68, St.Lucy Street

Dreams become reality in small steps...not big ones as we (or I) might think! This weekend I visited Alexandra Pace's exhibition in Valletta. The exhibition marks the launch of the redprints online gallery. Alexandra is exhibiting 4 collections which grace different parts of the old house in St. Lucy Street. All 4 collections, and the whole redprints project (house re-innovation included) are Alexandra's small dreams becoming a real exchange of artistic photography.

The redprints exhibition confirms some of what I disussed in my presentation at the Annual MCA conference last Saturday: There's nothing like online or offline, they've converged nicely! An 'offline' exhibition is launching the redprints online gallery at redprints.com! (more about this in my future posts and in trendwatching.com's September briefing)

The above image is just a test print of what you will really get if you pop by at the redprints exhibition. The exhibition is open for all until the 11th November between 10:00 - 12:00 and 14:00 to 20:00. Get a sneak preview of the exhibition before actually getting down to St. Lucy Street: redprints.com

NuvoleFashion.com: Who needs online anyways?!

I've recently come across a very good insight about online vs. offline customer traffic. In history many were the big revolutions that changed the way we do things. On of them, online, has certainly changed the way customers consume brands and products.

Some would have thought that online is for techies and the mainstream consumer will not be interested in this geeky stuff. Others have proved that the mainstream consumer is really online by Google stating that if Internet users were to make up one continent, they would make up the 5th largest one. But a new breed of thought has recently featured in a number of blogs and related articles. The next best thing is the total convergence of online and offline. Consumers need both! It's quite obvious and common sense...but in a tiny market such as our local market, the use of an online space may be underestimated, especially in the fashion industry.


Nuvole has recently launched its online website. The website, designed by Lab1977, exposes Nuvole's fashion collection whilst providing basic info. such as store location, contact details, etc. Strategically enough the website does not include an online store. And yes, I do find this strategic.

The traditional approach would be: Nuvole customer wants to buy some new clothes, drives to Birkirkara (or any other Nuvole Store location), passes by 4 other shop windows, possibly refrains from entering the alternative fashion stores, enters the Nuvole store and does the purchase if he/she finds some interesting clothes.

The new purchasing method should be: Nuvole customer is notified that new collection is in store, logs onto online website at the click of a button, reviews collection, likes the products, drives straight to a Nuvole store and does the purchase!

So should Nuvole refrain from developing an online store? Not necessarily, but the point is that Online complements Offline (seamlessly)...and local brands like Nuvole seem to be getting to that.

'Made by LAB1977': Creative to say the least!

It's August and the business world will soon be on shutdown, yet Lab1977 keep opening new online venues which are pleasing to the eye. The latest has been a brand new website for SMS Travel. Following the busy pre-summer months during which everyone was planning his/her vacation, SMS must have dedicated some time to refurbish their online space.

The website is animation based which for a corporate brand such as SMS may initially look strange. One would expect an informative, cluttered website full of the latest offers and all, yet the new SMS Travel website is an online journey, "inspired by travelers and their belongings" as Lab1977 put it.


I am no fan of heavy animated website and must admit that I tend to question their flexibility when it comes to website maintenance,updating and direct links. Yet brands such as XFM (Malta) and SMS Travel seem to be managing well with them (both sites were designed by the crew at Lab1977).


A humble constructive suggestion from our side would be to eliminate the flight rates in pdf and provide these within the animation, or at least in PDF. In my case the PDF document took sometime to load and had I not been interested, I could have moved away. A simple but useful add-on are the Social Networking functions at the bottom of the site. An further improvement to that would be being able to post direct links to specific web-pages on my social profile / or simply send the link via email.

Finally we cannot not comment about the Apple products which feature frequently in the animations (iPhone in this case) Why is it that we all want those cool gadgets around, even on our virtual desks?!

Read more: Related news from Lab1977, SMS Travel website

Alexandra Pace's Top 5 Projects

It is not the first time that Alexandra Pace was mentioned on Blab, but this time I've asked her to choose her top 5 favourite works...a very difficult task for any artist. What follows is her contribution to Blab.

My Top 5 Projects

These are my favourite 5 projects. I wouldn’t say there is any order of preference; they all represent important and special parts of my life and career.



