La Carte de Rencontre

Vous êtes à côté de la borne... il ne reste qu’un seul vélo. Il y a vous et une femme que vous trouvez extraordinaire. Quelle chance de lui montrer l'homme que vous êtes (ou quelle chance de pouvoir faire sa connaissance). Vous apercevez une carte dans le panier. Vite ! Accédez à votre Navigo et votre stylo. (Prenez votre stylo). Déchirez la carte et cochez les cases, indiquez vos coordonnées – téléphone, mobile et e-mail – et partez... elle regarde la carte. Sympa ? Ou vraiment con ? Voilà ! Après la Carte Orange, la carte à puces, la carte de crédit, voici La Carte de Rencontre ! Une idée originale de Lalande Digital Art Press. Bientôt dans un panier de vélo près de chez vous. C'est excellent pour les rencontres rapides et imprévues, en passant à pied ou en pleine circulation. "C'est moi !" Il faut profiter de ce moment ! Vous pouvez également concevoir votre carte vous-même. Il suffit simplement d’utiliser une belle photo, d’indiquer votre e-mail ainsi que vos coordonnées au verso. Faites vous-même le design, envoyez-là nous par e-mail, et voilà.

Oui, nous pouvons imprimer vos cartes de visite, cartes de vélo et cartes de « love ». Nous fabriquons aussi plein d'autres choses, bien sûr : affiches, livres, brochures, catalogues, grands tirages numériques. Entre-temps, nous souhaitons connaître vos histoires de rencontres à "vélos" ... Racontez-nous ! Clickez ici: Contact Lalande

And now for the English portion of this blogcast: She's hot, you've got the bike. You're alone. There's the Carte de Rencontre in the basket. Quick: Moral decision: leave her standing or do the right thing? You scribble your number and e mail, hand it to her and fly off. The next day you search Craig's List for "Missed Connections." Hey! Make your own personal Carte de Rencontre next time! She probably couldn't read your handwriting! So take the high road: With a color or black and white photo, your e-mail and mobile telephone number, just e-mail the file to us and you'll have 1000 cards for only 90 € ! Click here now to make your own cards today: Contact Lalande.

Lalande Guides: Xpress Business - Français/Anglais

Lalande est votre imprimeur numérique à Paris. Un clé USB et vous êtes prêt à imprimer... alors les guides, gratuites, en français et anglais sont conçus pour vous. Porquoi? Pour faire le maximum pour votre business, petite enteprise, grande entreprise, lancement du marque, boutique ou votre vie comme artiste, photographe, galeriste ou styliste. Un simple click, et le download est à vous.

Are you a fashion designer, business consultant, software sales rep? Do you live in America? Germany? Japan, Brazil? Are you planning on exhibiting your fashion or art or attending a business conference here in Paris? Is the thought of carrying 20 kilos of printed material across the oceans weighing on you? Or the cost of shipping boxes upon boxes to Paris via some expensive express service a bit scary? Forget it: Lalande is your English language printer in Paris. No need to struggle with people who don't speak your language in trying to produce critical mission documents, posters, catalogues, brochures and marketing material. Take a look at our free guide in English. Click here: We speak your language.

On Glass: Kareen Kjelstrom

Watch out: Kareen Kjelstrom is a girl with a blow torch. She uses it to melt and shape glass and sterling silver into jewelry designs that also build bridges between cultures. Born in Hawaii and raised in California, Kjelstrom grew up on the Pacific Ocean. (Her mother is Tahitian). Kareen's 2007 Titaua (Tee-tao-ah) collection features fine Italian glass beads and sterling silver that echo the artist’s Polynesian heritage and bring it into a sophisticated and breezy European sensibility.

The French have noticed: Since the spring, her necklaces have gone on the air, sported by Marie Drucker of France 3’s "Soir 3." The French television personality is a big fan; Kareen's designs have also been showcased in the U.S. on Home & Garden Television.
Established in 2000, “KbyKareen handKrafted” jewelry works are one-off creations and limited series pieces. Working with glass beads from Effetre (Italy) and hand-formed sterling silver settings, this self-taught jewelry designer makes her magic happen under the steady blue glow of an oxygen/propane mix torch.

