#i also just really like when stylists create a bunch of looks with a limited pallete it's neat

[t-u-i-t-c]

as much as i like mira's different outfits i do wish she'd wear the outfit she wears in the intial promotional materials and in merch. it's one of my favorite looks and if they're going to put her in it in promotions i'd like to see her wear it more in the show.

[nct-lian]

her style (seven categories)

— daily wear (casual wear)

lian’s entire wardrobe is the definition of ulzzang fashion. she loves loves loves the korean style !! lian can get cold really easily, and so she tries to incorporate some sort of long sleeve into all her outfits.

it works out perfectly as well because when i tell you she’s obsessed with cardigans and jeans- lian owns SO MANY JEANS like half her closet is just jeans and it’s scary :0

she doesn’t normally gravitate towards layering clothing, but i promise that when she does, it looks so so good.

she has no problem layering a simple sweater vest or putting on a thick sweater over something thin, but she’s expressed how she finds it to be uncomfortable if she layers a bunch of thick clothing on top of each other.

lian also really loves skirts !! her legs have never really been the target of cold weather, so wearing skirts in the fall (or even winter at times) has thankfully never been a problem for her. she particularly loves mini skirts with a solid colour or a plaid design.

her colour scheme consists of neutral colours, black and whites and occasional pops of pastel!

— formal wear (meetings, company dinners, etc.)

there’s a rule in sm that states: the idols aren’t to wear anything denim or “lazy looking” while attending important events within the company or meeting new people in public because it’ll set a good first impression.

lian makes sure not to go overboard when dressing formally, but she’d get scolded if she were to underdress. and so that leaves her with a limited amount of options when choosing what to wear.

she tends to go with the simple blouse paired with a mini skirt, or if she doesn’t have the energy to try, she’ll throw on a pair of trousers with a solid coloured top and call it a day.

whereas if she were to be attending a company gathering with her seniors, she’ll wear a pretty dress or expand her “blouse + mini skirt” outfit into something a little more extravagant!

again, her formal colour scheme sticks to a neutral palette with black and whites. it’s rare to see any sort of colour if she hadn’t decided to wear something plaid.

— comfy wear (lounging, hanging out at home, etc.)

as much as lian wishes she could just stay in her pyjamas all day long when they’re off schedules, she knows that’ll do her no good. forcing herself to get up every morning and change also gives her the motivation to brush her teeth and wash her face like she needs to.

that being said, if she has to change so early in the morning, then she’s sticking with something incredibly comfortable.

tons of oversized shirts and baggy pants—the shirts normally belonging to the boys. no joke, johnny has lost over fifteen sweaters to lian, and they’re definitely not going back to him.

like his shirts basically go all the way down to her knees and so there’s no need for pants to keep her legs warm. a random pair of shorts and she’s good to go!

all of her comfy clothes are super soft and fluffy and perfect for sitting around to do nothing! she practically swims in all of these clothing items, but that’s part of the fun :D

she doesn’t really care about the colour, but she does have to match the pants with the shirt because if she doesn’t, then that’s just wrong, guys.

— sleep wear (pyjamas)

the fifth floor’s heating system has been broken for like the past three months and nobody has fixed it yet, so the dorm is constantly cold.

but lian does this thing where she freezes herself before she goes to bed because “it’ll feel nice when i sleep.”

the boys always tell her to go put on a sweater or change into a longer pair of pants because her sleep wear is literally the thinnest material ever—and not to mention, she’s wearing short sleeves most of the time!

lian seriously despises going to sleep in long pants because they make her overheat and it’s all uncomfortable when she’s under her thick ass duvet, so her pyjamas are normally short.

again, lian doesn’t really care about the colour because they normally come in sets and everything matches anyway. she definitely prefers to have a thin and soft material!

— award show wear (first row: while performing, second row: red carpets)

okay say it with me: LIAN PRETTIEST GIRL !! the stylists absolutely love love love lian, and they make sure to show it when putting her outfits together. whenever lian is performing on stage, she’s always decked out in a glitter filled outfit so that she shines even brighter than she already does—especially if she’s with the boys.

it’s no secret that lian is rather ... vertically challenged, and the stylists want to make sure she’s not completely enveloped into them to the point where she can’t be seen. they make sure her outfits a little more sparkly so she’s able to be seen well, but they always have to match with what the rest of of them are wearing.

if she doesn’t match, she’ll looks like a random girl just following them everywhere they go, and that’s something nobody wants!

while walking the red carpet, lian literally looks a million dollars. all her outfits are personally made just for her so they fit perfectly! unless it comes from a designer brand, of course.

she’s obviously had a little bit of malfunctions because the “too short for their body type dress” has happened once or twice despite having all her outfits custom made. make that make sense tbh ??

the colour scheme is super colourful and diverse! like stated before, the stylists love to have her stand out and shine, so they love to take risks while creating her outfits :)

— jewelry (necklaces, rings, earrings, etc.)

lian loves her jewelry! she’s always seen wearing pretty necklaces, shiny bracelets and gorgeous, dangly earrings :) but she has a very strong love-hate relationship with rings.

there are only certain rings she’s able to wear because bulky and chunky ones make her very uncomfortable. she leans more towards the dainty and thin style.

for earrings, she really goes all out with them. her earrings are always dangly and shiny, and super extravagant! she has a lot of piercings as well so she’s able to wear several earrings at a time.

her necklace preference is fairly basic; just the simple dainty chain with a diamond on the end or a trail of pearls.

— head wear (hats, headbands, hair clips, etc.)

lian honestly doesn’t care for hats that much. she prefers having her hair flow nicely with a couple of hair pins to keep it in place, but it’s necessary to have a hat on while dancing because her hair will go EVERYWHERE everywhere if it’s not secured in some way.

she only likes bucket hats and baseball caps because she believes that the other ones are ugly. no offence to beanie wearers, it’s just not her style!

headbands aren’t something she’s too into either, she’ll only wear them if she believes that it’ll go well with her outfit. she’ll also wear them if she has to keep the front pieces of hair out of her face for the day.

lian’s hair clips are like her children. she’s always wearing some sort of pin and they’re literally so beautiful and match her outfits so well!

not only does lian absolutely love the way her hair clips look on herself, but she likes how the boys look with them in their hair as well. when yuta still had his long hair, she would constantly be styling it for him.

he would be adorned in golden bobby pins and sparkly clips basically 24/7 :D

majority of lian’s clothing sticks to a neutral colour palette, so she buys hair accessories that match well!

[silentsockfeet]

tlou2 photomode tips

disclaimer: these are just my go-to tricks that i like to use, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll work for everyone! each person has their own taste and style that they have to develop and these are just what i’ve found work best for me

just going through section by section which settings I use. but i just want to note that a lot of the things i keep in mind when taking photos are what i’ve learned through real life photography and through my film major, where i was taught things like composition, lighting, etc. i have general tips i can give about that as well but for now i just thought i’d keep it to the actual settings i use, partly bc this post is already long as fuck

camera

for portraits, set camera roll to 90 (or -90, it’s the exact same just in different directions)

for all my portraits i’ll usually have field of view set all the way to zero and camera zoomed in as far as it’ll go, tho obviously this changes depending on what you want

depth of field

depth of field is one of the most important tools for drawing the eye and keeping your photos less muddled. you can keep your subject in focus while blurring everything else, so your viewer knows exactly what they’re supposed to be looking at

for nearly all my photos i keep DOF intensity at about 70

DOF is also good for creating a mood. for example, if i want really soft, cosy type photos i’ll have really intense DOF (about 80). if i want crisp action photos i’ll have less intense DOF (50-60)

lately i've been doing some experimenting and setting DOF at 100 to try and get some cool effects but again, this all comes down to personal taste. do your own experimenting and find what you like!

display

brightness changes from photo to photo. i started a system where i’ll find a 10-point range where the brightness looks good (ie. 35-45) and then take a photo at every 5 points (so three photos at 35, 40, 45)

again, these numbers aren’t set, i find whatever range looks best for the photo and then choose the best looking one after uploading to my computer

sharpness i usually don’t tamper with

i only use saturation alongside a 50% noir filter, which i’ve explained more below

screen effects

chromatic aberration is usually always the original settings. every now and then i'll amp it up if i think it looks cool but i've very rarely done this. again, all comes down to personal taste

film grain is pretty much always set to zero unless i want to use it for stylistic effect, which is rare

filters

what i do fairly often to get the dark backgrounds i like is to set filter to noir but change intensity to 50. then i’ll go to the display tab and change saturation to 30, sometimes 35 (the numbers aren’t always these tho, you have to eyeball it to find where the skin tones look normal)

this keeps the edges dark but still makes characters look as colorful as normal

noir is probably the filter i use most often, but every now and then i’ll use vintage, blorange, or none. 

this is really where you can take my advice with a grain of salt because filters are very much a personal taste option, so find what you like!

vignette

for most of my photos, i have vignette ON but size and intensity are both set to 0. i find it helps even out the photo, so that background isn’t too bright while characters are too dark

if i want a particularly dark background, i’ll sometimes set both to 50. very rarely, if i want a darker background but all 0 is too light and all 50 is too dark, i’ll set size to 75 and intensity to 25.

but again, for nearly all of my photos they’re both set to 0

misc.

to summarize, my most common settings: camera roll 90, DOF intensity 70, multiple shots at different brightness settings, film grain 0, noir 50% with saturation bumped slightly, vignette ON but both settings at 0

your flashlight is your best source of lighting! it’s the only source you can actually control, so it’s especially helpful when photographing NPCs. shine your flashlight in their face and harass them!! i use the very edge of the light bc the center is often too bright and leaves a weird ring of light on their face

sometimes using the NPC’s flashlight as a source of light for your main character is also helpful, but it’s definitely harder, since obviously you can’t control them. just something to keep in mind

besides the flashlight, other in game objects can help to make cool effects as well. in this set i posted recently i used smoke bombs to make a more solid backdrop. they also help to emphasize light rays so i want to experiment with it more lol 

most important thing to note is that i take a SHIT TON of photos. i’m guessing for every one i post there’s ten i don’t. the reason for this is, the graphics on your tv are gonna be set to different formats than your computer or phone, so your photos won’t look the same on each device. i always choose photos based on how good they look on my phone, because i figure that’s what most people will see them on. so if you’re like me and you don’t have / can’t afford good photo editing software, the best way to account for what looks best is to take a bunch of the same photo but on different settings and then compare on a separate device

i pretty much don’t make any edits outside of photomode save for cropping photos, but even then i've been trying to do that less. very rarely i'll make some brightness adjustments if they turn out too dark on my computer, but i try to avoid that as much as possible

i seriously can’t stress this enough, but just have patience and keep trying! the worst thing i always do is get all in my head about which posts were successful and whether or not people like my photos, but honestly? just ignore it and photograph what YOU like. art is an inherently selfish hobby. don’t let anything discourage you, just post what you like and keep trying to improve!

i tried to keep this limited to my general settings, but again, it changes with every shot. if y’all want to ask more specific questions about specific shots or whatever please feel free! or if you just want to ask general questions that's cool too! i'm always happy to help :)

[hazelenergy]

How I Digitally Paint like a Scenic Artist/Designer

Aka: how I did this and put my degree to good use. 

LONG POST WARNING

Step 1: Research. 

First off, get to your image search. If you are going to be using Google, you may want to type “-pinterest” in the search to eliminate the countless boards. 

I had to figure out clothing that is vaguely late 1800s. I found a multitude of reference images that were fancier clothes- but I wanted to find images of clothing for kindred across all social classes. Photographs from the era and paintings are your friend. They will more accurately showcase what was worn. 

After Fashion research comes location research. The 1890s in America is known for the rapid industrialization. Factories were getting bigger and work days were getting longer. But, I wanted the moonlight to be cascading into the place, illuminating the scene. This means I needed to find a structure that had skylights or let sunlight in. And the best images I found? Slaughterhouses. Fitting, huh?

The same rule for fashion still stands- if you can find photographs or paintings from the era- they’re better. There are tons of places still standing today from the 1800s. But today, they look WAY different. Ya know, Abandoned! So just be sure to take this into consideration if you search “abandoned slaughterhouses” or go trespassing like I did.

Lastly, pose research. Finding the poses for a fight scene can be tedious. So, I enlisted some help from a few fight choreographers and stunt men. You can record their fights and play them back at quarter or half speed. You can also get a mirror and flop on the floor a bunch. I did both. This lets you see the action/motion lines you are going to replicate in the drawing.  Heres how we initially did fina’s pose:

And sometimes you have to go back and get a clean shot. I ended up using this pose for the axe.

Step 2: Set up and Background!

When you open a new file, set it to the dimensions and resolution you want. I was working at 600. Usually, I’m working at 300-350. You can always reduce resolution. Its hard to prevent fuzzy lines if you increase it later. 

I cannot stress the following enough:

You work background to foreground. Big Shapes and areas to little shapes. Work your way forward. What this means is you need to fill in as much space as possible first. Then build your details. I prefer working as follows: Big Solid tones, Soft shadows, Dark Shadows, Highlights, then final blend. Once you finish this, put an overlay on top. This knocks everything back and helps create the illusion of depth. See this at work with the video below or here

Step 3: Figure Drawings + Composition

Utilize that research and images you collected to pose your characters. I create subfolders for each set of figures. Organization is important here. This will help keep you on the right layer and prevent the eternal digital artist struggle of “Fuck that was on the wrong layer!”

Even after you move on to lineart and shading, Keep the sketch layer as a reference. You may need to see what youre original notes/ figures looked like as you do the lineart and shade. Don’t be afraid to move them around and alter the composition rn. You want to be able to make changes. Make notes! Detail light sources! 

I’m about to through out some art jargon:

You want to think about asymmetric balance. The easiest way to achieve this in an eye-pleasing manner is to use the Fibonacci spiral. Yeah. This boi:

Place your figures and actions in a similar sequence to the spiral and the viewer’s eye tends to naturally follow it. This is sometimes called the Golden Ratio in the art world. 

Doesn’t need to be perfectly on the spiral. You can break it- but its an excellent tool to plan how things move in the piece. 

Step 4: Lineart

Once you got things sketched- its time to do the lineart. I’m using clip studio paint’s standard brushes. Nothing fancy. I often switch between the G-pen and the For Effect Liner. Mapping and Turnip are for thicker lines. 

Usually I set these pens to a specific thickness depending on where I’m drawing.

My background figures are lined at 0.05 thickness, the midground is .1 to .2, Fina is .3 and the foreground is .4. I set my stabilization high to help keep my lines smooth. Stabilization 100 means there’s a significant delay between where the pen is and the cursor. I like the stabilization to be at 20 for freehanding and at 50 ish for outlining. Dont become completely reliant on the stabilization though. Good and smooth lineart is drawn from the arm not the wrist. Your range of motion is severely limited if you only move your wrist. Practice moving from your elbow and you’ll be surprised how much smoother your lines get. 

Once I finish lining the figures, I usually go around it with an outline. This does three things: 

1. Solidifies the figure and cleans lineart for paint bucket tool. More on that in the next step.

2. Its a stylistic choice. Helps give it that comic book feel with a heavy outline. 

3. Pushes figures forward or back in the composition. Thicker outline helps denote that a figure is farther forward than another. My background figures have no outline to push them away 

Step 5: Digitally coloring

For each figure you are going to select outside the lineart. 

Create a new layer under the lineart

Invert the selection. Paint bucket. You should now have a solid shape of the figure under the lineart. Do not deselect.

Create a new layer above the one color. Title it solid colors. Paint in thick, solid tones. I like to use the mapping pen and turnip pen to color in my solid tones: skin, clothing, hair, etc.  

After that, deselect. Create a multiply layer if you can. If your program does not have a multiplier function, Pick a tone you want to use for shadows and lower the opacity (usually 30-40% I like to use lavenders or blue tones). It will not be as vibrant, but you can edit it in post. Select off of the solid colors layer. I like to start with skin tones. Use the airbrush tool to create soft shadows. You don’t want to create harsh lines on this layer.

Then repeat this process with harsh lines.  

Then knock it all back with an overlay. If you dont have the ability to create an overlay, you can again drop a solid color and lower the opacity, but you’ll have to mess with the color balance/ brightness/contrast to let all the hard work come through. 

You’re going to repeat this for every single figure. Here’s a few color theory tips though.

