized follow-up content that meets their unique interest.

It’s your job to help prospects find their way to their zero moment of truth, and that truth should prove that you’ve given them all the information they need to make the decision that’s best for them. That means your company goes from zero to hero.

The post How to Turn Your Website Visitors into Qualified Leads appeared first on Turf.

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nofomoartworld · 8 years ago

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Self-Taught Painter Sculpts Monumental Portraits With Oil Paint

In the late 19th century, Southern California attracted misfits, idealists, and entrepreneurs with few ties to anyone or anything. Swamis, spiritualists, and other self-proclaimed religious authorities quickly made their way out West to forge new faiths. Independent book publishers, motivational speakers, and metaphysical-minded artists and writers then became part of the Los Angeles landscape. City of the Seekers examines how the legacy of this spiritual freedom enables artists to make creative work as part of their practices.

Unless it's made to be seen online, art rendered in just about any medium needs to be appreciated in real life. Reading about an artist and viewing high-resolution images can be helpful, but let's be honest: most works are made to be engaged with physically, in order to truly be experienced. Take Vanessa Prager's dense, gravity-defying abstract paintings, for example. Throughout history, artists have aimed to infuse 2D images with dimensionality, but only since the 18th century has impasto, the technique of heavily applying paint so it extends from the canvas, become widely practiced. Prager's richly textured works on canvas are a rare contemporary example of this technique, and in her new solo show, Ultraviolet, she delivers paintings that are not only heavily-layered but are also self-portraits.

Photo by Steve Hallock

Up close and in person, Prager's works appear non-figurative, but step a few feet away, and a face materializes—Prager's own. It's a powerful departure for a woman used to working on a smaller scale and representing the world around her, rather than herself. It's also telling, given that her sister Alex Prager has achieved a measure of success as a photographer, challenging Prager to make a name for herself, too.

A native Angeleno, Prager works from a studio based in Boyle Heights, on the outskirts of Downtown LA. But the nature of her own arts education differs from that of many of her contemporaries. Rather than attend a prestigious arts college, she opted to learn about art online—an interesting choice, given that her work is so palpable.

Blue Velvet

"I consider my style maximalism," she tells Creators. "I work with large volumes of oil paint that I mostly get from a small manufacturer. Pints, quarts, and gallons—I work directly out of the containers using highly saturated colors, and any color-mixing is done directly on the canvas. The canvas is my palette. I try never to take materials away and only add to the whole, as I feel everything has a use, and if I can find what it is in the work, then I have done my job well."

Prager says her art stems from a need to "capture the feelings that life brings and study what it means to exist today." Likewise, she finds inspiration from such disparate sources as degraded VHS tapes, neon signage, melting ice cream, piles of trash, icing, bouquets, and wide open spaces. "I want the work to embody the franticness, the composure, the hysteria, and the resultant blanketing of it all," she says. "Opposing emotions can exist at the same time, and often do. There are often many things running through my head at any one moment, and I try to show all of that."

No Shrinking Violet

Beneath all her layers of paint, the artist has the simple goal to "make it all work," and though she's tried to do so elsewhere, it's only been in her hometown of LA where she's been able to truly develop a specific, unique style. "The characters that people put on—on and off screen—have impacted me a lot," she explains. "Just the idea of not really knowing who you are yourself, and yet putting on personalities as you would put on an outfit. [...] I became fascinated with that, and it has very much affected my art in general, and specifically this series. I see this in myself, and so in creating this new series of self-portraits, I was able to explore just how far-reaching this is. I can 'be' anybody, and it's actually quite liberating, and helps build empathy as well."

In the end, Prager's philosophy is simple, even though it sounds complicated. "The disgust, the excess, the stuff, the beauty, the ugliness—it all comes our way, and it's important to move forward despite everything. Even better to use it all to help you move forward," she says. "I think it can be really hard to make something, to start something, and to keep it going. But if all the worst parts of you are actually reasons to help you move forward, and each new thing you discover is another brick in the path, then it's welcomed instead of resisted. Try to flow with it instead of using it as a reason not to."

Photo by Jeff Vespa

Follow Me Down

Time On My Side

Anyone But Me

The Hallway

Midnight Interior

Ultraviolet is on view May 13—June 17, 2017 at Richard Heller Gallery. Follow the artist on Twitter and Instagram, and visit her website here.