"I moved back to Paris at the end of 2004 and have since been trying to get everything I need to make jewelry here," she says. "Do you know how hard it is to find propane in Paris?" Lalande has been working with Kareen for nearly two years, producing the artist's signature square promotional cards and a "look book."

Kareen splits her year between studios in Paris and Los Angeles, and travels extensively in search of cultural nuances. "I'm something of an archeologist looking for the meanings – as well as the fashions – of contemporary jewelry round the world. My work is really a personal sculpture, a synthesis of a personal history and, of course, femininity."

With representatives in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Amsterdam and Barcelona, exclusive boutiques in the Marais, as well as the VIA Gallery in the Viaduc des Arts, Kareen is fashioning her brave new world out of brilliant glass and silver. Check out Kareen's newest pieces here.

Lillies & Birds: Nugent Davis

American artist Nugent Davis repaints nature in thick, impasto oil-on-canvas portraits of dripping flowers (mostly lillies), mysterious women silhouetted in deep rich reds against a scumbled calligraphic ground (Lilly II, left). We've been working with Nugent for nearly two years, producing post cards, annoucement posters and most recently, a tidy ton of cards and printed pieces for her July wedding. Come la rentrée, the honeymoon moves into another phase with an exhibition of new works, opening 19 September at Style Pixie Salon in Ivry-sur-Seine, with full on abstract oils from this lush series. The show runs through 19 October.

"The series is inspired by nature and science," says Nugent who paints out of her Studio Rabbit on the southern edge of Paris. "Through the paint itself, I'm also writing a kind of language." The colors are highly charged, and literally vibrate. Nugent's abstractions touch upon those from de Kooning to Pat Steir, to artists like Kenny Scharf ("Object," right). Color is always turned on full blast in Nugent's Studio Rabbit.

"I paint from my own center and choose a subject so I can almost step into it; that's what gives me pleasure," she says. "I don't try to control the paint at all and allow it speak for itself." Contact Nugent for details.

Street Marketing Controversy

French marketing consultant Emmanuel Brunet discovered our Vélo promotion cards in the Velib baskets around Paris and posted about it on his blog. After congratulating us on the initiative tying the retro-American photo of kids on their trikes and wheels to the "bobo" demographic of Velib riders, a number of questions about "street marketing" has arisen. La conversation sur le "street marketing" est devenue très animée. Voir l'article et les commentaires – c'est très interessant. De tout façon, les petits sur leur vélos nous ont livré des très bonnes reponses et commandes pour les cartes postales et tirages numériques.

One Thousand Paintings

Art & commerce have never been so mathematically married as Swiss artist Sala's project, One Thousand Paintings. With more than 750 of these simple and elegant number canvases sold (the majority, 350 or so, to Americans), for increasing prices tagged to availability, Sala's effort to distribute his genius and unroll the magic of numbers across the globe has worked brilliantly. It's the kind of art and marketing we at Lalande Digital Art Press appreciate: An energetic, living, limited edition work of art.

Marketing guru Seth Godin has tagged Sala's project an "Idea Virus," and Godin himself wrote: "It's so classically, perfectly viral. It will make him hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a few weeks. And it will make you smile. I bought painting 552. I may donate it to MoMA."

"One thousand numbers = one thousand paintings. All beautifully painted on canvas (approx. 12 x 12 x 1.5 inches). Each number is unique - the number and the demand define the price. An experiment of art & mathematics, on the web, the first of its kind," writes Sala on his site. It's a work of Fluxus-inspired brilliance that pushes the mail art concept into a new dimension. (The works are mailed in yellow boxes to collectors). And an art that values itself according to the market.

Sala's price calculator states: "Price = 1000 - number. Initial discount: 90%. Current discount: 20%.The discount will decrease by an absolute 10% for every 100 paintings sold. Min. price: $40." So if you bought number 500, you pay 1000 minus 500 for $500.