Your overlay colors should be darker (not more vibrant) in the foreground and lighter (avoid using pure white) in the background. This helps with the depth of the piece. Things closer tend to be darker (not always true, depends on lighting)

You can choose to use color theory to aid your shadows. Instead of choosing black or grey for shadows, choose a complimentary color. I used a lot of green for this piece, I used red for really dark shadows. Its not that black drains color- its just loses some depth if not used carefully. 

Keep your colors consistent. Helps unify the piece. You can strategically break the consistency to draw focus. For example, Fina is the only figure with a true blue overlay. This helps her stand out from the other figures who have reds and greens. 

Step 6: Touch Ups and Final Renderings

Now comes the most tedious part. If you’re like me, your computer fans have been whirring for the last few hours trying to render this monster of a file. If you havent already,  SAVE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD

These are the last four layers I have for the entire piece. Here, I am trying to create effective and believable lighting. This kind of work I have only been able to achieve in clip studio or photoshop. You can do it with normal layers, but choose your colors CAREFULLY. Stay away from pure white. Carefully utilize your knowledge of light and shadow to create soft highlights. Harsh lines tend to be a stylistic choice for me. The final layer, subtract, dulls out harsh red tones. I used this as a final overlay to help put everyone and everything in the scene. Without it, things are a little too green and skin tones are a little too blushed for vampires.

The challenge here is I want to tone down the red, but not lose the vibrancy of the blood. So, shift it to a blue. This also helped reinforce the “nighttime” effect. Its only a slight change.

Final thoughts:

Whenever you finish something, its important to reflect.

1. I am so FUCKING PROUD OF MYSELF. This is easily one of the most complicated pieces I’ve done in a while- and I’ve made 16′ tall faux stained glass. Brag. Let yourself feel awesome cuz you just made something awesome. 

2. I timed myself on the piece. I could have easily spent another 7 hours on it. But its important to know when to stop messing with it. Partially for budget reasons but also when you get down to the details you can make yourself go insane. Theres also a ton of detail work I lost cuz of overlays or its just too small to notice. Fina’s face? hard to see cuz its not close enough. 

3. I needed to take frequent breaks for this piece. That was good. Resting and stretching was very important. That is one of the reasons why I was able to work so fast. 

4. I started doing more digital art in April 2020. I have to say, practice makes perfect. I practice drawing and digital painting for at least 3 hours a day. 

That discipline has allowed me to improve so rapidly. So- I don’t wanna hear shit about I can’t possibly get this good! Or I couldn’t even draw a stick figure! BULLSHIT. You can. Get yourself some free software like Krita or Autodesk sketchbook and start playing! 

And thats what I got! Thanks for coming with me on this long post! 

[duchessofostergotlands]

Maybe I'm just really negative, but I was super surprised to see that the collection is only for sale for two weeks... it just seems so short for it to actually make the impact they want? But what do I know? 🤷‍♀️ love your blog btw, hope things are going well! Also, not sure if it matters: Reitmans is a Canadian clothing store/company that has a few subsidiary stores, one used to be Smart Set (I think those are closed now?).

Waaaaaaait a second, TWO WEEKS? Did I read that right? What a bunch of miserly jerks these companies are. It’s basically free advertising for them and all they have to do is give 1:1 (at cost not retail) for ONE ITEM each and they’re only going to do it for TWO WEEKS???? I hope it didn’t come off as if I was blaming Meghan or her strategy there! I was just trying to point out how stingy these companies are being (in my opinion). I hope it didn’t come off as if I was blaming Meghan or her strategy there! I was just trying to point out how stingy these companies are being (in my opinion) /// While I do think the Smart Set could be a bit better it seems to be a wonderful start! One thing though that I adore about Meghan is that she seems to be so excited about everything that she does and that excitement is definitely infectious!!! /// Something I really dislike is the type of garments. The dress is very flattering, but the pants have a high waste that in overweight people like me gives us the “crotch chub” effect lmao. Most of the clothes only look good on a certain type of woman. Add that to the limited sizes and 😬😬 /// So it looks like that shift dress comes in hot pink (it looks red to me?) but only blue and black dress purchases get donated to Smart Works? Weird. The Jigsaw jacket and pants they’re linking to are part of Jigsaw’s pre-existing Paris line of work wear. While the shift comes in extended sizes, I’m not impressed the jacket and pants only go up to a UK 16. And I’m interested in how the 1x1 will work. Idk it’s all weird // I’m honestly disappointed with the line. It’s a great cause but all the pieces were existing in at least one of the retailers, just re-done for the line, it’s only 5 pieces, sizes go up to 16UK (14US), they’re made in polyester and the campaign for smart works will only last 2 weeks? Idk it just spiralled into a “let’s make it look like we’re good” kind of line // I don’t know why but I thought each brand was launching a “look” for smart works, is it just one place has the shirt, another the trousers, a third the purse etc? // I really want to love Meghan’s idea, I really do. But I can’t.

Ok so I decided to combine all the messages I got about this in to one kind of master post. My plan is to go through what I liked and what I’m not too fond of. I don’t know which one should go first so I’ll put headings and you can read them in your preferred order haha. I should hopefully hit most of the points:

The Good

I talked about this before but I think Meghan’s really underrated skill is being able to spot gaps and understand where she can add value. Having worked with public donations, I related to a lot of the issues she pointed out and I think it’s very astute of her to be able to quickly pick that up for each organisation 

Once again, women of colour were front and centre. The women modelling in the campaign were representative, they had different body types and attitudes too. I think that commitment is really impressive

Although some things are in more limited sizes- I think one of the items anyway- most things go up to a Size 24 which is more inclusive 

I think we’ve already seen that there’s going to be a huge uptake in the clothing line so I expected that they’ll report a really big result

Her behaviour around the collection so far has been pretty adorable. From the behind the scenes videos to today, she has seemed genuinely excited and passionate. She’s obviously worked hard on the project and when you watch videos I think you want to back her up!! 

She’s doing what I have complained about royals not doing in the past. She is doing something with a tangible end result. They will be able to say they gave x pieces to the charity whereas most royal projects have no clear outcomes or outputs. It still doesn’t tell us the impact but it’s better than we normally get from royals!!! More of that please. 

The Less Good

I don’t like 1 for 1 models and that’s just an unavoidable fact. I’ve talked about it before and my opinion hasn’t changed since: https://duchessofostergotlands.tumblr.com/post/186776510814/hi-jess-you-said-you-didnt-like-the-one-for-one

I don’t like the clothes. I’m not going to go into a huge amount of detail because this is exclusively personal preference and nothing to do with the merits of the project but I know someone will ask so let’s get it out of the way. They’re too old for me personally. I do get why they went the basic route and re-used things though as it’s quicker and easier  

“It’s not a hand out, it’s a hand held.” I mean, it is still absolutely a hand out. I know what she was going for but the dictionary exists. And it’s still a project where vulnerable women are supported by the whims of the privileged. I am a bit concerned at some of the narrative emphasising the purchaser which plays in to what I talk about in point 1 

 The things she pointed out when she was at Smart Works were that donations “can be a potpourri of mismatched sizes and colours, not always the right stylistic choices or range of sizes.” Now I don’t know if her project actually addresses that issue. It provides high quality clothing but with a one for one model it means that whatever people are buying, that’s what the place gets. It isn’t saying “how many of each item of each size do you want and need to create a more cohesive wardrobe?” and then providing it to them. Something that’s interesting about relationships like this, as a Fundraiser who has managed similar relationships, is that a lot of times when they say “10p from every product will go towards x charity” that’s not true. We have a relationship like that with a corporate organisation and they tell us what they’re going to give us in advance based on projected sales. The money you pay doesn’t come anywhere near us. For smaller projects it might be different but that’s how we do it so we can budget and forecast. It’s possible that Meghan has actually done that but that leads me on to my last point….

The “Doesn’t Fit Into Either Category”

I have quite a few unanswered questions. I’m sure that some of these are answered and please do share links with me but I don’t know where I’m supposed to be going for the fine print, the terms and conditions. So:

I read in one article that proceeds would be going towards the charities rather than just products. Is this true? 

If it’s not true, where is the money from sales going?

Have they had an agreement like the one I mentioned above that guarantees a certain number and mix of items for the local branches and uses the 1 for 1 thing as more of a selling point?

If it is a 1 for 1 model, does that extend to colour choice and size?

Are each of the pieces being sold in a different store or is everything available in every outlet?

This isn’t Meghan’s fault, there’s no reason to think she knew about this, but it is so shady of M&S to put a pink version on that is exactly the same but doesn’t benefit the charity. After Meghan saying they put purpose before profits, that’s a dick move from them 

Overall

Meghan has clearly put a lot of heart and soul in this project and I think identified a real gap where she could have a meaningful contribution. I personally don’t think that a 1 for 1 model is the most effective way of meeting that gap and although there are plenty of positives I think the cook book was a more comprehensive project than this one 

[scottdavenportphoto]

4 Amazing Features In ON1 Photo RAW 2023

If you are trying ON1 Photo RAW, the ON1 plug-ins like ON1 Effects or ON1 HDR, or upgrading your ON1 software to a newer version, please consider using my affiliate link. There is no extra cost to you and it helps support ON1 tutorials like this one. Ready to buy? Use the offer code SDP20 at checkout and SAVE 20%!

ON1 announced ON1 Photo RAW 2023 today and WOW have they been busy! ON1 is packing a bunch of amazing new features into their next release of Photo RAW. This release truly is a major update to an already mature asset manager and photo editor. These are the 4 features I am most excited about in ON1 Photo RAW 2023.

1. Super Select AI

Super Select AI will fundamentally change the way you approach masking in ON1 Photo RAW. This AI-powered tool understands the subjects and objects in your image, making them incredibly easy to select. It is truly point and click. Click on various elements. in your scene to add elements to the mask.

Once your selection is complete, right click and make stylistic edits or tonal adjustments. All of the Effects filters and Local Adjustments are at the ready.

This is really a game-changer for masking in ON1. Selective adjustments to the subject of your photo and secondary elements is what makes your images stronger. Super Select AI will make that job a whole lot easier - and you can focus on the creative size of photography.

2. Mask AI & Adaptive Presets

ON1 Photo RAW 2023 understand the subjects and objects in your images. It detects all sorts of things, from people and animals to trees and architecture. These smarts are built into Mask AI. For example, the Effects filter popup shows you the various things ON1 has detected in the photo you are editing. When choosing a filter, you can apply it to the entire photo or limit it to specific elements in your image.

Now… take that feature further. The subjects and objects Mask AI detects can be built into presets. For example, if you are a pet photographer and have a certain look you like to apply to animals, build that look by selecting “Animals” in Mask AI and save it as a preset. When you apply that preset to a different photo with a different animal, ON1 will analyze the image, recognize the animals in the photo, and apply your look - just to the animals.

This extends to all the different things that ON1 can detect. Architecture, waterfalls, trees, and more.

3. Keyword AI

You’re detecting a theme here, right! AI is everywhere in ON1 Photo RAW 2023 and that extends to keywords. ON1 can analyze your photos and create keyword tags for the things it finds. This is a big plus for those that don’t like adding keywords to images, but want the search benefits keywords offer. The tags added by Keywords AI are searchable in ON1 Photo RAW. Keyword AI can also tag photographic properties or tonal characteristics of your images, too.

An attention to detail by ON1 is that the AI-detected keywords are kept in a separate metadata field. AI keyword detection won’t mess up your carefully curated keyword list. You can choose to add some or all of the AI keywords to the classic keyword metadata. You have all the control.

4. Tack Sharp AI

Salvage photos that are slightly blurry with Tack Sharp AI. This new feature corrects softness caused by camera shake or motion blur. The new feature is in the Develop module, side by side with ON1 NoNoise AI.

Pricing & Availability

ON1 Photo RAW 2023 will be released and available in October 2023. Pricing is as follows:

ON1 Subscribers: Free! ON1 subscribers automatically receive ON1 Photo RAW 2023 when it releases as part of their subscription. Subscribers will also get the 2023 versions of the ON1 Plugins, soon after the release of Photo RAW. Subscription plans are as low as US$7.99/month or US$89.99/year.

Upgrade Pricing: US$79.99. Owners of any previous version of any ON1 product can order Photo RAW 2023 at the upgrade price.

New Customers: US$99.99. New ON1 customers that do not want a subscription can purchase a perpetual license.

A single purchase of any ON1 product includes the Windows and macOS versions and can be used on 2 computers. For a limited time, any purchase of ON1 Photo RAW 2023 includes these bonuses:

50 Adaptive Presets for Portraits and Landscapes

A new course for Mask AI

A free 14-day trial of Photo RAW will be available to download in October once the product releases.

[superchartisland]

Knight Lore (Ultimate Play the Game, Spectrum, 1984)

Gallup Spectrum chart, Your Sinclair Issue 3, March 1986

We enter the charts of 1985 with our third Ultimate (Play the) game, and this is a big one. Bear in mind the whole history-written-by-the-victors thing, but the history they set out is quite something. Ultimate made Knight Lore, realised it was advanced enough to put their other games well in the shade, and so hung onto it for a while to give Sabre Wulf its moment in the sun. Meanwhile they also made another game in the same new style as Knight Lore, ready to be at the front of a predicted queue of the clones once it started a new trend. And they were right about it all! Within games, Ultimate’s 1984-5 era was an imperial phase on the level of 2009-10 Lady Gaga. And like her, their carefully executed plan involved starting off doing what everyone else was doing, and then moving on to a dimension beyond.

This is where my approach for this project of playing through games chronologically provides a useful perspective, because it highlights how startling an exception Knight Lore was to its contemporaries. As a child I played later games which took after it, and so even though I’m playing Knight Lore for the first time, much of what it does is not new to me. It’s only looking at it in context that it’s clear how much was new.

In short, in side-on games like Underwurlde, you could move in four directions: left, right, up and down. In top-down games like Sabre Wulf, you could move in four directions too -- let’s call them left, right, forwards and backwards, although the latter two are still up and down on screen. Knight Lore has an isometric 3D view, and you can move left, right, forwards and backwards, and up and down. A whole set of new possibilities come from that. Even before using them for new challenges, the freedom to move around in new ways, the experience of seeing the main character in different angles in 3D over its comic footstep beeps, is a new thrill.

The step up is not just that Knight Lore is in three dimensions, though, and indeed it wasn’t quite the first isometric 3D platform game (we’ll meet an earlier one soon!). It’s in how well executed it is alongside that jump. Far from its looks being compromised compared to its 2D predecessors, it looks cleaner, more solid, more real. We’ll see some other revolutions in what is possible in games in the future, but generally they come facilitated by technological advances, or as the result of big compromises. In Knight Lore’s case, it didn’t come from new technology but from working out new ways to use the same technology.

As for compromise, I suppose there is the forced decision to make every room monochrome. But that doesn’t feel like a compromise. It eliminates issues such as the ugly characteristic of many 2D Spectrum games of the colours of one object bleeding into adjacent ones. More than that, monochrome creates a stylistically distinct effect that does something for the game’s atmosphere that a bunch of different colours never could. The right limitations can be a catalyst for inspiration, as an expanding genre of modern retro games testify, sometimes in monochrome. Knight Lore’s bouncing bubbles and star-cluster curses and clanging portcullises have a different type of life to them than two dimensions could provide.

Ultimate didn’t settle for just the one big new idea, but layered an additional gimmick on top. Knight Lore’s plot is that Sabreman, having been bitten by the Sabre Wulf in Sabre Wulf, has been turned into a werewolf (or possible a sabrewulf). He’s trying to put together a cure, and in the meantime he transforms by moonlight. So there’s an onscreen diagram showing a sun or moon moving across the sky, and at the end of each brief day Sabreman gets taken out of the player’s control and goes through a painful-looking transformation process. His body goes through a series of cartoon distortions and emerges in new form. As a wolf, he can jump a little better but is subject to additional enemy attacks. Just as you were getting used to one extra dimension, you have to manage another one, time, in new ways.

