Do you have an eye for fashion? If so, now’s your chance to prove it.

Polyvore, a social networking site dedicated to fashion, allows users to create and arrange outfits (or sets as they call them) on an online interface much like Flickr’s. Users can create their sets based on anything from specific trends to song titles or colors and patterns. The options are limitless; your creative mind is free to wander the racks in this virtual house of style.

Polyvore functions like an endless online closet. All the items are grouped under appropriate categories like: dresses, tops, shoes, pants and accessories. Sift through the categories, and drag and drop your desired items into your palette. The site features a multitude of retail items that can be mixed and matched into personalized combinations. If you can’t find the perfect pair of pumps to match your Chanel dress, you can download the “clip to Polyvore” tool and snag photos from other sites to be used in your collage. Arrange your set as you see fit, add backgrounds, text and any artistic elements you wish.

Once completing your set, you can publish them for all to see. You can imbed your collage on your blog or even on your Facebook page. The social features of the site allow users to “friend” other active members, leave comments and join groups.

Another really interesting aspect of the site is the option to purchase the items you’ve included in your sets. All retail images are linked back to the stores they were clipped from, prices included.

Here’s an example of a set that I created myself.

Look for America - by KimMichelle on Polyvore.com

The only thing better than winning an Oscar? The food you’ll get at the Governor’s Ball—the fancy eat-and-drink-a-thon that follows the Academy Awards presentation each year.

The L.A. Times has a preview of this year’s Asian-inspired menu and it’s not exactly P.F. Chang’s. Catered by chef Wolfgang Puck, this year’s crop of anointed golden guys and gals will get their grub on to the tune of mini Kobe burgers, caviar-topped crab cakes, black truffle and ricotta cheese pizza, plump raw oysters and a sea of top-grade sushi—all amid an enchanting Zen garden floral motif.

More than 1,500 guests will pile into the glitzy Grand Ballroom of the Hollywood and Highland Center for this year’s ball. Luckily for Puck, that shouldn’t pose too much of a threat; the Spago chef has helmed the Governor’s Ball kitchen for 15 consecutive years.

Writer N. Frank Daniels should be on top of the world. This week, Harper Perennial finally began distributing his Web-based book, Futureproof, nationally.

I say finally because it’s been a long time coming for Daniels, who published Futureproof on his own via the Web several years ago. He essentially did what many DIY artists and bands have been trying to do: harness the power of online community. With a grassroots effort on his blog and MySpace page, Daniels developed a network of fellow off-the-radar writers and their fans. According to Daniels:

MySpace’s network of writers banding together to promote and sell their books is a crucial tool in reaching an ever-expanding audience. With its millions of prospective readers and co-promoters, MySpace is making this democratized version of what is not only published but read a new force to deal with in the information age.

It certainly brought attention to his coming-of-age story, which centers around Luke, a high school drop-out, and his friends as they navigate the streets of Atlanta. And now that he’s found a mainstream distribution channel, it’s interesting to read past entries on his blog about everything from his vision for his book and its Web presence to dealing with publishers who seemed only to be interested in an easily marketable or plot-driven novel as opposed to the kind of story he created.

If you, like so many, have become lost in the deluge of job loss numbers from U.S. newspapers, there is now a virtual map that tracks the casualties—for better or worse.

The cleverly titled Paper Cuts was founded by Erica Smith, a graphic designer at the daily St. Louis Post-Dispatch who—after watching multiple friends and colleagues get gifted with pink slips—sought to paint a broader picture of the losses. She began aggregating numbers from press releases, wire reports and grapevine tip-offs, and ended up with some of the most comprehensive tallies on the topic to date.

And the numbers are staggering, particularly when the years 2008 and 2007 are inspected side-by-side. In 2007, the estimated 2,185 job losses, including layoffs and buyouts—illustrated in multicolored pushpins—freckle Smith’s map in shallow clusters at its four points. Flip to 2008 and the map is covered with a dense thicket of pushpins, representing an estimated 15,554 job losses—approximately 15 percent of the total newsroom workforce.

Adding insult to injury, Smith recently told the American Journalism Review that her count could be substantially undershooting the actual number, as many news outlets do not announce their cuts; the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ total, which encompasses all newspaper positions from editors to delivery drivers, shows a total of more than 22,000 in 2008.

So far, Smith counts nearly 1,000 cuts in 2009. With The New York Times reporting today that its earnings were down 48 percent year-over-year in the last three months of 2008, the best we can do is pick up a paper and hope for a silver lining in 2009.

Just in time to hype the March opening of Watchmen is a new viral campaign that falls in line with a major trend in entertainment marketing where the advertisements are actually done for fictional products that only exist in the movie or show. In the case of Watchmen, they’ve created a Web site for The New Frontiersman, the fictional right wing conspiracy ‘zine beloved by my favorite character, Rorscharch. The site includes a sweet 1970’s style video of an NBS newscast from the alternate history of Watchmen, a picture of Dr. Manhattan taking a picture of Louis Armstrong on the moon, and some other classified files that look neat but won’t make much sense if you haven’t read the graphic novel.

You can even sign up for their rss feed or follow them on Twitter if you’re interested in making sure you know the latest conspiracy theories from an imagined alternate history.

Though the site looks a lot like 42 Entertainment’s Dark Knight viral campaign, the design is actually courtesy of The PPC Group on behalf of Paramount, which is distributing the film outside of the U.S.

