Making An Impression

The Frank Museum's first display of Indian art showcases contemporary prints.

Contemporary Indian printmaking is on display for the first time at Otterbein College's Frank Museum of Art in Westerville, Ohio, in an exhibition titled "Current Impressions." Selected by New York-based printmaker and curator Vijay Kumar, the 35 prints are in different media including etchings, serigraphs, woodcuts, engravings, aquatints and lithographs.

There were three criteria when Kumar asked the 29 artists to submit their work. First, the prints had to be made by traditional, hands-on methods. "I did not want to include digital (computer-generated) images or scanned-image reproductions," he says. Second, the prints had to be on paper no larger than 56 by 76 centimeters, to make them easy to ship to the United States. Third, the prints had to be recent, done since 2004.

"I am especially pleased that several artists produced a new print series in response to the invitation to submit work for this exhibition," says Kumar, whose first memory of printing dates back to his childhood in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, where he saw woodblock printing on fabric.

The works depict a variety of themes and sensibilities. While Walter D'Souza says "Tricycle," which is part of his series "Ticket to Ride," is a comment about "the present scenario we are journeying through in the subcontinent," Hemavathy Guha's "The Clown" lends itself to multiple interpretations with its use of the traditional clown mask to show moods ranging from glee to pathos.

"I've tried to transform the subtle tones and rhythms of various musical compositions into visual forms," says Bhawani Shankar Sharma of his "Color Symphony."

"The imagery in a few prints can identify their country of origin, but this is not true of most," says Kumar, who planned the show to be diverse in both style and theme. "Some work is humorous, some narrative, some mostly concerned with issues of composition and color. Images by several artists involve galaxies and outer space, many include figures, but all are quite personal."

So, from the rich hues of Uttam Kumar Basak's "Intimacy," the folk motifs in Shahid Parvez's "Friends" to the multidimensional perspectives in Yashpal Chandrakar's "Ten Windows," the exhibition provides a glimpse of the varied palette contemporary Indian printmaking has to offer.

"I attempt to create humor in my work, which comes from the perception and depiction of the incongruities of existence which are always present in the folk and tribal art forms from which I draw my inspiration," says Parvez.

"I look at the scene with a child's curious mind, full of richness as well as complexity. The overall treatment is a subtle blend of an adult's experience and a childlike fantasy."

Other artists participating in the exhibition include Dattatraya Apte, Rajan Fulari, Hanuman Kambli, Vijay Kumar, Avijit Roy and K.R. Subbanna.

The museum is located in Westerville, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, in the house of Lillian Frank, who taught art, theology and philosophy at Otterbein College for 29 years. With the help of her husband, Paul, she converted the former Salem Evangelical Church, built in 1877, into a residence in 1956. The structure was given to the college after she died in 1999, for the purpose of creating a museum for the college's collection. It opened in 2004.

According to museum director Nicholas Hill, small private colleges in Ohio agreed to focus their art collections in particular areas many years ago in order to maximize their resources.

"The Frank Museum of Art has a mission of exhibiting global art exclusively. We have had several…of African and Japanese works but nothing from India," says Hill. "Another reason for the selection of an Indian exhibition was that there is a large Indian American population in the Columbus, Ohio, area."

The exhibition, which is open from April 2 to June 6, came about because of Hill's contact with Kumar at the Manhattan Graphic Center in New York City. Kumar had coordinated a major U.S.-Indian print exhibition in 2004-06 that traveled to India, and Hill's work was included in the show.

Later, when Hill was planning upcoming events he invited Kumar to curate the Indian print exhibition.

Kumar has planned several Indian art shows in the United States, particularly in the New York City region. "There are now more than 10 galleries in Manhattan that show primarily contemporary art from India. Many of their clients are of Indian heritage," he says. Recently, long-established galleries like Marlborough in New York City have also begun exhibiting work by Indian artists.

"Whether or not Indian contemporary art will come to the mainstream of American art only time will tell," he says.

5 Tips to Designing Your at-Home Business

When starting an at home business, there are several important facets you will want to focus on. You want to create fresh and enticing content, promote your web site consistently, and give each visitor the time of day they deserve. Another facet that can sometimes get overlooked is the design of your web site.