There are a lot of things that are not such a departure. Knight Lore still involves a lot of precision jumping and dodging, even if it’s in 3D. It is inevitably incredibly difficult, and makes few concessions to added difficulties presented by the fact that its viewpoint means you sometimes can’t tell if an object or exit is far away or high up. If anything, it revels in the confusion at times. I am not going to stick with it until I achieve its goals, and not just because of my tight schedule. I don’t care about its plot or meeting its collection challenges. What I appreciate, though, is that it provides a sense of place, of being somewhere interesting and getting to explore it, that exceeds anything so far, even Jet Set Willy. The fact that it randomises your starting point each time you play is a nice extra bonus that not only lessens annoying repetition but gives an additional impetus to work out how all of these different places fit together. When I play it, I really want to see what each new room will be like, and to find out what other new dimensions it still has to offer.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

35 things to inspire you during your 2019 self-love sessions

May is National Masturbation Month, and we're celebrating with Feeling Yourself, a series exploring the finer points of self-pleasure.

So far, 2019 hasn't been a particularly sexy year.

When you think about, we've all had to watch a lot of straight-up nonsense go down. Green Book won the Oscar for Best Picture, Jeff Bezos' "sexts" leaked, and Sonic the Hedgehog got a full set of human teeth, for goodness sake. Gross!

A bunch of this year's pop culture moments have been genuinely disappointing, but we're not going to let that harsh our self-love vibes. From sexy fashion statements and television characters, to memes and music, 2019 has definitely given us some glorious moments worthy of recalling during the act of self-pleasure.

If you find yourself in need of some masturbation inspiration, here are 35 ~very 2019~ things to think about.

1. Chris Evans' teal velvet pants: Christopher Robert Evans had the absolute audacity to show up to an Avengers: Endgame press event in April wearing teal velvet pants. The trousers looked as though they were hand-crafted by an angelic seamstresses in the clouds and came with the equally stunning teal velvet suit jacket Evans wore to the Oscars earlier this year. We're all blessed that his stylist, Ilaria Urbinati, firmly believes you should "never let a great pair of trousers go to waste."

Chris Evans inventing pants.

Image: ALBERTO E. RODRIGUEZ/GETTY IMAGES FOR DISNEY

2. America's ass: While we're on the topic of Chris Evans' pants, let's get another inevitable Chris-related 2019 thirst trap out of the way. Feel free to think of the real star of Avengers: Endgame — America's ass — whenever you need a dose of dayummmm. 🇺🇸🍑

3. "Old Town Road": There are many subject-appropriate songs out there to get off to, but if you're looking to switch things up a bit, consider listening to the 2019 anthems, "Old Town Road" and the remix, for inspiration.

4. The possibility of eliminating student debt: This year, Elizabeth Warren announced her plans to cancel student debt and eliminate college tuition for future students, and honestly? Just the thought of having your ridiculously high student debt forgiven is *tingles* exciting. 

5. The new Staples logo: People got seriously amped when that little staple unfolded. So... strong.

SEE ALSO: 7 ridiculously large sex toys to help you go big in the bedroom

6. The Jonas Brothers reunion AND the introduction of the Jonas Sisters: One of the world's most popular boy bands — a band of literal biological brothers — reunited in 2019, and that alone is reason enough for everyone to be "Burnin' Up." But with the reunion also came the introduction of the fierce female trio, the Jonas Sisters (aka Sophie Turner, Priyanka Chopra, and Danielle Jonas). 🔥

7. The black hole: The world saw the first recorded image of a black hole in 2019, and I guess it's kind of hot, right? It is described as "supermassive," so. Hey. 

8. The possible return of Wendy's Spicy Chicken Nuggets: Can you think of a thought spicer than imagining the possible return of Wendy's Spicy Chicken Nuggets? There aren't many. 

9. The thought of the L train being functional: Governor Andrew Cuomo is confident that limiting service of the extraordinarily popular L train for a year will be in the city's best interest, but in the mean time New Yorkers are living a fresh new subway hell. Stay strong, people. And if necessary, after a long-ass day of commuting, feel free to envision a beautiful, fully functioning L train in the sack.

10. Jauz's "Baby Shark" remix: I think the Coachella track really speaks for itself doo doo doo doo doo doo.

11. KFC's hot new Colonel Sanders: KFC isn't simply in the business of making people hungry for chicken anymore. Now they're interested in making people thirst for their hot new Colonel Sanders. (It's working?)

12. The thought of sexting with a robot: Mashable Staff Writer Jess Joho sexted with a bot, and you can too. Turns out it's surprisingly hot.

13. The Night King: Listen, he wasn't very nice. He's also dead now. But in his glory days the Night King could get it.

14. The Hulk's junk: Ever wonder if the Hulk can have sex? There's a lot to unpack. Consider doing so next time you get down with yourself, because, why not?

15. David's dance on Schitt's Creek: David and Patrick's relationship is one of the best on television, and while David's dance to Tina Turner's "The Best" is sweet enough to make you ugly cry, it's also sexy as hell and impossible to watch without getting chills. (The same argument can be made for the scene where Patrick sings "The Best" to David.)

16. Literally any moment from the 2 hours and 17 minutes of Beyoncé's Homecoming: The performance is the definition of flawless and we are barely worthy of such brilliance.

17. The Burn This poster: The poster for the Broadway revival of Lanford Wilson's Burn This is haaaaawt. It features Adam Driver and Keri Russell lookin' gorg, just chillin' horizontal on a couch all dreamy and idyllic and shit. See for yourself.

18. This sand art replica of Dwayne Johnson's face: You might not initially think a video of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's head being assembled from sand is the stuff to inspire hot thoughts, which is understandable, but if you never try you'll never know, right?

19. Bowsette: The fan-created character that mashes Bowser and Princess Peach together was dismissed by Nintendo this year, but that doesn't stop people from lusting over NSFW Bowsette art online.

20. This extremely long dongle: Major BDE (Big Dongle Energy) coming from this one. Who can ignore?

This is one long dongle #io19 pic.twitter.com/OtNf1fsdDK

— Raymond Wong📱💾📼 (@raywongy) May 7, 2019

21. The moment Captain America wielded Thor's hammer: Yes, we've already gave a nod to Chris Evans/Captain America twice on this list, but how could we not acknowledge the ⚡electric⚡ moment Cap summoned Mjolnir? A real shock to the heart.

22. 500 Intel drones performing a choreographed light show set to Phish: Get jammin', folks.

23. Golf balls cut in half: These artsy halved golf balls with tantalizingly scrumptious interiors are forbidden snacks, but we can still drool.

24. Demon Beto O'Rourke: When the skateboarding, burger-loving, Beyoncé-endorsed musician Beto O'Rourke ran for Texas Senator against Ted Cruz, he was one of the most crush-worthy men on the planet. Now, O'Rourke is running for president, though, and the American people can't afford to let their thirst distract them from focusing on policy issues. Rather than thinking of Beto to get yourself all hot and bothered consider, focusing on this comedian's parody version, Demon Beto.

25. Animations of a baguette on the move: We are not suggesting you think about just any old loaf of bread while masturbating. Animated baguettes are special.

26. Villanelle and Eve: The relationship between the two Killing Eve characters may be complicated, but their chemistry is clear as day. Scenes like this are simply too intense to just watch.

27. Crocs and shaving cream: In case you haven't seen, putting large dollops of shaving cream in Crocs and then inserting feet forces the shaving cream to escape out of the signature shoe holes. It's quite the satisfying sight.

28. Basically every Met Gala outfit: The 2019 Met Gala theme was "Camp" — inspired by Susan Sontag's 1964 essay — and everyone's outfits were S T U N N I N G. Here is a list of some greats. 

29. The Rihanna birthday outfit challenge: Everyone knows Rihanna slays the Met Gala when she attends, but since the singer didn't make it this year we have to get our fix another way. Try searching "Rihanna" and your birthday on Google and see one of her iconic outfits will appear. You're welcome.

30. Balenciaga Crocs: Speaking of Crocs and the Met... I like those Balenciagas. The ones that look like Crocs. 😏

of course the balenciaga crocs are here pic.twitter.com/34ZWXYXAKD

— rachel syme (@rachsyme) May 6, 2019

31. Jake Gyllenhaal in Spider-Man Far From Home trailer: HeLLO, Mysterio. We see that beard and shaggy Jim Halpert hair, boy.

32. What if we kissed memes: A perfect meme for those who want to imagine kissing people in super bizarre places — like near a high voltage box — but are in need of inspiration.

33. The gray streak in Richard Madden's hair: 50 strands of gray = bae.

34. The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaing Donald Trump Jr. to testify over the Russia Investigation: Perhaps some people will take pleasure from imagining Trump's son testifying in hopes it will shed some light on this long, national, election hacking nightmare. IDK! 

35. Samsung's foldable phone: The wide, glossy screen folds in half for goodness sake. 

Digital hot dog bun.

Image: RAYMOND WONG / MASHABLE

Have fun, everyone!

WATCH: Gaga and Bradley set the meme-osphere and our loins ablaze this week with their Oscar's performance — All the Memes

[kaliiwashere]

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[exilesofembermark]

Game Dev Update | 6.9.17

Who is that? What’s he so sad about? What’s that on his head? Read on...

Welcome back to the Exiles Game Dev Update, wherein we cover all things happening in the world of the game and its development. 

Last time, we covered a bunch of content, gameplay experiments and visual evolutions on the Exiles UI. This Update goes across the board with a look at the way we’re setting up battle environments, a new NPC, lootz (as always) and an introduction to the fellow that will guide you through your early experiences in Embermark. 

ENVIRONMENT BREAKDOWN: VANISIR

We’ve mostly shown our classic foresty Wildewoods battle environment in the past (or the Arena), but we’ve been quietly working on many different Battle setups for different Zones and situations all the while. This time, let’s take a look at Vanisir, the southwest Zone known for arid land and DANGER (ok, fine, every Zone in Embermark is dangerous-- it’s a fantasy-post-apocalyptic landscape after all). You can see from this setup that we’re taking several 2D paintings and arranging them in UE4 to achieve our 3D-but-hand-painted look:

AMA TRANSCRIPT

We had a rousing discussion in our 2nd-of-many Ask Me Anything a few weeks ago on the Exiles Discord Channel, with subjects ranging from Abilities to Stats to World Events & Houses tackled. Besides lively banter, several Exiles won coveted items when the game launches via “rolls” in chat. 

In case you missed it and want to get all the info & shenanigans, you can find the entirety of it here for posterity (our gratitude goes out to community stalwart Drakythe for capturing the AMA and posting the transcript).

BANDITS!

A Faction exists in Embermark that doesn’t really acknowledge (or respect) any leadership other than its own-- the Raiders. If called to fight as a unit or untied Faction, they probably wouldn’t fare well, but when encountered in Quests or random encounters in Exiles, they can be deadly.

Of medium build and questionable (read: awful) morals, the bandit can be found in Wildewoods and Askala among other Zones. 

Don’t like the red bandanna? FINE...

Now, a significant constituency of the Exiles community are Rogue-friendly (yes, that is a term), and I’m not saying this Bandit here is reminiscent of what you might expect your player-Rogue to be like... OR AM I.

What I can say is that because we’re using the player models for creation of NPCs, we have the ability to appropriate their equipment for YOU. So a shout-out to you Rogue-friendlies out there-- consider this gear a bit of a preview to what kind of gear you might outfit yourself when gameday comes... 

ABILITIES UI REDESIGN

UI 2.0 is on its way as we watch people play the game and discover optimizations ourselves. One we attacked this month is the switching of Ability Sets (remember, Ability Sets in Exiles can be 4 Abilities in the basic combat we’re testing and 8 in the “Deck” version we’re also testing). Using a list view to toggle between what becomes quite a few saved Ability Sets for an advanced player becomes cumbersome, so we added in some additional options for ease of use:

Ability Set title at the top

Arrows (and swipe, of course) for switching between your saved Ability Sets

Pips below the current Ability Set to show both which one is active and how many you have

This underscores some things that we’re experiencing in play sessions 

THE ELF IN ACTION

We’ve shown the evolution of Exiles’ wood elf characters since the beginning of this project (here, here & here), so having him in the game now is really exciting for us. We’re doing a little extra fudge factor to get his arrow to do different things (stay tuned for additional VFX we’re working on), but you can see his Sharpshot Ability here:

With a sideview of same here:

And Gunslinger’s animator-extraordinaire Andrew even used the arrow as a comedy device in the elf’s death:

Found all over, but concentrated in Wildewoods, Feral Moon and Askala, these wood elves are no fans of their brethren in the southern island Zone of Queviel. Those elves made an exodus during the Collapse to get away from the destruction, leaving their wood elf cousins to fend, adapt and evolve into the wilder, more martial elves that you will encounter often. 

HELMS & TELLS & TUNICS

Each month, we increase the Exiles library of loot and show a few choice pieces to illustrate both our stylistic choices as well as our experiments in gameplay. As we turned the dwarf I showed last month into a formidable foe (and sometimes ally), his gear was adapted into player-wearable items, and we gave it the color-tell treatment (go here for explanation). We’re in the process of figuring out how far we need to go to get the effects telegraph across to players, cuz where this helmet definitely says “green” to the opponent...

...this one has a certain style...

You’ll see where we landed when closed testing begins, and I will likely address this whole system in a later update.

It also occurred to me that we’ve never shown (or even mentioned) TUNICS before, and what’s a fantasy RPG without that word (or item)? Well, it’s not going to deflect much in the way of damage, but here are three tiers of a mage tunic for your wearing pleasure:

And of course, the latest in power-fashion magery:

All of the items that I’ve shown in the last few updates are now in the game, and we’ve been upgrading and improving our backend system that pushes content into the game in real-time. I’ll be starting to post video of more extended gameplay and battles once we get more finish on the feedback systems,  but for now, take a look at another GIF of equipping, featuring the Spear, Axe, Shield and armor set show in the past 2 or 3 updates. Please note the now-working rarity icons!:

(click here for a much longer and better GIF unbound by Tumblr’s file size limits)

THE NARRATOR (& HIS MANY HIDDENS)

The backstory and Lore of Exiles has been a fun and evolving part of the project, and as the preview stories started coming together with Bound, we realized the need for creating a character who acts as the voice (check out the Pocket Gamer article on Bound’s announcement of award-winning writer Andrew Saxsma as the talespinner on Exiles). We needed bit of a narrator. So we went through a process of coming up with who/what we wanted him to be and do. We went through many iterations of look and feel and reference to get something that nailed the tone of someone who would engage in telling you these stories...

(With great respect to GRRM, who sees Jorah Mormont in the above? Which one?)

Then we started playing with the type of fellow he might be, what he would be equipped to do, to survive and to know...

Until we arrived at a backstory and personality that we’re pretty excited about, but...

...then we SHROUDED HIM IN MYSTERY.

Har. So I’ll say little else other than there are no less than 2 major signals about who and what our Narrator is in this illustration. We shall reveal those items in due time. For now, I give you:

NARRATIVE - A GLIMPSE

There are quite a few episodes of the Exiles storyline in the can now. If you’re just joining us, we’re telling some of the backstory of the game before it’s available, and once the game launches, we’ll be telling the story of YOU. By that, I mean we’ll be reporting on the storyline as players play out their adventures, using the data from the game and the choices you make to direct the ongoing narrative. 

Very soon, our friends at Bound will release early episodes of the backstory (told by our haunted friend above), so now-- have a read through of the very first mid-episode snippet from our coming Tales...

A farmhand and his wife, who had been pulling behind them the few belongings left of their home, mentioned in passing that there had been an attack against House Resolute that morning, before the sun had risen. 

They described a horror of the loudest thunder and the hottest fires that rained down from the skies over the gulley of central Siege, barraging the fortress at its heart. Mages, it was rumored, of a rival House had rallied against the hoarding House Resolute. These Mages, I learned, wanted retribution for the deprived territories and as I neared the mountain’s peak, I witnessed fires devouring the countryside and ash falling as snow from bloated dark clouds.  

Though Hurinyl withstood its aggressors, neighboring encampments were leveled and homes and farmland for miles vanished.  

More troubling was that a message of blood and destruction was delivered that morning, one which would resound for ages to follow. That message, my friend, was quite clear: Man had lost his abundance, his satisfaction. His eyes, and all they desired, had turned upon his neighbor. 

The rise of the Houses was signaled. War was coming.

What?! What was Resolute hoarding? What mages? Who’s the “bad guy?” Who had the power to engulf the whole countryside? Stay tuned, Exiles...

REMEMBER

We’ll keep sharing details as we head into testing (remember to PM TheWizard on the Exiles forums with your device type if you want in on closed testing & beta later), and you can count on early impressions from the testers throughout our various channels.