Related links:

Quirky, Curious Sculptures Probe the Dark Side of American Culture | City of the Seekers

Spiritual Sculptor Makes iPhone Illustrations | City of the Seekers

Energy Itself Is This Artist's Medium | City of the Seekers

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touristguidebuzz · 8 years ago

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Private Jet Tours Are Catching On for Big Spenders

Iconic stone figures are shown on Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the destinations visited as part of a 29-day AirCruises journey. henrykkcheung / Flickr

Skift Take: The audience of people who can spend $159,000 on a round-the-world jet tour is slim — and we have to wonder how much those travelers want to share the experience with dozens of strangers. But you don't need that many customers to fill an 84-bed plane.

— Hannah Sampson

So you want to see all of the world’s greatest sights … in 29 days?

Good news: For the first time ever, it’s a realistic proposition.

But there’s a catch: You’ll have to do it on a private jet. And it’ll run you $159,000 per person.

At least that’s what Edie Rodriguez, chief executive officer of Crystal Cruises, is proposing with the company’s soon-to-launch AirCruises, whose first “Around the World: Iconic Sights” tour will pit stop in Easter Island, Uluru, Lhasa, Jaipur, Victoria Falls, and Prague (among others)—all between Oct. 21 and Nov. 18.

Crystal isn’t alone. Luxury hotel companies from Peninsula hotels to Aman resorts and Four Seasons Hotels Ltd. are getting in on private jet tours; the latter has partnered with global star chef Rene Redzepi for a $135,000 culinary dream trip that spans much of Europe and Asia. So are safari outfitters such as Great Plains Conservation and AndBeyond, which is using private jets to link otherwise difficult-to-connect destinations, such as Kenya and Botswana. (The safaris range from $75,000 to $116,500 per person.) Top-notch operators Abercrombie & Kent and National Geographic are offering global vacations built around exclusive charters. And the list keeps growing.

A Whole New World of Opportunity

“Private jet travel inquiries have grown by at least four of five times in the last few years,” explained Michael Holtz, a travel specialist at SmartFlyer who is an expert on complicated aviation inquiries. “But up until about three years ago, only one or two companies were offering private jet trips at all, and none of them were really marketing in a big way.”

And why should they? There’s no sense in turning your company into a household name if almost all households can’t afford your product.

That has started to change, though. Fractional ownership companies have put the Uber twist on the private jet industry, putting private aviation within reach for a far wider demographic.

And luxury hotel companies—all vying for a brand image that ties them ever closer to ultra-high-net-worth spending—swooped in to capitalize on a new market and a new world of opportunity.

First to market was Four Seasons. “We began offering Private Jet trips aboard a third party vendor in 2012,” President and CEO J. Allen Smith told Bloomberg. “The response was overwhelmingly positive, but the missing piece for our guests was an end-to-end seamless Four Seasons experience.” So he led the company to create a fully branded private jet—a 52-seat Boeing 757—in 2015, along with a custom 24-day, nine-stop, $119,000 debut itinerary. “It was a first for the hospitality industry and met with tremendous enthusiasm,” said Smith. “Every trip sold out that year.”

Party Buses in the Sky

When Crystal launches its AirCruises this fall, it will catapult the private jet tourism business into a stratospheric new level of luxury. Whereas Four Seasons and other hotel companies largely lease out their (very nice) aircraft from outside vendors, Crystal’s parent company, Genting Hong Kong, is buying outright two Boeing planes—a custom-built 777 and a 787 Dreamliner that will follow down the line. The combined sticker price? $545 million. (Rodriguez declined to provide a figure but said the investment was “very sizable” and “very bullish.”)

Boeing 777s usually seat 350; this one will have just 84 lie-flat beds, a separate dining area with an on-board chef, a full wine cellar, and the highest staff-to-guest ratio anywhere in the skies. Its first trip, created in partnership with Peninsula hotels, departs Aug. 31 and hits all 10 cities where the Asian hotelier has properties, from Los Angeles, to Beijing, to Paris.

“We’re extending the Peninsula experience into the actual jet,” said Robert Cheng, Peninsula’s group vice president of marketing, who described how general managers will join travelers on flights to their hotel’s destination, offering up their local expertise well ahead of check-in. Also part of the deal are special galas and events that put travelers in contact with local movers and shakers: gallery owners, designers, chefs, and other people who “make a city tick on a global scale.”

