You will notice an addition to our new site design tonight: advertising. After nearly six years online without featuring any whatsoever, we have decided to introduce this core aspect of fashion image-making to SHOWstudio for the first time. Our motives are twofold: finding apposite funding to support the expansion of the company and representing an important aspect of the industry’s activities that, hitherto, has gone practically unmentioned in our behind-the-scenes coverage.
Since we launched Version 5 of the SHOWstudio website in April 2005 - with its focus on unpacking the day-to-day process of the fashion industry and emphasis on live shoots and post production – we have increasingly felt that by concentrating exclusively on fashion editorial, we were not giving an accurate and full representation of how the business of fashion actually operates. However, the question was: how to incorporate this important, commercial backbone of the industry (advertising) whilst still remaining true to the ‘process’ spirit and aesthetic that characterises SHOWstudio?
After months of deliberation and technical development, we think the answer is in the question. As you explore the front page tonight, yes you will find shiny, glamorous fashion product, in the form of three striking new campaigns by Swarovski, Alexander McQueen PUMA and Christian Dior. But you will also see that we are endeavouring to inspire advertisers to engage with the world of process, very slowly but surely. As with any SHOWstudio editorial project, each featured advertising campaign has its own section in the form of a ‘Campaign Portfolio’ that contains extensive ranges of campaign images; in some cases, pictures you won’t have seen in print. In true SHOWstudio ‘open doors’ fashion, we will also be citing credits so at long last you can find out who shot, styled and even produced the ads.
As with SHOWstudio editorial, these sections have been fashioned to allow advertisers to experiment with sound, motion and interactivity and we will be encouraging them to post ‘making of’ films, interviews and any other media relevant to the creation of the imagery. If you click on the link from the Alexander McQueen PUMA Campaign Portfolio, for instance, you will see they have created a special animation for their 'ManCat' image.
We appreciate that taking advertising is probably as big a change for SHOWstudio viewers as it is for us and the team have worked hard to make sure as much care and thought has gone into crafting as intelligent and graphically elegant a context for the imagery as for editorial. Many of the things Nick Knight and the SHOWstudio team first set out to achieve in setting up the site are now becoming common currency in the industry: fashion film, live shoots, mobile phone reportage, publishing tests and exposing post production. We feel that is now time to challenge and build upon these initial findings by expanding our horizons and this is something we are unable to do whilst Nick Knight is funding the site alone. We hope that by working with like-minded commercial partners we can grow SHOWstudio to achieve what we believe is now possible in creating the future of live fashion media.
Nick Knight will be coming into SHOWstudio from 11:00hrs this morning (1 September) to discuss SHOWstudio's new advertising showcase and his experience of working in commercial image-making. If you have a question for him, send it in response to this BLOG entry and we will try to incorporate it into his interview which will be filmed and posted later in the day
I have to say I have mixed emotions about the whole thing. I kind of like the fact that you were doing your own thing. The current campaigns are beautiful though, and I'm sure though you will do it well, so good luck with it.
In general...great job on the site overhaul. Love the direction you're headed in.
i think it was interesting"before"its interesting now but design wise- theres too much of everything-its getting much too complicated going way beyond a magazine format,but i hope it works out and you all make shed-loads of money.
I like the fact it's gone beyond a magazine format, that it's pushing new ground. Since the beginning you've always been dealing with something that's completely new, and with nothing to model that on your success is testament to your team.
i think it's fair that penny and nick and everyone else involved makes some money, after all, what do we, the viewers, have to do but glance at the same kind of images we see in our magazines? i hope the campaigns section will expand to include work by photographers other than nk as well