If you haven’t already, follow along with the Exiles development on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And if you haven’t, I’ll find you. And SMITE you.

THERE’S CHAT CHATTER EVERYDAY AS WE READY TO BATTLE

If you want to hear about the game, ask questions or connect with others who are helping the development team think about features, design and narrative, hop into the Discord Channel for live chat and say hi– it’s a friendly lot with plenty of daily shenanigans (there’s even a Shenaniganizer).

THE BONUS: A TURNAROUND

Lots of “Fs” in this one...

[dankmemeslmao]

https://ift.tt/3hieAPB

You may be onto something here. Memes used to be simple. Relatable. Worth a chuckle. Then they evolved. New formats, new tag lines, new content that was then turned into a new meme. Then memes became increasingly meta and self reflective. They parodied themselves and the users who both made them and consumed them. They built off of one another. They grew. They morphed into something entirely novel. This progressed to the point where even that wasn't enough. They had to become something more than themselves. They became surreal. They became deep fried and nuked. Each flavor building off of the last and transforming into a nearly intangible, unknown entity. Art progressed in a similar fashion. Started off simple, I'm talking cave drawing simple. Then some pottery and some small abstract sculptures. Subjects everyone could relate to and understand. Then, as technology allowed for the creation of cultures and societies, art began to reflect that change and it evolved along with it. By the Ancient Greeks and Romans, art had become a more advanced version of the Stone and Bronze Age arts. Better drawings, paintings, and the addition of mosaics. Sculptures eventually shifted from stylistic expression to naturalistic representation. Still accessible to everyone, yet more nuanced and complex. After the fall of Rome art stagnated and didn't change very much for nearly a millennium. Early Christian art dominated for the most part, consisting of murals and frescos and simple statues. All of which were based on the Ancient styles. Romanesque and Gothic art also built upon these precedents. This all changed when the Renaissance attacked. A cultural explosion changed the art world forever; arguably starting with the Italian artist, Giotto. He began using techniques like foreshortening and linear perspective so that the material world could be represented as it appeared to us. A callback to the naturalistic stylings of the Greeks. Almost like a reference to the days of yore. A celebration of how art used to be, but with the explosion of new techniques and technologies, the art grew increasingly diverse. New and improved frescoes, meticulously crafted sculptures, architectural marvels and the inclusion of new materials in these works. Instead of tempera, oil was introduced along with new styles of depicting light and shadow through sfumato and chiaroscuro. These techniques and stylistic changes, while impressive, were simply an advancement of pre established art. The Renaissance paved the way for the explosion and diversification of dozens of art movements that followed. From prehistoric art to the end of the Renaissance, art was mostly about the same subjects and used similar techniques to accomplish the goal of producing a work of art. Yes, the technical proficiency exponentially improved but considering the centuries in between, few true advancements were made. Compare this to memes. They were so simple at first and really were nothing more. Then they got better. More technical. More circumstantial. More media to create them with. But memes could last years or many months before dying off. As time went on, the longevity of a meme shortened. This is paralleled in the art world. After the Renaissance the Baroque period started. Then the Neo-Classicism, Romantic, Realism, and Impressionism movements not long after. Still utilizing the same technical process but the reasoning behind the movements changed. No longer was it about simply depicting the world around us, it was about prompting the viewer to consider new thoughts and ideas. Urging them to look past the image and think deeper about meaning and context. Pushing the boundaries of what art could be. The Baroque to Impressionism era spanned roughly 300 years. Compare that to the thousands of years between archaic art and the Renaissance. It was a huge explosion of self expression. Finally, in the mid to late 19th century starting with Post-Impressionism, Modern art emerged. This movement focused on self-consciousness, self-reference, introspection, existentialism, and even nihilism. I'm talking Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Abstract Expressionism, and Surrealism to name the most well known. These styles changed what art could be. They were no longer about depicting life as is, or layering a painting with hidden motifs for only the privileged to understand, they were in and of themselves absurd. Abstract shapes, aggressive lines and colors, nonsensical dreamscapes. But it didn't stop there. Post-modernism. Pushing art to the limit of its potential. Pop art, Conceptual art, Minimalism, Fluxus, Installation art, Lowbrow art, Performance art, Digital art, Earth art. These movements are about skepticism, irony, rejecting grand narratives and reason and instead embracing the idea that knowledge and truth are the result of social, historical, and political discourse and subsequently are a subjective, social construct. It's irreverent and self-referential. It's avant-garde pushed to 11. But what's next? Post-postmodernism? Metamodernism? Hypermodernity? Who knows? Only time will tell. This is where memes are headed. They started off slow but have picked up so much momentum they're evolving at an exponential pace. They used to hang around for a couple years at most. Then it turned to months. Then maybe only one month. Suddenly it was a week tops. While some particularly great memes do still stick around much like the masterpieces of art in the past, new memes are created every day, every few hours. New movements of memes are being created all the time. Anti-memes. Dank memes. Abstract memes. Wholesome memes. Surreal memes. Deep fried memes. Nuked memes. Even black hole memes, time travel, and dimensional memes are now a reality. What's going to happen next? A return to the classics? A new format so brilliant it steals all our hearts and then starts a whole new movement? I'm excited for the future of memes. Once upon a terribly dreadful time, there was a small cat-licking bird that lived on a not-so-big lane by my house whose name was Charles just like every other soul, male or female, that lived on my smelly, stinky, orange, old, rotten, messy, busted cul-de-sac between Belmont and Rose which are both Gay-ass Streets Like North street or some shit that reminds me of a celebrity like Paris Hilton or some blonde loser that doesn't even know the capital of her own country, which is the United States of America aka: The U.S.A which is a pristine nation of beauty, opposing to a country as the country of Somalia and Belgium, a part of Europe, which doesn't even have a government, it's just in a complete state of anarchy just like my mind and soul which are both filled with outrageous nonsense that I'm typing down right now into some fat long sentence that probably makes no sense but who cares I'm trying to set some sort of weird record here like most ducks snorted or some weird thing like that and if I do set some sort of record I will be in the Guinness Book of World Records (though anti-American and pro-European, a place of pitty and despair as Somalia is) which was always my dream because that book has a whole bunch a cool and weird stuff in it and I would Become famous and add to the weirdness of the book like some of their records which reminds me of the Rob & Big where Rob sets all of those skateboarding Records And Big Black eats bananas and donuts and three weeks later they both get plaques saying the record they set and I want to get one of those so that's why I'm writing all of this stuff down without ever using a period or some other sentence ending mark like an exclamation point or a question mark or any other symbol that could possibly end my streak of words that is really long now and would take me a while to count just like counting sheep which is supposed to put you to sleep but it really keeps you awake because you want to keep counting and counting until you don't know what comes after trillions, but that would take Years or something because it would take a while just to count a trillion seconds or minutes would be even worse just like how ducks are worse that geese because they are more aggressive around their young unlike great white sharks which are often eaten by their mothers when they are born and the ones who do make it out alive have no mother to teach them how to hunt or whatever because none of that matters because us human beings have mothers unless they die or run off with some CEO of a big company or someone else who makes a lot of money and then they leave you with your dad and you are jealous of your friends if you have any because they have moms and you don't because your mom was some greedy pig who wanted money but ended up only getting the money part and she bought drugs because she was depressed and ended up killing herself from an overdose and you wouldn't even know about it until you become some rich person and check the files somewhere and learn that she died of a overdose and you eyes get all teary and then you start crying because you know that you wouldn't be alive without that woman you called mom and I just found out right now that the longest sentence is like 10,000 words so I have a ways to go and you have to go with me so let's go to 6th gear and throw out some words like Emphysema which I had to do a report on in 4th grade because we had a ton of projects and this was the disease one and we chose diseases out of a hat and I came out with Emphysema which is a form of lung cancer which is 98% caused by smoking which reminds me of the way my dad describes smoking: "you get plant leaves, wrap them in paper, light it on fire and suck on it" which is normally a sentence but not today because I'm setting out on the quest for a long sentence that I'm typing up which reminds me of a story my grandpa told me about himself when he was "your age" about how they covered the letters on the type writers and they had to type so that they could memorize where the letters are on a type writer and my grandpa says he will never regret taking that class because it helped him out a lot when it came to typing and now a days he is not bad a typing at all because He is almost as fast as me because I am a pretty fast typer and writing this article isn't taking very long and expect being pretty far pretty soon at the pace I'm going right now so there are going to be some serious records getting busted when I'm finally finished writing this article on this dumb website which will probably end up huffing this article even though it is fun-packed and joyful and keeps the reader reading when they use that excuse to mom saying "just one more sentence" but that sentence is 10,000 words long and still continuing to go at a reasonable pace and it is going to shatter most of those long sentence records just like how the chargers are going to shatter the most consecutive years without a super bowl win record and I doubt that they will win one in the near future but they patriots are going to win some serious super bowls because they are the best team ever even better than the cowboys or 49ers and no one cares a bout them so go patriots and boo chargers even though I live in San Diego and Like the Padres I hate the Chargers because they are bad and the padres are bad too but I don't care because they are my favorite team and the dodgers are my least favorite along with the Yankees because the Yankees get a lot of money to spend and the padres and marlins get almost nothing and then the Yankees buy a-rod for a lot and the Rays get almost no money but are still fighting for first place this season without expensive players like Derek jeter or a-rod or johnny damon or whoever because they are an all around better team that can beat the Yankees even though the Yankees can beat the royals a lot who really suck because they suck more that the padres do and so do the mariners and Rockies even thought the Rockies went to the world series last year they lost and haven't stopped losing for a while now, either and they are last place in the nl west and that is where the padres used to be but they started hitting homeruns and winning games and are dong pretty good right now despite having little offense except for Adrian Gonzalez who is leading the NL in RBI's even though he is on the team who scores the least runs in the league but they are not last in homeruns though they are like 5 away or something but I’m not sure so screw that and let's talk about something fun like water or food or dirt or something but I think food is the best because their is a lot of things to talk about with food like you r favorite food which mine happens to be some spicy burrito form Chipotle mexican grill and it is very good just like this macaroni my mom made one time that had bread crumbs on top and it was very good like all of the food they serve on top chef which I wish I could be a judge for because they have a lot of good food on that show and it makes my mouth water whenever I watch it and that is why I watch it because the food is totally awesome and sometimes I hate the people but they end up getting eliminated like the Dance crews in France's Best Dance Crew which is a great show and you should watch it because people do good dancing like the JFrabbawockeez because they won the first season and they are very good just like supreme soul and So real crew and phresh select and super cr3w and I’m only at 1500 words right now so I have to write some serious stuff like a life biography about myself and anything I’ve ever done which includes going to big bear to ski, fishing, breathing, swimming, going, farting, eating, sleeping and a whole lot more stuff which reminds me of 4th grade again when my teacher was debating with the class whether "a lot" was one or two words and all of the kids including myself said one while the teacher said two and he was right and we were wrong but no one cared because we all had fun arguing about and I have fun arguing with my friends about football and not baseball because in baseball we all like the same team but in football I like the patriots and my friends like the chargers and the 49ers and the eagles and the saints but my team always woops their team's ass and they say that the patriots "cheat" and that's how they won even though the patriots just pwned their team and they suck and my team is good but we all agree when it comes to baseball because we all like the padres and we never really argue over anything in baseball which is my favorite sport and I play it and I am good a it and I want it to be my profession but I doubt that that will happen so my backup plan is being a cop because you get all of the benefits and you get paid after you retire which is good news and I would also like to be some government dude or something like that because they get the benefits too so it would be cool to work for the government which reminds me that my principal worked at the white house and taught the president email because he was the computer guy or something like that so h knows a whole bunch of computer crap like my dad and he is fat too so everyone makes fun of him and I think he huffs kittens too but I am not sure and about that and what the hell is up with all the n00b and kitten huffing on this gay ass website like all of the things like "the writer may have been huffing kittens" and stuff like that it really annoys the hell out of me just like other things such as when people clip their finger nails it makes that weird noise that get me all crazy and I hate it just like how me friend hates the sound of chalk on a chalkboard which I find soothing and relaxing but he gets really annoyed and psyched out and he is also very pale-skinned and so is the rest of his family so it must have been some genetic thing like twins and clones and whole bunch of other confusing science crap that I learned a long time ago in 7th grade or something which was when we watched movies in class like UHF which has weird al in it and it is very funny because weird al has to save a TV station with a whole bunch of weird shows like wheel of fish and rauls wild kingdom with a whole bunch of cool animals like flamingos and turtles and stuff like that but who cares lets get to the meaty part of this article which is the part where I write the longest word known to man which is Methionylthreonylthreonyl...isoleucine which is cut out because it has 189,819 words so wikipedia had to cut out the middle part and the longest word is the name of a protein which is the largest known to man to so big names go to big things is apparently the moral of this story ladies and gentleman the road doesn't stop here and I have to continue no matter what you say or think so I should just write some story now that has no periods so lets start with a guy named Carl who liked fish and women and he went to Clara’s house and they had a good food but that isn't enough of a story to set the record so I think I’ll just stick to writing random crap which really makes no sense at all and here is some random picture that shows a guy who has two legs and another guy who has three who is mocking the guy with two legs because he rips his flesh in disgust every night and you think about who would be dumb enough to rip their flesh instead of cut the ring off or something that doesn't involve entirely gruesome crap like that and I have another life after this one just like how cats have 9 lives I have three because I’m on my second one right now and it is great and you might think I’m a whole new person but you are thinking wrong it's just when I died I came back t life and next time I die I’ll come back to life again and then when I die I’ll be dead for sure which reminds me of Stephen king's book called pet sematary which is coo because people come back to life because there was a burial ground that bring people back to life if they are dead and that book is a great book and you should read it along with the Harry Potter series which has magic in it and it is cool too so don't shank yourself when you are cutting that meat for dinner or you might die of massive blood loss or might just need a band aid I mean that works too or you don't even need a band aid because I don't use them and I have never gotten and infection in my life so maybe I’m lucky or have an alligator immune system or something but I don't use band aids and I don't use Neosporin on my cuts so I’m some sort of miracle I guess but I’m wasting twenty minutes of my miracle life on this retard article that I just want the Guinness book of world records to see and go that is the longest thing ever and have me in their book so I’m striving towards that goal right now and I’m not stopping until I hit at least 3000 words and then I’ll do the construction thing and finish thing up tomorrow or sometime after now and I will be the author of the longest single sentence on the planet earth which will be a real accomplishment on my part so you can be real jealous right now because I am making history right in front of you and if you are still reading this I am truly impressed because this article must be getting really boring by now and maybe your not even reading this just scanning the article for periods which I’m afraid you will not find until the very end of this article which is a very, very, long way away and if you are a slow reader well sucks for you but now I have to use that construction thing and I will finish this and now I am back after a hard day at work but I’m still going now so get ready to rumble with this long thing called a sentence that is as long as Mt. Everest is tall and the Marinas Trench is deep and speaking of the ocean fish of all kinds live in the ocean such as puffer fish which are poisonous to eat if not prepared right and will make you die after and you ADMINS BETTER NOT DELETE THIS BECAUSE IT IS SOME RECORD and if you do delete it well I will have this saved and what will you do then you people who will want to delete this because you don't care about people trying to break records so don't delete this or I will boycott Uncyclopedia and will be very mad at you guys like how I am Mad at Tim for being so annoying just like Celebrities and loud people and people who don't brush their teeth which makes me think of killing myself except I wouldn't do that because I am some sort of miracle as you probably read before or not because you are tired of reading this jumble of words that are still making a grammatically correct sentence that is breaking records right now and I won't stop until you let me break some serious records like longest sentence and some other weird stuff that I might get an award for or something but I also want that Guinness record plaque that you get for setting a monster record like most consecutive noses picked with boogers in them or something completely obscure like that which is like a bunch of the articles on this website which are actually some times funny like how to solve a 1x1x1 Rubik’s cube which made me laugh pretty good and the star wars one is good too so never delete those two because they are funny unlike this article because this article is more boring than funny but who cares some retard might laugh at this bundle of crap and I think that I will put that crap tag on this article so people know that this article isn't really funny but that it is long and boring like Dances with Wolves and some other long movies that you actually fall asleep during which is hard for me to do so I tend not to nut I did when I watched Dances with Wolves because it was really boring like counting sheep to a trillion or some other large number that some little kid says he wishes he had that many dollars but he will never get that many dollars because there isn't even that many in circulation right now and if there was that would be some major inflation right there so don't think you can get that much money kid because then you would not be doing this country a favor which it desperately needs I might add so instead burn money instead of make it and lower inflation rates and do everyone a favor except for the people who are already really rich and don't care about inflation and would rather drive an escalade instead of a Prius in times like this with all of the gas prices and stuff that would drive up your bill but they don't notice because they have a lot of money and don't care therefore they should die and burn in hell with all of the lawyers and other bad people on this ball we call earth that really isn't a perfect sphere because of the mountains and valleys makes it look all jagged but from space it looks like a sphere but looks may be deceiving so don't think that the world is a sphere no matter what other people say and tell them to eat themselves when they try to convince you that the earth is really a sphere but it isn't just like how most ignorant people think that Columbus found America but he really didn't that was Leif Erickson, but Columbus really found the Bahamas thinking they were penis outside of china and he was wrong so everyone forget Columbus and remember some other sailor like Henry Hudson who tried to find the northern passage but didn't so his crew killed him but a he was a great man any way so remember him instead of Columbus or remember William Penn who created Pennsylvania or remember your grandma or someone but not Columbus so go ahead and think that the earth is flat even though it isn't and it can have for corners if you think about it so go die and fall off a cliff or something interesting like that or at least get a life that want’ to penis e a cool record like the one I'm setting right now so go to a pawnshop and buy a life or kill yourself and get a new one or something weird like that or I will force you to and if you are still reading this you are an amazing human because I forget most of the stuff I’ve written already except for the great white shark thing at the beginning of the article and I remember that I need to go see some good movies tomorrow or sometime in the near future like within a week or something but forget that I'm only at 3500 words now so lets go to 4000 penis and then maybe I’ll call it quits because this is boring and I would rather write another article that is good and long but not all one sentence like this one so let's come up with some final five hundred words or so to say before I stop writing all of the nonsense so let's brainstorm ideas like poo, ducks, lemons, flanges, more ducks and star wars which sound about like enough and I like star wars out of there so let's talk about some penis star wars stuff like Kit Fisto who has weird tentacle things on his head and Ki-Adi-Mundi who has two brains and is on the Jedi which is penis honor and privilege because it is and Kit Fisto gets killed by Palpatine in the 3rd movie like Mace Windu who is cool and I like his light saber because it is purple unlike the standard blue and green colors which I prefer green out of but most people seem to like the blue colors but who cares about them they like blue and green is better so you better not like blue or you are some lame person that will be lame for the rest of your life like some people who think that they are cool but are really posers and they live their life not knowing that they are continually mocked and made fun of all of the time behind their backs and that they are really dumb or something so go out and tell all of the posers you know to not be posers anymore and tell them that they should go jump in a lake or something insulting like that and make them run and cry and you can laugh at them and hope they don't tell their mom who will be mad at you so maybe you shouldn't even do that you should just laugh at them behind their backs while they live the poser life and I'm near 4000 words now so let me slow down now yeah I have about a hundred words left so let me write down the exact amount before I stop writing so let me finish this thing up by talking about donuts and their fried goodness and how they make you fat and stuff but they do taste good so you should eat them because they are good and they taste good even though you could get fat but no one cares so eat them and be happy and I am starting to near 4000 nhe's my frienguy is actualy a 40 year old man that eats penis for a living for the ability to never show the meerkats who's doing the write things oh and my last remark is that socialism does not work because look at Europe and Greece which is failing miserably; America always wins, there is no doubt about America's beauty, Amen and I just made it longer, and longer still as I continue to talk and talk and talk and talk throughout this, though I believe it would be referred to more as typing, so I will continue to type and type and type and type and type until I grow bored of it, and I have so I will take my leave soon, but not before I say that I somehow managed to make this already super long sentence longer, so HALLEILUIA, but we are not done yet everything I just said IS NOT RELEVANT to daily life, if you read this all you have no life, did u mention I like waffles and pancakes and people and gay marrage. What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my words. You think you can get away with saying shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your tongue. You didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo. wtf u say? don't make me verbally abuse ur ass. i will nerd, come at me autistic fag. play a real game kid. are you going to shut the fuck up kid? yea yea same. all you can do is copy cuz ur not original and probably dumb as shit. i told you i would verbally abuse ur ass. stop flaming and making deregratory [sic] remarks about me. better be careful who you pick a fight with, otherwise you get beat up kid. now stop bugging me kid. "Dank memer" fuck you ,you fucking "dank memer". i hope you choke on your food you fat fuck. i will push you down the empire state building if i have to. i've hired a hundred snipers to hunt you down and blow your fucking head clean off. if you think i have mercy, you are DEAD WRONG. i have already bought you a grave, right inside the pacific ocean. your family will be killed too, so that nobody will ever care about you ever again. nobody will know your name. i will burn all facts about you. i want you to know that you cannot run unless you leave the goddamn earth. i will shove your last shit inside your own mouth. i know you haven't reproduced yet, you gay ass virgin. why do i want to kill you? because you are a retarded fucking asshat. i hope your last breathing moments are of you masturbating, so that i can breed you with a donkey. just kidding, as that offspring would probably be smarter than you. go ahead and paste your "navy seal copypasta" all you want, that won't protect you, you little twat. spend your last day on /b/, you little shithead. how many motherfucking hours have you spent on pornhub? oh wait, i already know. if you think your safe due to your anonamousity, you are goddamn dead wrong. i know your street address, so good fucking luck hiding. you have a week left, tops. once i kill you i'll sell your steam account on the black market. you think you can store all you info on the internet. think again. i have millions of russian hackers looking at your browser history. any time you use a website the hackers will delete what you type. i have made sure everybody thinks you are a wanted fugitive by the name of "paul blart". one of my snipers see you right now. tl;dr eat fucking shit you spastic twat. Lol. I'm an ex army ranger, degree in microbiology, make six figures a year, and can bench over 250lbs multiple times. If you don't believe me, feel free to check my post history where I have to other people that wouldn't stfu about it and called me a liar. Soooo.... No? I think your projecting. I'm guessing you're young, probably fat AF, and still love with your parents. Or, just your slut of a mother because your dad was smart enough to run the fuck away. If you had a real dad in your life, you wouldn't be such a disrespectful little shit. Like I tell everyone else who tried to be an online tough guy. I'll tell you the town I live in over a PM and we can hang out sometime... Hope you aren't a guy who ever gets married, has kids, get divorced, and then have everything, including the kids you help raise taken away. When that does happen to you, since most marriages don't work out, and divorce are initiated 80℅ by the wife. When you come here looking for legal advice or needing help because the family court treats you like garbage for having a dick, I for one, will simply say, told you say. Then, probably laugh a little at you. Take care bud. I don’t give a fuck who you are or where you live. You can count on me to be there to bring your fucking life to a hellish end. I’ll put you in so much fucking pain that it’ll make Jesus being nailed to a cross in the desert look like a fucking back massage on a tropical island. I don’t give a fuck how many reps you have or how tough you are IRL, how well you can fight, or how many fucking guns you own to protect yourself. I’ll fucking show up at your house when you aren’t home. I’ll turn all the lights on in your house, leave all the water running, open your fridge door and not close it, and turn your gas stove burners on and let them waste gas. You’re going to start stressing the fuck out, your blood pressure will triple, and you’ll have a fucking heart attack. You’ll go to the hospital for a heart operation, and the last thing you’ll see when you’re being put under in the operating room is me hovering above you, dressed like a doctor. When you wake up after being operated on, wondering what ticking time bomb is in your chest waiting to go off. You’ll recover fully from your heart surgery. And when you walk out the front door of the hospital to go home I’ll run you over with my fucking car out of no where and kill you. I just want you to know how easily I could fucking destroy your pathetic excuse of a life, but how I’d rather go to a great fuckng length to make sure your last remaining days are spent in a living, breathing fucking hell. It’s too late to save yourself, but don’t bother committing suicide either… I’ll fucking resuscitate you and kill you again myself you bitch-faced phaggot. This is not a joke. My favorite niece found your video- it ruined Overwatch for her, even made her a bit depressed and ashamed for awhile for even liking it. She has early signs of depression, her mother died of heart failure when she was only 7 years old. The game? She liked it.... because so many of the characters reminded her of her mother.... who was also like a sister to me.... ....You WILL pay for this, you sanctimonious jaded smug piece of youtube shit. Yknow why? Because my older brother, the father of the girl who you hurt with your cancerous scorn, is INFINITELY more pissed at you than I am. He's an old fashioned soldier. 6.5 feet, about 300 pounds, ex-navy, doesn't go online much, doesn't have profiles, but he knows a few very good programmers he goes to sometimes when his kids run into 'trouble' online. He's the type who only knows one thing, something you millennials don't: how to get shit DONE. Not much gets under his skin really, you can call him any name under the sun, even strike him and he won't hit back (HIGH PAIN TOLERANCE)... but you fuck with his little girl and he becomes a totally different ma, a VERY dangerous and reckless man. Even if I, his own little brother, were to hurt his daughter emotionally, even on accident...he'd break me like a damn twig without a second thought quite easily too and I'm NOT a small guy. I can't tell you my bro's fighting 'technique' because it seems to be a sort of blend and I'm no pro, but I've NEVER seen anyone, even bigger guys, last more than 5 seconds against him before they were on the floor in tears, screaming for mercy, with at least one or two body parts broken and/or bleeding. After he consoled his crying daughter about a week ago, he informed me of what happened. Unlike him, I use words to express my anger, words you've see quite a bit I'm sure- since I'm about 50-60, as pissed as mWhat kind of public image are they trying to portray here!? The NERVE of that company! shakes head They really need to have a better publicist.... Ah well, there's your LTE rant of the day/week/month/year/insert time frame ehre. Enjoy ^ Heh, well, I’m once again back. This time from a long hiatus involving College life, kiwi’s and cannibalism _^ But let’s ignore that for now, shall we? Today we have MUCH more important things to discuss _^ Like a certain warranty on a certain pair of a certain headphones at a certain store that a certain someone works at a certain summer after returning from a certain college. Like most warranties, it guarantees the safety of the product for a limited time, and promises you fame, fortune, and your money back if it breaks during that time. That, however, is where this warranties similarities to the norm cease. Are you ready? waits How ‘bout now? wait wait STILL not ready? Bah, forget you, I’ll go on anyway. clears throat I shall now paraphrase the warranty to you, in all it’s arcane glory and splendor. This warranty shall not be in effect in the cases in which :1.) The product is purposefully damaged. 2.) The product is accidentally damaged. 3.) An act of God damages the product. ……….pause for effect There you have it folks. This beee-autiful warranty will NEVER be in effect. It just won’t. No matter what happens, the company issuing the warranty can just blame it on God. I can just see just such a scenario playing out in my head…….wavy thought lines scene transition indicating an imaginary sceneTed: Yes, I’m calling to cash in on my 90-day money back warranty?Customer Service Agent: snicker Oh really? polite, polite Would you please describe the damage or malfunction your purchase is experiencing?Ted: …it just stopped working.Customer Service Agent: dripping with phony concern Oh, gee, sir…but it seems that “just stopped working” falls under our “Act of God” clause, and our company cannot be held responsible for any vendettas that God may have against you.Ted:…………….you’re telling me that because God hates me, my headphones stopped working? And that you won’t give me my money back?Customer Service Agent: can’t hold it in any longer laughing until they gasp Oh…God…that gets me every time…gasp giggle That’s just great….Sir, I suggest wheeze That you go to Church…snicker And see if you can’t convince God to fix it for you….guffaw Because…you’re waaaaaaaay more likely to get him to reimburse you then us! hangs upSo, you see? I am extremely impressed by this quick thinking company. If only I, too, could think of a way to so totally, and successfully scam my customers. Oh. Wait. I do. Every day, ……darn those Customer Service Plans! How stupid does a customer have to be to think that they should pay $20 now to insure their purchase of some stupid grill? If it breaks it would probably take 10 bucks to fix it. sigh Why must K-mart compromise my honor? Ack! I spoke its name! flee Alright I'm Baaaa~ack! That's right. Back from the dead like a fiery phoenix of nonsense and ranting, I return from months and months of not posting (and to make things even more interesting i won't mention anywhere else on the site that I made a new lte post!) So, today's topic is just on the concept of writing. I go to a very math oriented college (i'm gonna be a programmer) so the people here....just....really...suck at writing. Completely! happy So for a small nominal $50* fee I shall teach you, the Hypothetical Reader, how to write grade A quality stories, guaranteed! ** (* $50 shall be payable in invisible, imaginary Official Flaming Chickens Lunar Colony's Dollars (approx $1 OFCLC is $1,337,000,000,00 in US dollars, circa 1957) ** not a guarantee) So are you ready? Let's start with a basic story even a kindergartner would write! people, but who gives a fuck about what we're doing, because this is all bullshit. In this post-Freudian age the institution of marriage, as a by-product of religiously-fuelled monogamy, has deteriorated to the point that amorphous sexual identity, as opposed to rigid religiosity, has become the primary self-defining feature of the individual.But has anything changed?Has the entrapment of woman via marriage which Blake called a "gilded cage" merely deteriorated to the "rusty prison" of the Bang Bus, representative of the anonymous male-centric sex and continued subjugation? FUNNY MEMES FUNNY VIDEO MEMES FUNNY VIDEO MEMES