Here are five tips to designing a visually appealing at home business.

1. Header
The first thing you want to focus on is the header because this is the very first thing people will see when coming to your web site. You want it to be professional, but make sure that it stands out at the same time. You can do this by making it bold, much larger font than the rest of the page, and perhaps making it a professional looking color. In addition, it can be smart to add a logo of some sort next to or behind the header.

2. Above the fold
When people come to your web site, you have to know that not everyone is going to read through your entire web site. Because of this, you want to give them the most important information first. Above the fold means placing all of your important information toward the top so the reader does not have to scroll down. As soon as they have to scroll down to read, they have gone below the fold.

3. Highlight key concepts
In addition to placing your most important information above the fold, you can also help the reader by highlighting key concepts. You can highlight specific words or an entire sentence if need be. You can highlight by bolding the word or phrase, or even separate the word completely into its own line.

4. Balance
One of the most important parts to making a web site visually appealing is to create balance between your graphics and content. The last thing you want is to have all of your content on the top and all of your graphics on the bottom, or vice versa. Interchange the two to make it easier to follow along.

5. Eliminate clutter
While it is important that you place video, audio, and graphics on your site, you want to do it in a professional manner. There are far too many sites that think the more flashing banners and graphics they have the better. But all this will do is take the focus away from your content and make it difficult to find things on your site.

There are several important facets to an at home business, including the design. Take the five tips listed in this article and create a visually appealing web site that will keep visitors coming back for more.

CORPORATE LESSON

CORPORATE LESSON - 1
There were these 4 guys, a Russian, a German, an American and a French, who found this small genie bottle.
When they rubbed the bottle, a genie appeared.
Thankful that the 4 guys had released him out of the bottle, he said, "Next to you all are 4 swimming pools, I will give each of you a wish.
When you run towards the pool and jump, you shout what you want the pool of water to become,and your wish will come true."
The French wanted to start first.He ran towards the pool, jumped and shouted WINE".
The pool immediately changed into a pool of wine.The Frenchman was so happy swimming and drinking from the pool.
Next is the Russian's turn, he did the same and shouted, "VODKA" and immersed himself into a pool of vodka.The German was next and he jumped and shouted, "BEER".
He was so contented with His beer pool.
The last is the American.He was running towards the pool when suddenly he steps on a banana peel.
He slipped towards the pool and shouted, "SHIT!!!!!!!........."
MORAL OF THE STORY:> Mind your language, you never know what it will Land you in.
CORPORATE LESSON - 2
A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower & the doorbell rings.
After a few seconds of arguing over who should go and answer the doorbell,the wife gives up, quickly wraps herself up in a towel and runs downstairs.
When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next door neighbor.
Before she says a word, Bob says, "I'll give you $ 800 just to drop that towel that you have
on". After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob. Bob has a close look at her for a few seconds, hands over $800 and quietly leaves.
Confused, but excited about her good fortune,the woman wraps back up in the towel and goes upstairs. When she gets back to the bathroom, her husband asks from the shower "Who was that?" "It was Bob the next door neighbour," she replies. "Great," the husband says, "did he say anything about the $! 800 he owes me?"
MORAL OF THE STORY: Share critical credit information with your stakeholders to prevent avoidable exposure!

Making Effective Oral Presentation Home

An Oral Presentation is explained as a talk given to a group in which an individual presents his/her view on an issue or a topic based on their reading or research. It is a life blood of any business.

Employee needs good communication skills to interact effectively with their superiors / subordinates; to convey their information effectively in business meetings / presentations / seminars; for proper organizational planning, organizing, co-ordination, leadership, motivation and controlling.

Here are few tips which a presenter needs to follow for a powerful oral communication: - 1. Before the Presentation: -

Know your objective, audiences, the total time allotted the message to be conveyed and the resources available to convey the message. Systematically and logically frame the three main parts of the presentation which are introduction, main body and the conclusion.

o Rehearse and practice the entire presentation.

o Anticipate few questions and prepare their answers.

o Prepare a contingency plan.