It’s that time of year again. And if you’re like I am, you care more about everything around the Super Bowl than the game itself.

With the Super Bowl comes another rendition of the championship game logo. The recipe for the logo has changed very little over the past 40 years. Large, warped Roman numerals are typically the focus of the graphic, but depending on the year, that can be confusing.

As the Roman numerals grow and recede, so does the difficulty of building them into the design. Only the first game, called the First World Championship Game, had no Roman numerals.

“Super Bowl XXXVIII?” [Armin] Vit said. “You lost me at the second X. After that, I kind of stop reading.”

The New York Times is displaying some alternate logos for this season’s big game and, in my opinion, some designers have come up with better choices. I like option two from Pentagram. It’s simple and conceptual.

Over the next three years, in-store marketing activity will grow at a higher rate than any other marketing tactic, according to a study by the Grocery Manufacturers Association and Deloitte Consulting. Formerly the domain of promotional agencies, in-store marketing is getting so popular that according to AdWeek traditional agencies are adding their own promotional marketing units to meet customer demand for point of purchase specialists.

It makes perfect sense when the broadcast media audience has become so fragmented and the visual clutter of print so oversaturated that marketers would turn once again to the point of sale where millions are guaranteed to see their marketing every week. Katy Bachman of MediaWeek crunched the numbers and pointed out that while 21 million people watch Dancing with the Stars every week, 150 million walk through a Wal-mart.

And no longer do in-store promotions have to be static. In-store digital signage and closed TV networks are popping up in retail stores across the country. Of course, with America making hard decisions until the economy gets back on track, many brands will find the battle being won or lost on the shelf.

The Macclesfield Alphabet Book is one of the few surviving examples of 16th century design portfolios used by medieval bookbinders to model their patterns for existing clients. More than just a prop for “ye olde pitche meetings,” the rare book features 14 different types of decorative alphabets including anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and foliate alphabets, and two sets of borders illuminated in remarkably preserved colors and gold.

The British Library is eager to acquire the book and, so far, they’ve raised £340,000 of the £600,000 needed to purchase the book from the library of the Earls of Macclesfield. It’s been happily sitting there since 1750 since it appears the Earls of Macclesfield do not enjoy the process of taking inventory and were completely unaware of the book’s existence.

Now that it’s been found only one question remains, “Can you make the Coat of Arms bigger?”

[Via BoingBoing]

Oh, the Super Bowl. Not only is it the championship game of the National Football League, but it’s also the head-to-head rumble for advertising’s highest honor, the Super Bowl’s funniest/most creative/most memorable commercial.

Advertising’s most hallowed of events comes with quite the price tag. This year, brands shelled out three million dollars for every 30-second spot. Even at a hefty three million, high-profile brands were not shy about locking down more than one spot, or two…or seven.

According to Spotbowl.com, both Anheuser-Busch and Pepsi purchased seven spots each. (Anheuser-Busch - two 60-second spots and five 30-second spots, Pepsi - seven 30-second spots)

Other big spenders were Paramount Pictures and Coca-Cola with three slots each. What of the cola wars, you ask? Pepsi nabbed an exclusive contract with the NFL that prohibits any other non-alcoholic beverage brands from advertising during the game’s first half. Their flagship PepsiCo commercial will feature singer will.i.am along with its new “Refresh Everything” slogan.

Coca-Cola will also be kicking off a new branding campaign and will use the Super Bowl to showcase the campaign’s new tagline, “Open Happiness.”

Other ads to look out for:

Doritos, for the third time, has put the reigns in the consumer’s hands to create their Super Bowl commercial. In a new twist, if the user-generated ad ranks no.1 in USA Today’s Ad Meter, the director pockets a one million dollar check. They’ll be up against some stiff competition as Anheuser-Busch won’t give up its 10-year winning streak of the USA Today Ad Meter easily. Anheuser-Busch will be employing the help of late night talk show host Conan O’Brien, as well as the brand’s iconic Clydesdale horses in their ads.

Paramount Pictures will be promoting a trifecta of blockbusters, G.I. Joe, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Star Trek.

Dreamworks, Pepsi, Intel Corp. and NBC banded together to create the Superbowl’s first 3-D commercial. The spot will be a co-promotion for Dreamwork’s upcoming film, Monsters vs. Aliens and Pepsi’s Sobe beverages. Intel the technology used to create the spot and NBC urges viewers to keep hold of their glasses for a special 3-D episode of “Chuck” following the game.

Interestingly enough, only two automobile manufacturers have bought ad space for the big game and not surprisingly, neither are American brands. Audi and Hyundai both purchased one 30-second spot each.

The 2009 Super Bowl airs Sunday, Feb. 1 on NBC at 6 p.m.

[Disclosure: Coca-Cola and Paramount Pictures are clients of BFG Communications.]

Cadbury has a new eyebrow-wiggling viral video making the rounds.

While I’m glad they didn’t try to repeat their last successful viral by putting a baboon in front of a set of drums, I am again perplexed by the connection between their latest offering and the product. Eyebrow wiggling is certainly amusing, but all I’m getting as a takeaway is a capitalized WTF?

At the same time, the video is spreading the brand name around and there has to be some value in that. A check on its YouTube post earlier today revealed almost 600,000 views and it’s only been up for four days.