https://ift.tt/3hieAPB

[qualitytacolover]

Here are the 20 Coolest Undercut Pixie Cuts I've Found

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Here are the 20 Coolest Undercut Pixie Cuts I've Found

An undercut pixie cut is a ladies haircut with the sides or back shaved and separated from the short hair. In essence, it's an edgy cut that unites and invents two bold, versatile and sporty hairstyles to satisfy fashion-savvy rocker chicks.

There's nothing left to ask for from this low-maintenance look that gives a strong, yet feminine image. Although the short length, there are many styles you can go – pony, messy coif, and even a faux hawk!

You will be able to hold extreme cool-girl vibes with the help of some and achieve styling products like waxes and clay. Plus, dyeing your cropped hair with trendy fashion colors could complete the look.

Notable personalities who carried this androgynous style safely are Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry and Scarlett Johansson. San Antonio hair stylist David Solis does some of his insane work on pixie cuts with undercut and vivid colors, and you're definitely going to die!

It's Convenient, Flashy and Modern – If you need more reasons why you should get an undercut pixie, check out these popular pics below for your inspiration:

Nice for Thick Hair

How would you look this?

I love this elegant undercut pixie haircut because it's creative – a twist on an already edgy look. This is a double undercut pixie, as there is a clipper cut undercut, and at the top is a layered undercut with a separate top section that falls over both. The whole thing is shattered with a razor, so it's extra piece and punk rock. She can wear it upside down on both sides, messy like a lingerie and wear, or hit it with a hot tool to soften the look.

Any advice for someone considering it?

If you want to try something different, this is a great fun cut to rock. Minimal product usage and fast styling time make it super fun and versatile. Keeping to the shape is a pretty standard 6-week haircut appointment.

The funny part about the cut off layer is that you can come between the cuts and have the shaved so you get the most wear as the rest of the shape gets longer.

Straight, wavy or curly ladies (or boys) can wear it for any texture with a different look. If you have a lot of hair, the razor helps to collapse the shape so that it looks lived.

I could advise against this cut on someone with an extreme amount of hair or on someone who is not sure if you have short hair with your face shape, because depending on personal expectations, it might not fit with what you imagine. But for the most part, I think if you want to wear something, you should just do it. At the end of the day it's your hair and you should rock it the way you want it.

Long pixie

How would you look this?

This cut is a combination of a long pixie undercut that first started with clippers – with a number two guard and worked me down to a zero for your fade. In order to give the angled gaze for the upper part, I pulled everything back so that the pieces around your face gradually got longer. Cut the back directly above your occipital bone gives a nice shape (side profile) and volume. I overlaid the top and added a bunch of texture, so when styled, it does not fall flat.

The undercut pixie haircut with the Platinum blonde highlights adds another layer of wow, especially when you're trying to go an updated and easier way to switch from full color to highlights to blend in the gray. I cut out parts of your hair to get the maximum amount of blonde I could get to mix your gray, but still room for your natural color at the roots, so the grows out look intentionally (shadow rooted) ,

This look is so liberating, as most people do not have the guts to cut off half their hair. I love that this look has given my friend so much faith. My favorite part is that it turns heads! Not only does it make fun as a stylist to create that look, but I like to hear how many compliments she gets.

