Designing the Postcard

This week the final Vagadu meets Kara Maria postcard was created. During this part of the marketing process I got to use some of my other skills like photography, and Photoshop to get the exact "look" I want to express.

The concept for the card was to show the raw, the awkward, forced sexual energy that is particularly prominent in Kara's latest work. This concept is inspired by the Marc Jacobs ads (image to the right ) that have this candid, unproduced quality that is unusual for mainstream designers.

I thought the informal look would work well, because the pornographic images that Kara uses are not from Hustler or Playboy, rather from amateur pornographic magazines, so they have this affected quality that makes you wonder what kind of drugs might have been used to get these people comfortable enough to take the pictures.

So when the models were posing inside the studio space in the co-op I belong to Pandora's Trunk, as they were arranging themselves on the cutting board I told them to try a little "too hard" to be sexy, hot and irresistible (much like the women of Kara's work see above).

The garment they are wearing is a pseudo lingerie piece inspired by the painting "Unspecified Involvement xii". This piece turned out great for the marketing campaign because its features have some of the most obvious connections to Kara's work. The pink swirling smoke of the painting translated into fluffy swirls that decorate the body in a random, unspecific form ;-).



So our low production values echo the low-brow edge in Kara's amateur porn theme. We're giving a voyeuristic guilty peek in a place you maybe shouldn't look. Or you didn't know you wanted to until you did. My models were such good sports (thank you Evelina and Bella) as I asked them over and over to roll all over a cold cutting table in order to get into the more uncomfortable positions.

Fliers are coming out next week, look for them around town!