Slideshow of Alexandra Pace's works

1. Aquarium: Aquarium is a collection that was photographed at the start of this year. The Aquarium collection has just been chosen to be exhibited at EUROPEAN NIGHT – Photographical Identities of Europe, consisting of a night of photographic projections on a public industrial site in Arles, France. This event is being organised by "Rencontres de la Photographie d'Arles" and will be held in July 2008.

The project is a series of photographs depicting urban life created using a plastic fish-eye lens film camera. This collection is made up of urban scenes, abstract creations and movement. The concept behind this project is that of pseudo fish bowls depicting different scenes from city life. As an outsider looking in, the viewer is invited to look into these little windows of other people’s worlds.

2. Reza Deghati: Last summer I had the pleasure of photographing National Geographic photographer Reza Deghati together with his wife and two lovely children. I met Reza at an exhibition of his works which he exhibited here in Malta. I invited him to visit my studio where I offered to do a set of family portraits for him to commemorate his visit to Malta. Unfortunately we had less than an hour to do this portrait session since he visited my studio on his way to the airport to fly back to Paris; although the result of this session was a set of lovely character studies of Reza and his family, all photographed on black and white negative film.

3. Niki Gravino: One of my favourite projects of 2007 was working with Niki Gravino on his album “Politics of Doublebeds” launched in November 2007. Besides designing all the artwork for the album itself as well as all promo material that went with it, we also did a photoshoot of Niki Gravino and his band The Vile Bodies.

The location used for this photoshoot was none other that the studio of the fantastic Maltese artist Raymond Pitre. The concept of this shoot was that of placing the band members “within” Pitre’s installations as if they were joined together.

4. London Eye Collection: The London Eye Collection is all about the interesting world of the London Underground. This project was done quite a few years ago but still remains one of my favourites. I literally spent the best part of two weeks hopping on and off trains and going from station to station on the Tube.

The collection was exhibited as a collection of hand printed silver gelatin photographs and consists of studies of the architecture, trains, people and details found in the London Underground stations and trains.

5. UNHCR assignment: When Dr. Katrine Camilleri, Assistant Director Jesuit Refugee Service Malta, was awarded the prestigious UNHCR Nansen Refugee award, I got a call from the United Nations office at Geneva requesting me to create a photo documentary of Dr. Katrine Camilleri, her family and her work.

This award, now in its 53rd year, is given to an individual or group for outstanding services in supporting refugee causes. One of the main functions of this assignment was visiting a number of refugee camps around Malta and amidst all the suffering and hardships seen in these camps there is nothing more beautiful than the happiness I saw appear on these refugee’s faces when they see Katrine and her crew coming to visit them.

more info: Alexandra's Website and blog

Too much to digest on the local web

This week a number of local websites have been redesigned completely.

#1: www.xfmmalta.com

BLAB! had predicted this would be the first local website to get a 'face lift'. The new full screen XFM website is all nice and flashy. Layout was designed by the girls at Lab1977 who also designed the Virtual Model micro site. New features include movie trailers and podcasts.

#2: www.maltarightnow.com

maltarightnow.com was also given a new look today. New features include an appropriate Maltese font and an English version of all the pages. Media.link has also redesigned both Radio101 and NetTv websites. A highlight is the launch of another website dedicated to 'In-Nazzjon' and 'Il-Mument' newspapers. The interesting thing about the latter is that it is not another news portal but a soft copy of the actual newspaper layout viewed using macromedia flash player.

I can BLAB extensively about all these new spaces in the online web yet I'd really like to get to know what my loyal readers and friends think about all this. Only then I will add BLAB's initial thoughts.

HotCouture does it again!

For the second consecutive year, HotCouture has teamed up with a local radio station to choose its campaign model. Last year HotCouture had chosen Eleanor, winner of Bay Radio's Dream Job competition. This year, it was XFM's Virtual Rockstar winner Ann de Gaetano (a.k.a. Slur) who featured in the campaign.

The concept of using 'success stories' such as Elinor and Ann de Gaetano goes in line with "You too can be a star", HotCouture's slogan. The whole thing provides a nice story which the girls may talk about and connect with!

Photographer Alexandra Pace and her team were behind this year's photoshoot, the making of which may be seen on her latest blog post. Final product also featured in Pink Magazine today.