Any advice for someone considering it?

My client and friend is a mother of three, but can rock this edgy, modern look. Because you only have half a head of hair to deal with, having a busy lifestyle is a simple hairstyle! All you have to do is use a toning shampoo to hold the blonde, throw some uplifting foam and blow dry for volume. You can use a small round brush to lift the maximum amount of lift and my favorite thing to do is to piece with a light paste of aquage and define the strands of hair.

This finishing touch makes a big difference in the look! I would recommend this haircut to anyone because it is really customizable for you. Although my client has an oval face, someone with a round face can peel it off by leaving the edge a little longer to balance the look. You can leave your hair undyed, but the blonde really adds texture to my customer's naturally textured hair. From curly hair, straight, fine to thick, if you want to be released, I would suggest asking your stylist for this long / pixie undercut!

Cool undercut with design

How would you look this?

Undercuts can be a versatile look. It may be for those who want to reflect on their inner personality and for those who are looking to just control underlying styling issues such as cowlicks that were limiting a previous style.

My favorite part about undercuts is that every undercut is unique! It can stand out for the customer who wants to "whisper, talk or scream" for about 2 weeks before it comes out. You can not see the design, so you can change it faster than a person who only wants to dust every 6-12 weeks.

Any advice for someone considering it?

Although an undercut is pretty cool, consider the stylist who has the art of cutting it! Remember to have the ability to pay for that particular cut, because not everyone can draw! Do your research and make sure you have the budget for it. Also, if you have longer hair (past the shoulder length, etc.), consider consulting with your stylist!

Some people are totally married to their length and for whatever reason just want a drastic change just for a moment! This is a red flag for many US stylists! In most cases, consultations are free, and the discussion can be dismissed over your experience with the crowd, product choice to achieve the style, whether the cut will fit your entire profile, and to what you had in mind with many and many pictures to refer! Remember, it will take one and a half to three years for you to grow up again, which you have lost in length!

Upkeep is sometimes a problem as an undercut design is a high maintenance cut and a high dollar! Can you afford to keep your design on hand with the right products every 2-3 weeks? Or do you mind extending it to 5 weeks like a man's haircut and just touching it? Either way, you know your hair is going to grow again someday, and to keep the "cool" in it, you have to take care of it!

Undercut with rear view

How would you look this?

This look is an undercut with scissors over the crest on the sides and back, highly absorbed. The top is quite heavy, but with texture added in the ends as well as with the color. It was then vorgeleuchtet.

I love this look because it is very flexible, how it can be styled. There are far more variable styles than people might think. Here I added a few soft curves with a wand and lifted the front into a quiff. It can also be flatter and straighter for a sleek chic finish or messed up for a ruffled look.

We also play around with different toners, because on the preloaded hair, the overall picture can be changed with a different tone. We have used silver, blue, pink and peaches.

Any advice for someone considering it?

Be brave and go for it! This customer gets as many compliments on your hair as it is a statement and reflects your personality. She finds it easy to style with a small amount of products, maybe a styling paste or powder and a good shampoo and conditioner to keep the tone.

Super short undercut Pixie

How would you look this?

It's a feminine version of the trendy crop haircut with more length around the crown to build a mass that would create a bit more roundness, rather than keeping you too straight, as you would with a man. I also have a lot of texture on top, so you would be able to style in different ways. It's important to educate your customers how to style their hair. Never assume that you already know it.

What I love most about it is how it pulls you off. Not every woman would dare to rock a skin with super short bangs and yet women with soft and soft features seem to be the best candidates!

Any advice for someone considering it?

Consider the direction of your hair growth. Take care, as the pony are styled forward and not to the side. It is a very low maintenance that you have to update every 3/4 weeks.

As for products, I like to use a matte paste on wet hair, then dry it with a hair dryer and do it a bit with your fingers. This creates texture and a natural finish with just enough hold. My favorite is poker paste from L 'Oréal Professional.

Ideal for a round face

How would you look this?

The cut is buzzing and pales throughout the area under the crown with one side with longer protection on the side of the crown buzzing. The "shorter" side is completely exposed. The other side has a cheek length fringe that is blended into the shorter hair at the back of the head. The cut is sculpted with a shaved, hard part that shares the faded, exposed side and the longer edge.

Despite the fact that one side is constantly exposed, my favorite thing about this cut is versatility. When the fringe is about cheek-length, it can be worn and worn over the face, in a touch of the face and / or behind the ear or pushed back. Each style may reflect a different look and a different kind of edge or softness. Another advantage when it comes to this cut is that it can work with any hair color from natural tones to bright colors. If you feel comfortable with the faded side showing the natural color, the fringe can be colored a funnier color.

Any advice for someone considering it?

I would say that styling products are important to wear this haircut. My personal preference is a frizz control serum directly after washing and conditioning the hair. When it comes to styling it, be it the downtrend or quiff, I choose a hair wax to end the style and hairspray.

The versatility of this cut makes it a pleasure to style. It offers many styling options. I would base the style on a face shape and personal needs. Styling this cut takes a lot of time and effort. I would not call it a low-maintenance pixie. Styling and care require frequent trims. It's a learning curve when it comes to playing with it and adapting to it, but it's definitely worth the work!

In my personal experience, I find this cut to match thick hair, as most of the hair is cut off. For this cut, thin hair might look a little tight. With thick hair, the fringe still looks full and structured. However, it would work on both curly and straight hair.

I believe that you can pull off any haircut with any face shape if you have the confidence to work it! So if you have a long face, you prefer to keep some length on the sides to balance the look.

It is true that this cut is not for the faint of heart. You definitely have to be emotionally prepared to wear this look. It can help boost your confidence. Despite how short it is, it's not a wash-and-go haircut. The wearer would need to be able to allocate time to style it for the day.

Overall, if you are thinking of getting this cut, it can be scary, but I would recommend the jump. It gets more attention and compliments than you would think and can be very flattering.

Pixie cut with pony

Go Hack All With This Short! Curl it up while it avant-garde with a pixie cut with fringes and undercut to hold.

Trendy Gray Colored Pixie

If you have hair so cool, you do not need a statement because that says it all! The cool-toned ashy color works surprisingly for many skin tones, ideal for trying out an edgy style.

Texture cut for thin hair

Work around these castles and create layers and layers for texture. Mix in some color options for depth and extra attitude.

Blonde Pixie Submissing Fade

How would you look this?

The look is considered an unmistakable undercut. What makes this particular undercut is the fading of the skin. I love showing clients that skin is not just faded for men. Fades can be used to express strong and confident femininity from the person wearing the cut, especially when the bland is coupled with a dramatic style.

Any advice for someone considering it?

Fades These close are usually not in a salon but in a hair salon. Creating clean sections, the right hand position for height and distribution, and adding texture to personalize the top of the cut with scissors are as important as knowing how to fade. My advice to anyone looking to replicate this cut would be to see a barber who is a salon / stylist background.

Remember, there is no hairstyle for men or women. A haircut is defined by the person who wears it. Stay strong!

Undercut Pixie Haircut With Cute Pony

How would you look this?

This is a bare faded pixie cut, which is very textured and broken in the upper hair, but very soft in the faded sides and neck. It will grow nicely because there are no hard cuts. The color is a rose gold tone on the highlighted upper hair.

Any advice for someone considering it?

If you are looking for a bold but soft look for a short hairstyle, avoid hard lines and bend the weight line in the fade. As for styling products, I would use clay for a dry, structured, lived look.

Shaved pages

Reduce the excitement of styling by changing your hair style! Ideal for easy maintenance and also gives a new look.

Pixie with long pony

Layers combed above the face make long bangs. Pixie cuts usually use pony to create a wonderful balance of lengths.

Platinum pixie

Enrich your already flawless facial features with a stylish undercut pixie with side bangs.

Underbid Asymmetric Pixie

With this kind of short pixie cut with lines, I say, go big or go home, am I right?

Underbid Edgy Pixie

A short hairstyle often spells confidence. With an undercut and a wild hair color, it definitely emanates a certain amount of extra and glam in one.

Curly Pixie Underbid

The waves and curls add to the texture of the entire pixie cut undercut and complement length, layers and color.

Perfect Thin Hair Pixie

The petite girl's guide to looking like a doll: beautiful pony, purple hair and a super short pixie haircut!

Undercut Pixie Bob

I'm sure every hair length would be beautiful for you right now. But there is something about a short pixie bob with an undercut that will surely pull out your wild side.

Underbid Asymmetric Pixie

A cut as short as a pixie could really liven up your face and reveal your sharp features. The undercut is the statement about that cut, which tends to make the disproportionate appearance an asset.

[easynaturalhairstyle]

Here are the 20 Coolest Undercut Pixie Cuts I've Found

An undercut pixie cut is a ladies haircut with the sides or back shaved and separated from the short hair. In essence, it's an edgy cut that unites and invents two bold, versatile and sporty hairstyles to satisfy fashion-savvy rocker chicks.

There's nothing left to ask for from this low-maintenance look that gives a strong, yet feminine image. Although the short length, there are many styles you can go – pony, messy coif, and even a faux hawk!

You will be able to hold extreme cool-girl vibes with the help of some and achieve styling products like waxes and clay. Plus, dyeing your cropped hair with trendy fashion colors could complete the look.

Notable personalities who carried this androgynous style safely are Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry and Scarlett Johansson. San Antonio hair stylist David Solis does some of his insane work on pixie cuts with undercut and vivid colors, and you're definitely going to die!

It's Convenient, Flashy and Modern – If you need more reasons why you should get an undercut pixie, check out these popular pics below for your inspiration:

Nice for Thick Hair

How would you look this?

I love this elegant undercut pixie haircut because it's creative – a twist on an already edgy look. This is a double undercut pixie, as there is a clipper cut undercut, and at the top is a layered undercut with a separate top section that falls over both. The whole thing is shattered with a razor, so it's extra piece and punk rock. She can wear it upside down on both sides, messy like a lingerie and wear, or hit it with a hot tool to soften the look.

Any advice for someone considering it?

If you want to try something different, this is a great fun cut to rock. Minimal product usage and fast styling time make it super fun and versatile. Keeping to the shape is a pretty standard 6-week haircut appointment.

The funny part about the cut off layer is that you can come between the cuts and have the shaved so you get the most wear as the rest of the shape gets longer.

Straight, wavy or curly ladies (or boys) can wear it for any texture with a different look. If you have a lot of hair, the razor helps to collapse the shape so that it looks lived.

I could advise against this cut on someone with an extreme amount of hair or on someone who is not sure if you have short hair with your face shape, because depending on personal expectations, it might not fit with what you imagine. But for the most part, I think if you want to wear something, you should just do it. At the end of the day it's your hair and you should rock it the way you want it.

Long pixie

How would you look this?

This cut is a combination of a long pixie undercut that first started with clippers – with a number two guard and worked me down to a zero for your fade. In order to give the angled gaze for the upper part, I pulled everything back so that the pieces around your face gradually got longer. Cut the back directly above your occipital bone gives a nice shape (side profile) and volume. I overlaid the top and added a bunch of texture, so when styled, it does not fall flat.

The undercut pixie haircut with the Platinum blonde highlights adds another layer of wow, especially when you're trying to go an updated and easier way to switch from full color to highlights to blend in the gray. I cut out parts of your hair to get the maximum amount of blonde I could get to mix your gray, but still room for your natural color at the roots, so the grows out look intentionally (shadow rooted) ,

This look is so liberating, as most people do not have the guts to cut off half their hair. I love that this look has given my friend so much faith. My favorite part is that it turns heads! Not only does it make fun as a stylist to create that look, but I like to hear how many compliments she gets.

Any advice for someone considering it?

My client and friend is a mother of three, but can rock this edgy, modern look. Because you only have half a head of hair to deal with, having a busy lifestyle is a simple hairstyle! All you have to do is use a toning shampoo to hold the blonde, throw some uplifting foam and blow dry for volume. You can use a small round brush to lift the maximum amount of lift and my favorite thing to do is to piece with a light paste of aquage and define the strands of hair.

This finishing touch makes a big difference in the look! I would recommend this haircut to anyone because it is really customizable for you. Although my client has an oval face, someone with a round face can peel it off by leaving the edge a little longer to balance the look. You can leave your hair undyed, but the blonde really adds texture to my customer's naturally textured hair. From curly hair, straight, fine to thick, if you want to be released, I would suggest asking your stylist for this long / pixie undercut!

Cool undercut with design

How would you look this?

Undercuts can be a versatile look. It may be for those who want to reflect on their inner personality and for those who are looking to just control underlying styling issues such as cowlicks that were limiting a previous style.

My favorite part about undercuts is that every undercut is unique! It can stand out for the customer who wants to "whisper, talk or scream" for about 2 weeks before it comes out. You can not see the design, so you can change it faster than a person who only wants to dust every 6-12 weeks.

Any advice for someone considering it?

Although an undercut is pretty cool, consider the stylist who has the art of cutting it! Remember to have the ability to pay for that particular cut, because not everyone can draw! Do your research and make sure you have the budget for it. Also, if you have longer hair (past the shoulder length, etc.), consider consulting with your stylist!

Some people are totally married to their length and for whatever reason just want a drastic change just for a moment! This is a red flag for many US stylists! In most cases, consultations are free, and the discussion can be dismissed over your experience with the crowd, product choice to achieve the style, whether the cut will fit your entire profile, and to what you had in mind with many and many pictures to refer! Remember, it will take one and a half to three years for you to grow up again, which you have lost in length!

Upkeep is sometimes a problem as an undercut design is a high maintenance cut and a high dollar! Can you afford to keep your design on hand with the right products every 2-3 weeks? Or do you mind extending it to 5 weeks like a man's haircut and just touching it? Either way, you know your hair is going to grow again someday, and to keep the "cool" in it, you have to take care of it!

Undercut with rear view

How would you look this?

This look is an undercut with scissors over the crest on the sides and back, highly absorbed. The top is quite heavy, but with texture added in the ends as well as with the color. It was then vorgeleuchtet.

I love this look because it is very flexible, how it can be styled. There are far more variable styles than people might think. Here I added a few soft curves with a wand and lifted the front into a quiff. It can also be flatter and straighter for a sleek chic finish or messed up for a ruffled look.

We also play around with different toners, because on the preloaded hair, the overall picture can be changed with a different tone. We have used silver, blue, pink and peaches.

Any advice for someone considering it?

Be brave and go for it! This customer gets as many compliments on your hair as it is a statement and reflects your personality. She finds it easy to style with a small amount of products, maybe a styling paste or powder and a good shampoo and conditioner to keep the tone.

Super short undercut Pixie

How would you look this?

It's a feminine version of the trendy crop haircut with more length around the crown to build a mass that would create a bit more roundness, rather than keeping you too straight, as you would with a man. I also have a lot of texture on top, so you would be able to style in different ways. It's important to educate your customers how to style their hair. Never assume that you already know it.

What I love most about it is how it pulls you off. Not every woman would dare to rock a skin with super short bangs and yet women with soft and soft features seem to be the best candidates!

Any advice for someone considering it?

Consider the direction of your hair growth. Take care, as the pony are styled forward and not to the side. It is a very low maintenance that you have to update every 3/4 weeks.

As for products, I like to use a matte paste on wet hair, then dry it with a hair dryer and do it a bit with your fingers. This creates texture and a natural finish with just enough hold. My favorite is poker paste from L 'Oréal Professional.

Ideal for a round face

How would you look this?

The cut is buzzing and pales throughout the area under the crown with one side with longer protection on the side of the crown buzzing. The "shorter" side is completely exposed. The other side has a cheek length fringe that is blended into the shorter hair at the back of the head. The cut is sculpted with a shaved, hard part that shares the faded, exposed side and the longer edge.

Despite the fact that one side is constantly exposed, my favorite thing about this cut is versatility. When the fringe is about cheek-length, it can be worn and worn over the face, in a touch of the face and / or behind the ear or pushed back. Each style may reflect a different look and a different kind of edge or softness. Another advantage when it comes to this cut is that it can work with any hair color from natural tones to bright colors. If you feel comfortable with the faded side showing the natural color, the fringe can be colored a funnier color.

Any advice for someone considering it?