Cheng put it best: “It’s not these people’s first times in these global gateways, so our goal is to make the trip interesting, not just by the things they do but by the people they meet.”

Naturally, that applies on the jet as well. “People want to mix and mingle with like-minded travelers,” said Holtz, who added that he “would not be surprised if some major business deals were formulated” aboard a party bus in the sky.

What Money (Normally) Can’t Buy

The advantages of flying private are obvious. “People want everything tied up with a bow,” said Crystal’s Rodriguez, who counts herself among travelers that like to be pampered. “You can’t get from the Tibetan Himalayas to the Taj Mahal rapidly or easily,” she said, referring to two consecutive stops on the Around the World tour. And while her 777 can’t land on Agra’s tiny airstrip, it’ll take guests to New Delhi, where a smaller (private) aircraft will whisk guests to the iconic monument.

On safari, taking out a small Embraer or Pilates jet allows guests with Great Plains Conservation and AndBeyond to guarantee they’ll sidestep airport chaos, make it to their next destination in time for a game drive, and get their full allotment of luggage space—never a sure thing on safari. (Small safari planes often act like shuttles, picking guests up and dropping guests off on roundabout, unpredictable circuits.)

But why fly private if you’re not doing it privately? The answer is simple: economies of scale. On most of these trips, customs officers can come aboard the aircraft and process passports without anyone ever stepping foot in an immigration line, said SmartFlyer’s Holtz. Staying with a single hotel company means you’ll tell them your preferences once and never remind them again. “You can have your favorite green juice at 7:00 a.m. in the morning sharp, no matter where you stay,” Holtz added as an example.

And then there are the exclusive experiences that simply can’t be arranged for just two people. “They’re able to use the volume and price point to their advantage,” said ultra-luxury travel specialist Jack Ezon of Ovation Travel. “A gala dinner in St. Petersburg’s Catherine Palace, for instance—you can’t plan that alone.”

Nor can you get René Redzepi and the Noma team to curate your food-obsessed itinerary … unless you’re on a Four Seasons jet. Or go wine tasting in Mendoza and Cape Town and France with an expert from Wine Spectator … unless you’re flying with Crystal. That’s why Peninsula’s Cheng says that even guests who already own private jets are signing up for these trailblazing new trips.

Dollars and Cents

The most affordable of the private jet trips among these main players clocks in at $78,600, making any discussion of value a relative one. But Holtz points out that you could easily spend 20 percent to 30 percent more if you tried to plan a similar trip yourself. He’s not wrong: Business-class flights alone could cost roughly $25,000 per person on such an itinerary, not including the value of time spent on lengthy layovers or waiting in airport terminals.

And given the caliber of hotels on these itineraries—all among the best in the world—another $15,000 in overnights is not unrealistic. Add the cost of guides, drivers, meals, and booze—all of which is included on a curated trip—and it’s easy to see how the dollars and cents add up.

But there are exceptions. Aman’s smaller trips start at about $55,000 for a 16-day wellness quest in the South Pacific led by world-renowned specialists Yamuna Zake and James D’Silva. The company also has the most expensive trips we found: Its Southeast Asia voyages, created in conjunction with the highly proficient tour operator Remote Lands, have sold for $57,750 per day. (The company was unavailable to comment on the services and amenities travelers can expect at that rate.)

The Price Is Right

None of these companies is having a hard time selling out its trips. Four Seasons has a wait list for its late-2017 departures, which Smith says sold out in “record time.” Aman Chief Operating Officer Roland Fasel says he’s been inspired to expand his program because the trips “are always a huge success and sell out very quickly.” And Rodriguez says the Crystal jet has already garnered several buyouts, which both Ezon and Holtz estimated could cost somewhere in the $3 million range.

And who’s going? Ezon says the crowd is much like the group that shells out big bucks on cruising—older travelers with a bucket list to check off. But Holtz has a more generalist view, citing interest from business owners who just sold their startup, young couples who maybe hit it big on the market, or retirees with time and money. Crystal CEO Rodriguez sides with Holtz, saying half her bookings come from new-to-cruise market customers whom she hopes to convert into Crystal loyalists.

Either way, both agents agree the trend is here to stay. “It’s just in its infancy right now, but this is going to be a tremendous market,” said Holtz. “Our clients come back with great feedback. They say it’s one of the best trips they’ve ever taken.”