The project began more than a year ago in Zurich. Wired Magazine featured the artist in their piece, Paint By Numbers. Collectors are varied for their interest in art and their interest in numbers and numerology and Sala cites their stories on his blog, along with photos of their "installations." One collector, Tosh Cooey, purchased the initial 12 digits in Pi, beginning with 314 (3.14159265...). Cooey wrote Sala: "I wonder just what the longest possible sequence is using only your paintings. Because many prime numbers were bought early, it would seem that many of your buyers were numbers and maths buffs, perhaps one of them would know the answer to that question."

Still others have very specific and personal stories with numbers – a wedding anniversary or an address, the number of days in the year (365). Among other things Sala has created in his One Thousand Paintings project is a unique, global community – one with a lot of buzz.

Après Le Quinze Août

Paris Tourism

Pour les Parisiens qui ont profité du Velib, et qui ont trouvé une de nos quatre images dans leur pannier, voilà, on a fait contact. Comme vous voyez, on vous offre des cartes de visite avec vos cartes postales. Envoyez-nous vos photos de velos à Paris, en France ou n'importe où dans le monde entier. On va les mettre sur le site, et si on les imprime pour une promotion, on va vous imprimer des cartes postales pour vous remercier.

Did you find these postcards in the basket of your velo? We'd like to continue with more shots like these. So if you're any kind of photographer, or just have a camera, send us your photos of bicycles in Paris, France or anywhere in the world. Lalande will put them on the website and if we use them in other promotions, we will print up post cards for you for your contribution and to say thanks. These images are copyright-free retro-Americana photos from the 1940s. Click on them to enlarge and see how great they are.

If you'd like to discuss a project of yours, click here to Contact Lalande. Bonne route!

Love It And Leave It: Nathalie Latham

I met the Australian photographer and filmmaker Nathalie Latham about a year ago when she contacted me at Lalande about doing some high-end scans for her exhibition about Australians who have left the island continent for other ventures and never returned. I know a few of the subjects, including fashion designer Martin Grant who lives and works in Paris.

These elegant black and white portraits were first exhibited at the Australian Embassy in Paris and then at The Australian National Portrait Gallery in Canberra this past spring. Out of her research – interviewing and photographing Australians working in Europe and the US and elsewhere – came the fantastic book, LOVE IT AND LEAVE IT - AUSTRALIA'S CREATIVE DIASPORA, published by T&G Publishing and The Australian National Portrait Gallery (2007, 157 pages).

The photographer writes on her blog that she had never met the designer, Gianni, and the book was assembled and put together via e-mail and phone calls, with Nathalie here in Paris and Gianni in Sydney. "We met for the first time in Singapore the day before the book went to print," she says. The age of technology and publishing! There are only 1000 copies of the book in print, so if you would like one, hurry and contact Gianni (gianni@tgpublishing.com.au) to order it.

Nathalie left the City of Light to move to Go-Go Berlin for a year to live and work in an artist residence there, focusing on her photography and films; for August she has headed off to India to shoot a film. She produced a design for t-shirts (above, middle), which she will distribute to orphans on her trip. Then, she will return to her fabulous studio in Marienenplatz in Berlin. She's currently exhibiting her photographs at "Eating Up Beijing" at Kodak Eastman House Summer Biennale, Rochester, New York through September 2007.

Skin Deep: Paris Tattoo

Paris-based photographer David McCairley has long sought images that skirt the center and subjects who live on the wild side. He's photographed prostitutes, the down and out, the down trodden and most recently, dozens leather-clad French men and women who gathered at the Paris Art Tatoo Expo this spring getting, well, down. His subjects, often sporting a half pound of metal piercings, happily collaborated with McCairley for these "action" skin photos in black and white. They sit or lay on tables while the skin doctors get to work, weaving illustrated fantasies on their arms, backs, legs, bellies and elsewhere." It becomes an addiction," says David. "Once they start, they want more and more of them. Until they are a living tatoo." [Click on the images to get a full-screen shot].

