Shouts to the mag, we appreciate it! Dope packaging and credentials indeed.

What would a Vodou Priest know about Spiritual Evolution

Guess what: Everything the universe has to say about it. To learn more purchase The God Genes Decoded.

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Kieran is currently developing a project for Raleigh Denim. See the tradition manifest.

Also see his cut & slow blog.

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A night with CHUBB ROCK from Andre' Wright Jr on Vimeo.

COLOR OF LIFE

http://www.flickr.com/photos/coloroflife/show/

Designed for DAHRA.

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In this ambitious work, Hans Silvester turns his photographic eye toward ancient Africa, the birthplace of humanity. Silvester was essentially adopted by his subjects during his travels, and his stunning color photographs present a rare, intimate view of their world.

The first volume of this deluxe two-volume set presents the everyday lives of the Omo people, their rituals, parades, children’s games, and even their battles. In the second volume, each photograph becomes a masterpiece of abstract art, revealing close-ups of the tribes’ traditional body paintings. Silvester’s accompanying text traces his journey to the Horn of Africa, revealing the fascinating beauty of a world now in danger of extinction. [link]

Bill Strickland is the President and CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation and its subsidiaries, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild (MCG) and Bidwell Training Center (BTC). His duties include: developing and implementing major fund-raising plans of action; working with Boards of Directors and an Industry Advisory Board; encouraging participation of corporate executive officials from major multi-national Pittsburgh corporations. Strickland has completed the development of a new 40,000 square-foot production greenhouse, created for agricultural training; a 70,000 square-foot medical technology complex; and a 62,000 square-foot facility as a mortgage free asset for both MCG and BTC. The facilities include a 350-seat music/lecture hall, library, arts studios and labs, dining and meeting rooms, state-of-the-art award winning audio and video recording studios. Together they serve as a demonstration site for Hewlett Packard and Steelcase equipment.

Strickland was born in Pittsburgh in 1947, and graduated from David B. Oliver High School in 1965. In 1969,he earned a bachelor’s degree in American history and foreign relations from the University of Pittsburgh and graduated cum laude.

Throughout his distinguished career, Strickland has been honored with numerous prestigious awards for his contributions to the arts and the community. In 1999, he was presented with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Arts Leadership and Service Award. In 1998, he received the Kilby Award and “Coming Up Taller” Award presented in a White House ceremony by first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. In 1996, he received with the MacArthur “Genius” Award for leadership and integrity in the arts.

He has also served as Chairman of the Expansion Arts Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in Washington, D.C. and served a six-year Presidential appointment as a Council Member to the NEA. He was also a Council Member on the Pennsylvania Council onthe Arts and the Pennsylvania State Board of Education, a trustee at the Carnegie Museums,and a Consultant with the British/American Arts Association in London, England.

Strickland has excelled in cultivating collaborative partnerships in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Baltimore and Kansas City. He has developed successful relationships with prominent foundations such as the ALCOA Foundation, Helen Bader Foundation, The Danforth Foundation, Ford Foundation,The Forbes Fund, the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, the Milwaukee Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Social Venture Partners, Pittsburgh Foundation, E. M. Kauffman Foundation, Heinz Foundation, R.K. Mellon Foundation and Pew Charitable Trust.

In 2002, Strickland was sworn in as a member of the Presidents Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. He also serves as a consultant, grant evaluator and mentor in the field of arts and arts education, community development and workforce development training.

“The Commissioner”

NEW YORK Steve Stoute, the 38-year-old CCO of Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging, launched in 2004, has been building brands since he was barely out of high school. But the former record executive — who once managed artists such as Mary J. Blige and Nas — still considers himself an advertising neophyte.

“I really am a novice,” says Stoute, who despite his modest characterization has built a lucrative career connecting brands to the much sought-after hip-hop-inspired youth market. In fact, he’s being honored by the American Advertising Federation in November with an induction into the organization’s Advertising Hall of Achievement.

“It’s something that took me by surprise,” says Stoute of the honor. It shouldn’t have. Stoute, who earlier this year launched Translation Advertising with Jay-Z — as a division of Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging — has leveraged the increasingly smitten relationship between Madison Avenue and the entertainment business into a lucrative career. His matchmaking efforts over the years have paired Jay-Z with Reebok, Justin Timberlake with McDonald’s and Gwen Stefani with Hewlett-Packard.

Most recently, Stoute paired Wrigley’s with artists including Chris Brown to help rebrand its chewing gum products. He commissioned the singer to revamp the brand’s classic Doublemint jingle, which was released first as a four-minute single, “Forever.” (The blogsphere subsequently lit up with fans angry they hadn’t been told about the Wrigley’s connection.) Wrigley’s new campaign also includes revamped jingles for Big Red by Ne-Yo and for Juicy Fruit by Dancing With the Stars contestant and country singer Julianne Hough.

Brown’s “Forever” was recently nominated for MTV Video Music Awards’ Music Video of the Year. “It’s incredible that an artist was nominated for a Video of the Year with a Wrigley’s jingle,” says Stoute.

With no formal business training, Stoute relies on instinct. He says he developed his insight into consumer behavior by watching people window-shop. “I’ve always paid attention to what people pick up and put down,” says Stoute, whose client roster includes State Farm, Samsung and General Motors.

It was Peter Arnell, founder of the Arnell Group, who believed Stoute could give traditional advertising a nontraditional spin. In 2000, Stoute left the music business and became a partner at the agency. It was there he started working with Reebok, which he helped relaunch in 2003 with a new product line and an ad campaign with Jay-Z, whose S. Carter Collection by Rbk helped reconnect the brand with urban culture.

“The client results, selling product, means much more to me than awards and things of that nature,” says Stoute. He credits his relationship with his Translation partners, Charles Wright, chief strategy officer, and John McBride, group strategy director, for his success. “They shape my vision tremendously,” he says. “It all starts with strategy.”

Currently, Stoute is working on a State Farm campaign with LeBron James and what he calls a “groundbreaking” effort for Samsung, which will debut during New York Fashion Week in September. It pairs the brand with Valentino and Conde Nast.

Celebrity endorsements, says Stoute, have changed since the time that smiling while holding the product and then receiving a check were the extent of the deal. Now, he says, “product endorsements are about product development and new-product creation all the way to a traditional endorsement model and everything in between.”

And “selling out” today, he adds, means creating inauthentic relationships between pop culture and product. The most successful relationships, he says, come from brands and artists viewing themselves as true business partners. “Artists want to be more responsible for the final outcome,” he says.

Pondering his November advertising honor, Stoute says, “The advertising business is saying, ‘Steve, we’re accepting you.’ And I never knocked on the door. I just put out work. … It makes me feel good. It makes me feel like we’re building a strong agency here.”

BIOGRAPHY

Education: Stoute, who grew up in Queens, New York, attended five colleges in two years, searching for “something that made sense,” he says.

Career: At 19, Stoute began working in real estate and invested in the music business, putting artists like Kid ‘N Play in the studio and on the road. He became a road manager, artist manager and A&R executive, and has worked with stars including Mariah Carey, Eminem, Jay-Z, Nas, Enrique Iglesias and U2. “In working with these artists, you learn a lot about branding, but in the record business we never called it branding,” says Stoute. He worked at Sony Music and Interscope Records before partnering with Peter Arnell of The Arnell Group in 2000. In 2004 he launched Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging, which was acquired by Interpublic Group in 2007.

Extra curricular: This year, Stoute co-founded the Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now with Mary J. Blige.