I would say that styling products are important to wear this haircut. My personal preference is a frizz control serum directly after washing and conditioning the hair. When it comes to styling it, be it the downtrend or quiff, I choose a hair wax to end the style and hairspray.

The versatility of this cut makes it a pleasure to style. It offers many styling options. I would base the style on a face shape and personal needs. Styling this cut takes a lot of time and effort. I would not call it a low-maintenance pixie. Styling and care require frequent trims. It's a learning curve when it comes to playing with it and adapting to it, but it's definitely worth the work!

In my personal experience, I find this cut to match thick hair, as most of the hair is cut off. For this cut, thin hair might look a little tight. With thick hair, the fringe still looks full and structured. However, it would work on both curly and straight hair.

I believe that you can pull off any haircut with any face shape if you have the confidence to work it! So if you have a long face, you prefer to keep some length on the sides to balance the look.

It is true that this cut is not for the faint of heart. You definitely have to be emotionally prepared to wear this look. It can help boost your confidence. Despite how short it is, it's not a wash-and-go haircut. The wearer would need to be able to allocate time to style it for the day.

Overall, if you are thinking of getting this cut, it can be scary, but I would recommend the jump. It gets more attention and compliments than you would think and can be very flattering.

Pixie cut with pony

Go Hack All With This Short! Curl it up while it avant-garde with a pixie cut with fringes and undercut to hold.

Trendy Gray Colored Pixie

If you have hair so cool, you do not need a statement because that says it all! The cool-toned ashy color works surprisingly for many skin tones, ideal for trying out an edgy style.

Texture cut for thin hair

Work around these castles and create layers and layers for texture. Mix in some color options for depth and extra attitude.

Blonde Pixie Submissing Fade

How would you look this?

The look is considered an unmistakable undercut. What makes this particular undercut is the fading of the skin. I love showing clients that skin is not just faded for men. Fades can be used to express strong and confident femininity from the person wearing the cut, especially when the bland is coupled with a dramatic style.

Any advice for someone considering it?

Fades These close are usually not in a salon but in a hair salon. Creating clean sections, the right hand position for height and distribution, and adding texture to personalize the top of the cut with scissors are as important as knowing how to fade. My advice to anyone looking to replicate this cut would be to see a barber who is a salon / stylist background.

Remember, there is no hairstyle for men or women. A haircut is defined by the person who wears it. Stay strong!

Undercut Pixie Haircut With Cute Pony

How would you look this?

This is a bare faded pixie cut, which is very textured and broken in the upper hair, but very soft in the faded sides and neck. It will grow nicely because there are no hard cuts. The color is a rose gold tone on the highlighted upper hair.

Any advice for someone considering it?

If you are looking for a bold but soft look for a short hairstyle, avoid hard lines and bend the weight line in the fade. As for styling products, I would use clay for a dry, structured, lived look.

Shaved pages

Reduce the excitement of styling by changing your hair style! Ideal for easy maintenance and also gives a new look.

Pixie with long pony

Layers combed above the face make long bangs. Pixie cuts usually use pony to create a wonderful balance of lengths.

Platinum pixie

Enrich your already flawless facial features with a stylish undercut pixie with side bangs.

Underbid Asymmetric Pixie

With this kind of short pixie cut with lines, I say, go big or go home, am I right?

Underbid Edgy Pixie

A short hairstyle often spells confidence. With an undercut and a wild hair color, it definitely emanates a certain amount of extra and glam in one.

Curly Pixie Underbid

The waves and curls add to the texture of the entire pixie cut undercut and complement length, layers and color.

Perfect Thin Hair Pixie

The petite girl's guide to looking like a doll: beautiful pony, purple hair and a super short pixie haircut!

Undercut Pixie Bob

I'm sure every hair length would be beautiful for you right now. But there is something about a short pixie bob with an undercut that will surely pull out your wild side.

Underbid Asymmetric Pixie

A cut as short as a pixie could really liven up your face and reveal your sharp features. The undercut is the statement about that cut, which tends to make the disproportionate appearance an asset.

Here are the 20 Coolest Undercut Pixie Cuts I've Found

[connorrenwick]

Friday Five with James Pearse Connelly

For this week’s Friday Five, we’re tapping a design genre we’ve never featured before: Production Design. Not just any production design though – television production design, and more specifically Emmy-winning James Pearse Connelly, the production designer and visionary behind JPConnelly. Maybe you’re not familiar with his name but you’re most likely very familiar with his work as he’s designed the sets for shows like The Voice, Bill Nye Saves the World, MTV Video Music Awards, Top Chef, The Biggest Loser, Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner, and many more. His work has earned him eight Primetime Emmy Award nominations and one win for his ability to tell visual stories on sets with his unique aesthetic and diverse background in theater, media, and design. Now, let’s see what keeps this creative inspired.

WRDSMTH \\\ Photo by Steffi Victorioso courtesy of Los Angeles Magazine

1. Los Angeles – Melrose and Fairfax LA is a city with many faces and I’m always finding new nooks and crannies to explore. That said, there’s a certain stretch that never fails to inspire. I moved to LA in 2002 and lived on Fairfax and Melrose until 2016. It’s while living here that Los Angeles truly became home. I’m in Beverly Hills now but I find myself returning to this area again and again to browse the store window displays, see what local artists are featured, and to partake in the stellar people watching. On the west side of the street, high-end boutiques feature stunning tableaus to display merchandise. Each window is a mini set design full of color and texture. The artistry behind these displays challenges me to constantly re-define and re-articulate what luxury looks like and how to make an impact through the careful curation of details. The east side caters to a more youthful, edgier crowd. I like to see what’s happening there to get a sense of what the kids are into these days. I like the drastic difference in colors and textures one finds between west side and east side. And the fashion that parades down this street is everything! Hipsters from all over Southern California flock to this area and they do not disappoint. Above all, I’m inspired by the constant updated curation of street art on display (some of the best in Los Angeles in my opinion). Petty Cash Taqueria used to have an authentic Retna mural. When you walk down Melrose, you’ll see the brilliant works of Wrdsmth, Alec Monopoly, and Collette Miller. These artists are the new Shepard Fairey, Retna and Risk Rock and they give LA a colorful and artful identity.

Photo source

2. Instagram I’m sure this is the case for many creative types, but let’s be honest about how much art, design and creativity is literally at your fingertips because of a visual platform like Instagram. Following other designers is an obsession. Just to name a few of my current faves – I’m a fan girl of Brian Patrick Flynn, Bureau Betak and Tom Borgas. The ability to share current projects as well as works in progress has changed my process. Inspiration can come from so many diverse sources. I can fall down an Instagram rabbit hole and literally discover 20 new people to follow in 15 minutes. Without fail, I find wonderful, strange and original material to look at. And it’s not just pretty pictures. That’s actually the best part: Through Instastories I get to hear these amazing designers talk about their process and their inspirations (and sometimes their frustrations and challenges), all in their own words. This pushes all kinds of buttons in my brain. When I watch Brian Patrick Flynn describe his work, I’m inspired to tell a clearer story about my own work. I’m a very visual person but there’s an intimate connection between visualization and being able to describe the world you’re trying to create. If I’m having trouble articulating, it often means that I need to get clearer about what I’m trying to do. It makes my work that much stronger if I can succinctly tell my audience what it is I’m going for. It’s a great right brain/left brain stimulator for me. Please feel free to let me know how I’m doing with this #doesjamesmakesense @jpconnelly

Photo by Bing Putney

3. Musical instruments/Music studios I know this may sound odd, but by virtue of my chosen genre (reality, competition, variety) I end up thinking about the world that singers, dancers and musicians inhabit all the time. Sometimes it seems like I’ve designed or styled looks on every music show on television! (well, except American Idol.) If you work in variety and reality for as long as I have, you’re inevitably going to design shows that focus on groups of extremely talented coaches, singers, dancers and musicians. Whether it’s for The Voice or The Four or World of Dance, I’m constantly thinking about how to keep this world interesting and fresh. I want each show to have its own musical feel and identity. I want to inspire the audience at home and give them a glimpse of these artists’ process and environments as well as inspire the artists themselves when they’re in the spaces I design. How can you make a bunch of road cases or speakers or a recording studio look stylish and sexy? These are the kinds of things that keep me up at night. I take a lot of inspiration from musical instruments themselves. The honey veneer of an acoustic guitar is beautiful. The brass of a trumpet or sax, the gloss black lacquer and stark ivory of a baby grand piano paired with a worn black leather chesterfield along with the sparkly finish of a snare drum can bring a room to life. I also love the sculptural shapes of audio waves and the architecture of modern concert halls.

Photo courtesy of Ubisoft

4. Video Games The video game industry is on fire right now and for good reason! The artistry is painstaking, bold, colorful, and encompassing. Since I primarily come from the world of set design, this is an exciting new frontier of creativity. With the technologies and artistry available today, environments feel totally immersive. There’s no limit to the stylistic approach a designer can take in these virtual worlds. I take a lot of inspiration from the conceptual art coming out of that industry as well as through conversing with the artists and craftspeople that work in this field. TV audiences may interact with a show for, maybe, 1 hour a week. Devotees of video games, on the other hand, will immerse themselves in that world for hours every single day. That said, I feel like our worlds have many tools in common. Just recently my partner bought a Play Station 4 and it was like I was 18 again: up till 2 am playing games and eating delivery pizza. It was great to lose myself to another “space”. Let’s be clear: I love to play but I’m a TERRIBLE player. It may be because I’m too busy studying the graphics or the way a palm tree has been shaded or the curve of a portico.The worlds are just so detailed and colorful. Some of my go-to games at the moment are: Star Wars Battlefront 2, FarCry 5 and Hearthstone.

Photo by Lucas Allen via Domino

5. Art Books Give them all to me. ALL OF THEM. I love poring through any kind of coffee table art book when I’m researching a project. Some of the books I’ve been delving into recently cover everything from the history of honky tonk in the American south, to the world of magicians, to modern day architecture in the Middle East. I know that you can Google or Pinterest anything within an inch of its life but there’s something tactile and wonderful about holding a 20-pound art book in your lap and really looking at the photos or the fashion or the art. It’s a different level of engagement because you’re learning about the history and context of movements or trends or about a specific iconic artist or architect. I find that spending time with these “dinosaurs” of the visual age actually forces me to slow down and look at images more carefully and thoughtfully.

via http://design-milk.com/

from WordPress https://connorrenwickblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/friday-five-with-james-pearse-connelly/

[robertkstone]

Studio X: The Story of Bill Mitchell’s Secret Styling Studio at General Motors

It was a cold November morning in 1957 when William L. “Bill” Mitchell, heir apparent to General Motors’ industry-dominating design team, strode unexpectedly and atypically alone into the automaker’s basement Research B styling studio. Just back from the Turin, Italy, motor show, Mitchell was thinking how great a second-generation Corvette could look if it borrowed some themes he had seen on the streamlined Italian sports cars at the show.

But Mitchell faced a seemingly impenetrable barrier: On June 6 of that year, the all-powerful Automobile Manufacturers Association (AMA) had forbidden American automakers from participating in any performance or motorsports activities—which included the building, selling, or advertising of performance-oriented products.

This ban was a delayed response to the horrific crash at the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans, which had killed 77 people and injured as many more. The strong-willed Mitchell—a brilliant designer and racing and performance enthusiast soon to replace the legendary Harley Earl as GM’s styling chief—was told the AMA prohibition meant Chevrolet’s still-struggling Corvette would be removed from the lineup. In response, he reportedly said: “Bullshit! I’m not going to let that happen.”

So he decided to do what most anyone in his position (and possessing huge anti-establishment cojones) would do: set up a clandestine studio hidden from the prying eyes of GM executives, accountants, divisional managers, and anyone else not directly involved—even other designers and studio chiefs.

The result: Some of GM’s greatest cars and concepts—including the spectacular ’59 Stingray Racer, which previewed that next-gen Corvette, hot Monza GT and SS concepts, swoopy Astro I, Astro II, and aircraft-look Astro III idea cars, two Mako Shark concepts, and a Mini-Camaro small-car project—would be created in secret over the next decade.

Check out 11 notable designs from Studio X right here

But those cars were still to come. In 1957, significant world events were afoot. The baby boom was in full swing, the average income was $4,550, the average new house cost $12,220, the average rocket-finned car sold for $2,749, and a gallon of gas was 24 cents. Dick Clark’s American Bandstand teen-dance TV show made its debut, and Elvis’ “Jailhouse Rock” was such a hit that he bought a Memphis mansion and called it Graceland.

With America in confident ascent, Mitchell believed that the racing ban wouldn’t last very long. He wanted a new Corvette design ready. And he needed some trustworthy designers who wouldn’t attract much attention to do it. Knowing that it would take some time to set up and equip the secret studio he had in mind, he decided to kick off this special project in his basement Research B studio, where few if any other designers or executives would notice.

Research B

Research B was leanly staffed, with only three or four young stylists present when Mitchell walked in that chilly morning. Peter Brock (the same person who would years later design Carroll Shelby’s Le Mans–winning Cobra GT) recalled what happened: “He sat down and told us what he wanted to do. And we were looking at each other thinking, ‘Is this for real? He wants to give us the Corvette program?’

“He pulled out a bunch of pictures from Turin and laid them out, and they all had a crisp line around the belt separating upper from lower and aerodynamic shapes over the wheels. And the one that really got to him even though it was two years old by then was the Alfa Romeo Disco Volante. Alfa had done roadster and coupe versions, and Mitchell wanted to do the first Corvette coupe. He said, ‘OK, guys, give me your best. Put it up on the walls. I’ll be back in a few days to check it out.’”

Brock’s theme ultimately won that competition, and with Mitchell stopping by and coaching every few days, his youthful team (also including Gene Garfinkle, Chuck Pohlman, and Norm Neumann, under studio head Bob Veryzer) took it from sketches to a one-fifth-scale model and then to a full-size clay model.

But as the AMA ban lingered, Mitchell decided to evolve that radical concept design into a prototype racer that he would own and campaign himself out of his own pocket, a bold move to test it publicly with no clear connection to Chevrolet or General Motors.

He told the designers to lose the model’s roof and make it a roadster. With designers and modelers working at breakneck speed, the concept was moved, in the dark of night during the 1957 Christmas break, to a secret studio Mitchell had quickly built behind a tool room called the Hammer Room.

“He put in a false wall,” Brock said. “And only he and the guys working there were allowed to go into that secret studio in back. Walking down the hall, looking into the Hammer Room, it looked like a regular tool room.”

The File Room

It was there where this striking model (now designated XP-87) was further developed by ace designer Larry Shinoda and “board man” Tony Lapine into the jaw-dropping 1959 Stingray Racer. And shortly after Mitchell replaced Earl as GM Styling vice president in December 1958, he called staff assistant Ken Pickering into his office and asked him to find a more suitable space to do special projects in ultra secrecy. Pickering walked the entire studio building, but he found no available space. Then, looking at a blueprint, Pickering found a vacant basement room across from the administration building elevator. It had been Earl’s personal file room.

“It was a small room with just one door, but with modifications it could become a working studio,” Pickering said. “[Mitchell] loved the location, as he could have close and direct access from his office—just a short walk to the elevator and down three floors—so he directed me to make it into a studio. We removed walls and replaced them with movable panels, upgraded the lighting, and moved in a modeling platform and other studio equipment, and Mitchell had his secret Studio X.”

A windowless space, it could barely accommodate a small design team and the model they were working on. “By my recollection, the studio was approximately 40 by 15 feet with room for one platform for a car and two drawing tables, a small table for the coffee pot and an even smaller table for the telephone,” said designer Roy Lonberger, who headed Studio X from 1965 to 1968 and years later authored the definitive book, Maestro: Bill Mitchell and the Iconic Cars of GM Styling.

“Adjacent to the platform … was the drafting wall, where the full-size lofting drawing was created and sometimes used to pin sketches,” Lonberger said. “The opposite wall, also a sketch-display wall, consisted of folding doors that had to be opened whenever a model was removed. The ceiling was low, maybe 7 or 8 feet. Nothing glamorous, very claustrophobic, and a rather depressing place to work.”

Mitchell once said that “designing in Studio X is like trying to play trombone in a phone booth,” according to designer Jim Shook, who worked there on an advanced Oldsmobile Toronado concept in the 1960s. Nonetheless, XP-87 was moved into Studio X (again, at night) and finished early in 1959.