This article was written by Nikki Ekstein from Bloomberg and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to [email protected].

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davidegbert · 8 years ago

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Huawei P10 Review: Is Evolution Enough?

Evolution or revolution? We’ve accepted tick-tock strategies from many top tier manufacturers. Apple’s is most obvious, iPhone 6, then the 6S launches a year later. Samsung’s shift from Galaxy S5 to S6 was significant. The move from S6 to S7 was focused on refinement. Yet, when other manufacturers adopt similar strategies, we’re apt to be increasingly critical of evolutionary improvements.

For Huawei this year, both technology and design feel somewhat iterative, but does the collection of smaller improvements in total raise this phone up above the sum of its parts? Let’s take a look at the Huawei P10.

Hardware and Design

If it feels like we’ve been discussing this hardware for a while now, it’s because we have. The P10 inherits a lot of what we liked from last year’s Mate 9. Screen resolution, chipset, RAM, storage options, and cameras are all shrunk down and crammed into a smaller form factor. For those of us with hobbit hands, it’s a much easier size to use one-handed while on the go. The P10 is just a touch taller, and slightly skinnier, than a Galaxy S7.

Where the Mate as a phablet is something of a big old diesel truck, Huawei’s focus for the P10 is on aesthetics and design, making it more of a small roadster. The P10 draws some obvious inspirations from other popular phones, rounding corners and softening edges from last year’s more angular P9. Bolder color options are appreciated though, as we’ll be spending our review time with the dazzling blue model. This hyper cut back panel shimmers in sunlight, but achieves the goal of remaining nearly impervious to fingerprint smudges. It’s a refreshing change of pace from glass back phones, and helps with just a bit of additional grip over traditional aluminum rear cases.

Fingerprint

One of the larger departures from previous Huawei phones, the fingerprint sensor moves to the front bezel. It requires more of a reach to unlock than rear mounted sensors, but it also doubles as a one stop shop for navigation. A single tap is a back button, long press will take you home, but the gesture swipe to use multi-tasking is the hardest piece of muscle memory to reprogram. Going on week two with this phone, I still miss this gesture about half the time I try it.

At any time, you can just swap back to normal on screen controls, sacrificing a few pixels at the bottom of your display.

Display

We’re treated to a properly usable 1080p display. The HD resolution looking sharp enough at this 5.1” screen diagonal. Color and contrast are well represented for an LCD, and the brightness is competitive for a phone in this tier. In our basic Lux testing, the P10 edges out the LG G6, while falling far behind the burst outdoor brightness mode found on the Galaxy S7.

Software

Happily we get another improvement to Huawei’s custom software EMUI. Now on version 5.1, you get options to swap your homescreen from apps to an app drawer, and the general layout for notifications and settings is closer to stock android. There’s still a lot of UI customization, especially to things like confirmation dialog bubbles, but all the pieces are generally where you would expect them to be. We no longer suffer that odd mish-mash of iOS design found in the old EMUI notification shade.

New for the P10, Huawei is promoting a partnership with GoPro, and the new photo gallery app delivers improved tools for editing and sharing videos. Similar to some of the filters and templates you might find in Google Photos or Instagram. It’s a fun add on for folks who like to share short clips with family and friends.

We still get the benefits of Android 7, split screening apps and alt-tab style swapping, though accessing those features takes an additional bit of hunting if you’re using the fingerprint scanner navigation gestures. Nougat improves performance alongside Huawei’s aggressive resource management and garbage collection. Our Mate 9 is aging well in that regard, so we’re optimistic that the P10 will also perform well over time with future updates.

Performance

Speaking of performance, we’re still impressed with this chipset. Huawei’s Kirin 960 processor is a screamer, just nipping at the heels of the Qualcomm 835 benchmarks we’ve seen leaked. It easily bests the Pixel and OnePlus 3T with the Qualcomm 821. This kind of horsepower is gross overkill for covering the communication basics, but cranking up some graphics intensive games, the P10 drives Marvel Future Fight very well, probably the smoothest we’ve seen from any Android we’ve reviewed using high quality settings. No small feat for how poorly optimized that game is on Android. Better optimized titles will run like butter. Performance on Implosion for example has been phenomenal.