These signs give body language a new dimension – one of fantasy – much like Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man." But tatoos are not new. Every culture practices the art of the tatoo – from body painting in New Guinea to scarification of the flesh in dozens of African tribes. The meanings are as diverse as the images and marks added on to the flesh. "While they might look intimidating, these tattooed types turned out to be amongst some of the nicest people I have ever met," says David. "Really."

McCairley works out of Paris on a range of projects documenting outsider lifestyles and edgy attitudes across Europe. "I've been concentrating up until now mostly on my web galleries, but I'm looking to explore large-scale exhibitions and various printing options on paper with Lalande." We've worked with David on a number of small print pieces, but this series is more expansive and we will produce a number of proofs for him on a variety of papers – Epson matte, Epson brilliant and Canson matte – in order to deliver the grit and the beauty of these crisp, elegant images. David says he'd like to make a signed and limited edition of prints as large as one-meter wide. (Contact him for orders). Cool stuff, should draw a crowd.

"Travels with a Sufi," a photography book with Mary Inayat Khan, the widow of the venerated Sufi leader and teacher, Pir Valayat is another of David's current projects. "Wherever the wind blows, that's what's interesting to me," he says. You can contact him via his web site, and while you're there also take a look at some of his other clients – most (but not all) of whom are wearing shirts.

Le photographe basé à Paris David McCairley est un photographe atypique. Il a photographié des prostituées, des douzaines d'hommes en cuir vêtus, ainsi que des femmes participant à l’exposition Paris Art Tatoo ce printemps dernier. Ces sujets, souvent percés, assis ou couchés sur des tables, tandis que les perceurs arrivent pour travailler leur corps, tissant des fantaisies illustrées sur leurs corps...

"Cela devient un penchant," dit David. "Une fois qu'ils commencent, ils veulent de plus en plus d'eux. Jusqu'à ce qu'ils soient une entièrement tatoué."

VELIB PARIS

Paris is now a biker's paradise with thousands of bicycles – velos – ready to ride all over town. Ever the opportunist, we created a special "Velib" promotion for new clients, putting one or two of the TIPOGRAFIA cards in the baskets of the cool new bikes. The rider takes one, hikes his or her way across town, and leaves the second card in the basket for someone else. Talk about an "idea virus," this allows us to diffuse our material in a friendly manner to our demographic. We're printing up new images that will be a bit retro like this one, above. If you do find one of our cards, bring one home (and leave the second card in the pannier for the next rider, please); then check in here on the blog, and let us know where in Paris you found it. Christine, technical princess and green citizen at Lalande, reminded me to tell people: Ne jetez pas sur la voie publique, s'il vous plaît.

I wrote about the Velib Phenomeon for The Paris Blog. Here's a quick snippet: "Putting Parisians on two wheels 24 hours a day has ushered in a new local aesthetic. With the cool weather, sunny days and breezy nights taking the velo for a 30-minute trot about town is quite agreeable. The little "pannier" up front is framing an emerging look: Toting about colorful fruits and vegetables, could very well produce a spread in Vogue. Part-retro fashion, part-health kick, big-time Amelie Poulain and clear-sky friendly, it's evident Parisians want to look like they're busy doing wonderful things and carrying legumes about on the velo is a quick fix to that end."

We're looking for great photos of bicycles, from all corners of the globe, so send one of yours to us and maybe we can use it in another Velib pannier promotion, and reward you at the same with some post cards, digital prints, or cartes de visites. Become a big wheel; we'll help you get there.

Paris est maintenant le paradis des cyclistes avec des milliers de bicyclettes prêt à aller partout la ville. Jamais opportuniste, nous avons créé une promotion "Velib" spéciale pour de nouveaux clients, mettant une ou deux des cartes TIPOGRAFIA ou petits cyclistes dans les paniers des nouveaux vélos frais. Velib Paris.