Its public debut came April 18, 1959, at a race in Marlboro, Maryland, carrying no badging except “Stingray” in chrome script on its sides. Piloted by Dick Thompson, it went on to win the 1959 and 1960 SCCA class championships. Then Mitchell drove it on the road, and its stunning design soon evolved into the ’63 production Corvette Sting Ray.

Ideas and concepts

Mitchell had several scattered secret studios during that decade, and the records of some were assigned to other programs to hide their costs (and existence) from corporate accountants.

Secret racing cars and some other Mitchell pet projects were designed in the Warehouse Studio (across 12-Mile Road from GM’s Technical Center), in Chevy R&D’s “skunkworks,” and at Jim Hall’s Rattlesnake Raceway in Midland, Texas, so Mitchell could truthfully say that they were not being done at GM Styling.

Studio X churned out performance concepts until 1967. But when Chevrolet/GMC Group chief designer Irv Rybicki was promoted to executive in charge of Styling, he closed Studio X and its satellite studios in an effort to change GM Styling’s focus, “forever ending the Mitchell passion and design essence of Studio X,” Lonberger lamented.

Mitchell reopened Studio X a decade later for one final project, a special one-off car he wanted as his own retirement gift, and he assigned designer Bill Davis to create it.

“It needed to capture his design philosophy of excitement, originality, power, elegance, extreme proportion, flowing lines, shear surfaces, and innovative features,” Lonberger wrote in his book. That challenge was well met by Davis in creating the Pontiac Phantom. Pontiac supported building a running car on ’67 Grand Prix mechanicals but later backed out. Then Howard Kehrl, Mitchell’s GM Technical Staffs boss, killed it. It came close to destruction but received a last-minute reprieve and lives today in the Sloan Museum.

Revival

Intrigued by the lore of Studio X, Ed Welburn—GM’s design vice president from 2003 through his 2016 retirement—established his own secret studio to develop the 2006 Camaro concept car.

Read about 10 landmark cars in Ed Welburn’s life and career — including the 2010 Camaro — right here.

“I don’t know how anyone could work in that small space,” Welburn said of the original Studio X. “I knew there were special projects being done somewhere in the basement, but I never tried to find it. It was always off limits. I didn’t even know where it was when I worked for Mitchell.”

Still, Welburn decided he needed such a place “to do some very private work,” he said.

Other projects done in Welburn’s Studio X included a 2009 Stingray concept car (which later starred in a Transformers movie), some very early C7 Corvette work, and “The Beast,” the latest presidential limousine.

“I used it very much the way Mitchell did,” he said. “No one knew where it was or what we were doing there.”

One day Welburn took his boss, product development vice chairman Bob Lutz, to the modern-day Studio X to see the Camaro concept. “I took him on a very indirect route—downstairs, upstairs, and downstairs again—to keep the location secret,” he said. “When we got close, he saw a photograph on the wall and commented on it. I told the guys to get rid of it because it would tip him off to where we were. But he said there was no way he could find his way back.”

Lutz recalled seeing that secret Camaro and the influence it had on the eventual production model. “Yes, I saw the ‘parallel’ Camaro that ultimately became the concept car,” he said. “The ‘official’ one was not going well … looked like a boxy version of the ’67. The ‘secret’ one became production, adapted from the concept. I knew Ed had a studio which he used for clandestine projects but didn’t worry about it because I knew he’d always bring me into the loop at the right time.”

When Welburn retired, the secret studio was dormant. He said he doesn’t know whether Michael Simcoe, his successor as GM Design vice president, is using such a secret space. So we asked him.

“Yes, secret places still exist here,” Simcoe said. “Vision projects have their own energy and need their own space and time to grow. Some ideas may stay secret while others will have a real impact. After all, it’s Design’s role to push and provide a vision to the company.”

Good to hear. We can’t wait to see whatever wild and wonderful designs emerge.

IFTTT

[clarencenicholsonata]

8 Venti-Sized Email Marketing Strategies You Can Steal from Starbucks

A couple years ago, I worked at my local Starbucks as a barista. My short tenure there signaled the beginning of my caffeine dependency and my undying loyalty to Seattle’s crown jewel coffeehouse.

Since then, I’ve learned a thing or two about Starbucks, and almost as much about their intensive - and rather brilliant - email marketing strategy. It’s a strategy used to market to tens of millions of Starbucks customers and is a massive focus when it comes to Starbucks’ digital marketing strategy.

In this article, I’ll take a look at 8 specific strategies Starbucks uses in their email marketing, and how you can use them in your business.

So get yourself a grande Pike Place roast, and let’s get started...

Consistency

Starbucks is (as they should be) a company that’s exceptional when it comes to knowing what their target market wants and offering it to them.

Overpriced coffee jokes aside, a Starbucks drink comes with a relatively small price tag when you compare it to higher-commitment purchases like an expensive pair of shoes or a watch. Starbucks’ marketing team knows it’s not necessary to create a long nurturing email drip campaign to sell coffee.

On the contrary, Starbucks knows their patrons are rarely one-time customers. Dedicated Starbucks customers buy often, even coming in more than once a day for their caffeine fix.

To capitalize on this, Starbucks frequently sends promotions. They send emails at least once every two or three days, each with a different type of promotion or the occasional piece of content (more on what’s in their emails later in the article).

Doing this serves to keep Starbucks top-of-mind - even if a subscriber doesn’t open an email, the push notification they receive might be the reason they take a pumpkin spice latte detour on their way to work.

Expert Typography

As a designer, the feature that really stands out to me in Starbucks email is the way they look. If nothing else, they’re absolutely beautiful.

The email marketing team behind Starbucks uses a bunch of tricks to make their emails eye-catching and visually appealing, so I’ve split these tricks up into a few different points.

First, let’s talk typography. Let me guess - you probably go through email after email in your inbox seeing the same thing: line upon line of black, 14px Arial. Though this makes sense for day-to-day emails, it’s not well suited for email marketing.

Check out this Starbucks email:

The typography is beautiful and clean - not at all representative of what you traditionally see in even good email newsletters. Their designers are experienced, and this shows in their expert use of space and sizing to maximize the effect of email copy.

But there’s more! If we look under the hood, we can see they’ve used some light HTML to make their text look as good as possible. In particular, they’ve specified a specific font face that’s on-brand, and included fallbacks so you really only see Helvetica or Arial if none of the first-choice fonts are somewhere on your computer.

On top of this, they’ve picked a nice shade of grey for their text. Though it might not seem like a big departure from standard black, grey text is much softer on the eyes.

If you’re looking to do these things, I’m including the HTML below. I will mention, however, that you’re best off picking relatively common fonts (like Starbucks did) - otherwise, your viewers will likely end up seeing Helvetica after all.

<div style="font-family:Avenir,'Roboto',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:22px;line-height:33px;color:#333333”> Your text goes here</div>

Just change the fonts, color, font size, and line height as necessary (though I’ve given you a pretty good starting point).

Spectacular Images

Probably the most noticeable feature of a Starbucks email is the fantastic imagery. Every email features at least one beautiful photo of a Starbucks product.

On the surface, there’s not much to dissect here - images are great, eye-catching (in Starbucks’ case, mouth-watering) and help to provide context to the rest of the email.

However, there’s a special quality about Starbucks images that serve to elevate them, making them just that little bit more engaging. Let’s peer into the pastry case...

Professional Photography

If you’re a company like Starbucks, you definitely have the resources to put together a professional photo shoot whenever you want. All of Starbucks’ images are beautifully laid out, amazingly lit, and brilliantly shot.

Though you might not have the resources to take amazing photos whenever you want, invest some time (and maybe some money) into putting together an extensive photo shoot featuring all of your products in multiple angles and settings.

Having a library of material to pull from whenever you need an image for your email is incredibly handy, and having a single large product shoot (as opposed to multiple smaller ones) can help keep costs low. In most cases, even photos taken with a newer smartphone can pass for professional (just set them up well).

Added Typography

Starbucks always starts the body of their emails off with an image. And nearly every single time, they actually put their headline in the hero image itself.

This does multiple things. First, it lets Starbucks have complete control over the positioning of the text and allows them to do more creative things with placement, as you can see in the example below.

Plus, it gives them the ability to go crazy with typography. Though body copy should remain relatively simple stylistically, hero or headline text is your business’ opportunity to go a bit crazy. Check out these amazingly creative examples:

You can use Photoshop or a more noob-friendly tool like Canva to add some text to your image. Make it big and bold, and don’t be afraid to get creative.

Animations

Finally, Starbucks occasionally adds a GIF into their emails, adding an animated component to an often-static medium. They use it in a few different ways, most recently to show off the different variations of their Christmas cups:

Again, you can use Photoshop to put together a simple GIF. Don’t make it too complicated or animated, as this will send your file size through the roof.

Engaging Layouts

Last on our list of design do’s is an engaging layout. Starbucks’ particular attention to typography and their rather strict aversion to overwhelming amounts of copy means they’ve got a lot of room to play with when it comes to layout.

Emails often aren’t very flexible, even when you use a WYSIWYG editor. Starbucks works around this by using images abundantly, allowing them to arrange things exactly the way they want. Check out this email excerpt:

In the email above, each row of content (including text) is simply an image, which allows Starbucks to get more creative with a medium that isn’t usually very customizable.

You can do this yourself by using a tool like Photoshop to build your entire email. Export it in full-width rows based on your desired layout and content within the email.

This is a great strategy, but remember an all-image email will take a bit of a toll on your readers’ bandwidth, so use text where you can.

Strategic Gamification

This is partially a commentary on Starbucks’ entire mobile strategy, but it’s linked closely enough to their email marketing strategy that I’d like to talk about it.

In case you haven’t used the Starbucks app, I’ll try explain how it works. Every purchase you make with the Starbucks app counts for a certain number of stars and every 125 stars earned gets you one free food or drink item.

Spending 5 dollars a day on your quad venti soy half-sweet no-whip extra foam mocha can add up, so it’s always nice to get a freebie every so often. Starbucks knows that too, which is why they put a lot of focus on earning bonus stars in their email marketing.

Here’s an example of an email promoting a new product:

As you can see, the body of the email revolves entirely around earning extra stars. It’s a clear call to action - buy these items, earn these stars.

This is brilliant.

Most companies make use of special discounts or limited-use coupons to drive sales, but Starbucks knows they’ll actually make more money overall with Stars. Instead of giving customers a discount right off the bat, they require them to make other purchases first. This ensures sales in exchange for the offer, unlike coupons or other discounts.

Starbucks also runs other short-term promotions to cater to people who don’t normally go out of their way to earn more stars. For example, they offer bonus stars on certain items, or have Double Star Days, where people can earn more stars based on their purchases. Doing this keeps the “game” more exciting, leading to more sales.

You can do this for your business with a customer loyalty app (TapMango and Kangaroo Rewards come to mind), or even build a simple customer loyalty program using your marketing automation platform, sending specific rewards based on purchase volume, frequency, etc.

Themed Promotions

One strategy that’s been talked about time and time again by digital marketing gurus (including all of us here on the Wishpond blog) is to capitalize on holidays and seasons to give your marketing promotions a more cohesive theme.

Starbucks makes sure to take this strategy to the extreme. Because even their products change from season to season, it’s easy for Starbucks to put together promotions that fit the time of year.

To take advantage of the Halloween season, Starbucks released a special Zombie Frappuccino - a sweet, blended beverage modeled after our favorite undead creature.

To promote it to their email subscribers, they put together an amazing email. In this case, the email’s design was a departure from the usual. Though it’s important to be on brand, use special occasions like Halloween or the holiday season to get creative with your visual design.

The body of the email is great as well, highlighting the product’s key features (with some creative visual cues) in a clever, thematically-relevant manner.

Best of all? The promotion was available for a limited time, which served to create urgency and push more subscribers to try it out.

Consider capitalizing on specific events or times of year when putting together your marketing campaigns. You might want to run a Christmas-themed giveaway for the holiday season, or celebrate the Super Bowl with a promotion.

These kinds of promotions work well because they’re topical - there’s a certain friction that’s eliminated when you show potential customers the things that are already on their mind.

Subject Lines, Subject Lines, Subject Lines

Subject lines are at least as important as the body of your email and the offer or ask within it.

This might be a weird notion if you’re new to email marketing and when you consider the relative size of a subject line compared to the email itself. Nonetheless, the subject line is probably 90% of a subscriber’s decision-making process when it comes to deciding whether or not to open an email - and your open rate is huge when it comes to the conversion rate of your entire email marketing funnel.

It follows, then, that Starbucks’ expert email marketing team also knocks it out of the park pretty much every time with their subject lines. There’s a couple of things they do to make their subject lines especially prone to high open rates.

Let’s take a closer look.

Length

Here’s a screenshot I took of all the Starbucks emails in my inbox.

Notice a trend? All of these subject lines (with the exception of those with French, because Canada) are incredibly short, which serves two distinct purposes.

First, they’re easy to digest. Though a detailed subject line might look great in theory, once it’s just 1 of 100 unopened emails, many of your subscribers might not even bother reading it.

Second, they’re designed for mobile. Litmus found that 53% of emails were opened on mobile. And that was three years ago - I’m willing to bet the number is much, much higher now. Having short subject lines means subscribers can see the whole thing within a push notification, without needing to click.

Keep your subject lines short where possible - it’s also a great exercise in making sure they say only what they need to. Keep in mind this doesn’t mean they need to be void of personality - Starbucks knows when to be more playful with their subject lines.

Conveying value

Starbucks also does an excellent job using subject lines to communicate the value of the offer within. Here’s a few examples:

Tomorrow: Double Star Day

Order ahead for 2x Stars

Pick up lunch for $5

In each of these subject lines, the message is clear.

Keeping the value clear in your subject lines lets your subscribers understand immediately what the email will contain, setting expectations and piquing their interests. For a promotion, your offer is the most important part of your email - why shouldn’t it be in your subject line, too?

Bonus: Post-subject line copy

Here’s a neat little trick Starbucks uses, which helps to provide context while keeping subject lines short and optimized for mobile:

Starbucks puts a short sub-headline at the header of their emails, above the hero image. This subheadline serves to expand on the subject line without adding to its length.

And here’s how it looks in the email (nice and subtle):

Why not just put this subheadline in the subject line itself? Like I mentioned previously, Starbucks’ email marketing strategy is mobile-centric. A longer subject line might not fit on a smartphone display, whereas body copy tends to show up underneath the subject line.

This way, the notification displays the subject line and subheadline as intended. Pretty cool.

Personalized marketing

This is the final piece of the email marketing puzzle, and it’s a huge part of Starbucks’ strategy.

Having your subscribers’ email addresses gives you the unique ability to track their activity and personalize your marketing to match.

Starbucks uses their customer loyalty program (which is tied to the Starbucks app and its customers’ Starbucks cards) to gather information about each user’s purchase habits. This information allows them to send users personalized offers.

Let’s take a look at a specific example. I visit Starbucks one or two times a week, but I tend to purchase only a few staple items. Most of the time, I’ll order an iced Americano or a turkey-bacon breakfast sandwich.

Imagine my surprise when I got this email:

Starbucks used my purchase data to put together a specialized promotion just for me, offering 125 bonus stars to me if I were to buy the items listed in the email. You’ll notice two out of the three items were my regular buys, making this “Star Dash” seem pretty simple to complete.

Smartly, Starbucks tends to make the third item in these dashes a Frappuccino, which is a pricier product. This helps drive sales on products with higher markups.

Starbucks also uses urgency in these dashes - this one below offers bonus stars if I purchase my favorite items several times over a few days. This promotion serves a different purpose: increasing my purchasing frequency.

To me, this is a prime use of marketing automation, and just a glimpse into the power it can bring to your business.

Try using marketing automation to personalize your own marketing. It doesn’t even need to be as targeted as the examples above - just using it to segment your customers based on pages they’ve visited or products they’ve purchased can help you create marketing campaigns that are more specific to subsets of your target market.

Personalized email marketing campaigns are powerful in their ability to be more relevant to the people who see them, which is sure to increase your conversion rate.

Conclusion

Whew! I know that might be a lot to take in, but trust me - there’s a lot to learn from Starbucks’ email marketing strategy. Whether that’s honing in on effective subject lines or using marketing automation to power up your email strategy, there’s definitely things you can take away to use for your own business.

Any questions? Let me know in the comments below!

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