Radio performance is very competitive for a metal phone with antenna bands. We routinely saw LTE performance falling just slightly behind the Galaxy S7, somewhere around 2-3dB depending on the connection to AT&T towers. However, WiFi performance regularly reached farther than the Samsung at the edges of my home network.

Camera

In our early testing, we’d be hard pressed to see significant differences in camera performance between this phone and the Mate 9. Though the camera module is sunk flush with the rear housing, we still have the same dual camera system. A 12MP color sensor and a 20MP black and white sensor work in tandem on all still photos to improve contrast, color, and clarity. Hardware image stabilization on the color sensor improves low light performance and reduces hand shake in video capture.

New for this phone, we get a “Portrait Mode” in addition to the terrific Wide Aperture setting. This add on incorporates beauty filters options normally found on the selfie camera. Where the Wide Aperture mode easily bests the background blur options found on other phones, this Portrait mode is a lot more destructive to skin tone at max settings. It also seems to create a harder border around your subject, so we’d recommend using it judiciously, maybe dialing back the effect to around level 3.

We won’t be using this phone to dig deep into a Real Camera Review, but for folks interested in a deep dive, our Mate 9 camera review will cover those bases for you. We’ll try to get our hands on a P10 plus to see how it might differ from this camera.

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On the whole, these sensors deliver some of the best still photos we’ve ever seen from a phone, and improvements to video, like h.265 UHD files and image stabilization, are greatly appreciated. There’s been some nay-saying or fear mongering about HEVC video, but we wouldn’t let that concern you as these video files are fairly easy to work with.

Audio

Headphone performance is adequate to good. Again, similar in performance to the Mate 9, though with a wider frequency response on 24bit files. We also see very subtle improvements to noise floor and dynamic range, but we’d be hard press to hear any significant differences. Though disabling the headphone DTS mode, we see more EQ tweaking which the user is unable to completely disable.

The speaker performance is one of the weaker links of this phone, performing well for notifications, but it’s not going to break any records for music and movie playback. On the whole, it’s unlikely the P10 will make our list of audiophile phones at the end of the year, but it gets the job done well enough for most daily use situations.

Bluetooth users might also be annoyed at how poorly this phone will hand off the connection between audio accessories. A common gripe on Huawei hardware, if I have headphones connected and get in my car, the phone won’t automatically prioritize the car for hands free calling. Manually disabling one accessory will occasionally lead to the Bluetooth connection locking up, requiring me to manually reestablish the connection in my car’s stereo settings. Not a process one would want to undertake while operating a motor vehicle.

Battery

Battery life is very good for this capacity. During our streaming test, the P10 was well competitive against current flagship phones. Streaming thirty minutes of HD video over WiFi resulted in a 5% battery drain. This translated to good daily run time, making it to dinner with moderate use and room to spare.

For power users, recharging during the day is made a lot easier with Huawei’s supercharger. A quick top off will easily deliver hours of run time after a short stint plugged in. Only 15 minutes on the charger topped off 19% of the cell. Huawei’s performance here is top tier, and is very impressive for how cool the phone remains while charging.

Conclusion

In a way, this phone isn’t really getting a fair shake, as the most immediate comparison people make is against the bigger brother Mate which only just made it to the United States about a month ago. Remembering that this is an update to the P9, nearly every aspect of this phone is noticeably better than last year’s fashion flagship. Screaming performance, better battery life, significantly faster charging, and an evolved camera system. It’s admirable that Huawei packaged all of these improvements while also playing with some new design elements and focusing on fresh color options.

There are precious few compromises to make now. We’re expecting more phones to arrive this year with rated enhanced water resistance for example, and it’s about time Huawei disclose IP ratings for all of their phones. The P10 Plus is rated IPX3, but we have no official confirmation on whether the smaller P10 is even rain resistant.

To return to the question at the top of this article, evolution or revolution, it’s curious to see complaints of this phone online “not improving enough”. While we wait for Samsung to eat up the first batch of Qualcomm 835 processors, you can get that power now in the Mate 9 and P10. At the time this review was published, there’s literally no more powerful (non-Huawei) Android phone on the market, and we’re still week away from a proper Galaxy S8 launch.

The toughest competition this phone might face is likely to come from Huawei’s sister brand, as we wait to see what the next Honor might bring using these parts and pieces. Until then, the P10 offers a compelling solution for folks looking to shop something different. Personally, it’s nice getting these features in a phone I can use with one hand.