2. During the Presentation: -

? Check the equipments, room arrangements and the lay-out.

? Use proper visual aids, diagrams, pictures, graphs, facts, figures, over head projector and power point presentation (templates, design and font).

? Take deep breathing.

? Stay confident, relaxed and be enthusiastic.

? Keep it simple, be concise, to the point and avoid repetition.

? Explain the key points with appropriate stories, examples, anecdotes and demonstrations.

? Emphasize on the key points.

? Never read continuously from the script.

? Use appropriate humour.

? Avoid using too many technical details.

? Emphasize on proper body movement, tone, eye contact, posture and gestures.

? Conclude on time.

? Leave time for discussion and for clarification of points.

3. After the Presentation: -

? Allow question and answer session.

? If you don’t know the answer, don’t lie.

? Take proper audience feedback.

? Find out areas of improvement.

Finally, Australian Research has found that the important elements of communication identified by small, medium and large enterprises are:

• listening and understanding;

• speaking clearly and directly;

• writing to the needs of the audience;

• negotiating responsively;

• reading independently;

• empathizing;

• using numeracy effectively;

• understanding the needs of internal and external customers;

• persuading effectively;

• establishing and using networks;

• being assertive; • sharing information; and

• speaking and writing in languages other than English.==========

Promotional Practices In Business

Promotion is defined as “The marketing function concerned with persuasively communicating to target audiences the contents of the marketing programme in order to facilitate exchange between the marketer and the consumer and to help them to satisfy the objectives of both”.

Promotion is one of the key aspects of the marketing mix (the other three elements are Product, Price, and Place). However, according to Neil. H. Borden’s Marketing Mix; Marketing Communications has its own “promotional mix”, which includes advertising, public relations, personal selling, publicity, direct mail, internet, sponsorship, trade fairs and exhibitions.

Thus, the company needs to effectively utilise all its promotional mix in a manner that a strength of one is use to offset the weakness of other to achieve its organisational goals and objectives, this can be done through appropriate promotional strategy/plan.

Advertising is a from of non-personal, mass communication with the public; Sales Promotion involves the use of special short-term techniques to boost the sales of the company; Public Relations is formally defined as, any form of non-paid commercial significant news or editorial comment about ideas, products and institutions; Publicity is done by the company to enhance its image in the eyes of various social groups; Direct Mail is a focused form of communication with the target audiences through Internet;

The purpose of the Trade Fairs and Exhibitions is to increase the awareness of the product, encourage trial, create new customers and retain the existing ones; whereas, when an organisation associates itself with an event, a cause, a programme to enhance its goodwill is known as Sponsorship.

There are different methods of allocating promotional budget like arbitrary method (where budget is decided by the top management) , percentage of sales method (the company allocates sales budget on the current/anticipated sales or the sales price), unit percentage method (the budget is set for each product/ brand after detailed cost analysis), competitive parity method (the budget is based on the competitors expenses), objective and task method (the budget is determined by the organisational objectives, task and the estimated cost) as well as composite method (all techniques mentioned above are used to derive the promotional budget).

The objective of Promotion is to build awareness, create interest, provide information, boost demand, create brand awareness, brand loyalty and preferences. It can be for the dealer, reseller, salesmen or the consumer/buyer.

Promotions in books are divided into 2 main categories namely Below the Line and Above the Line Promotion.

1. Below the Line: - It includes in-house offers like vouchers, schemes, loyalty card offers, sponsorship, direct mails, personal selling and public relations.

2. Above the Line: - This method includes promotion in press, television, radio, cinema, posters, billboards, internet etc. Whereas, Mid Line Promotion is for the internal staff and employees of the organisation.

Hence, Promotion is rightly defined as “communicating with the public in an attempt to influence them towards buying your products and services.

Product Management Strategies

Product Management is explained as an organisational function within a company dealing with the planning or marketing of product/products at all stages of the product lifecycle (i.e. introduction, growth, maturity and decline),

It includes two major activities :-

Product Planning and Product Marketing; Strategy according to Henry Mitzberg is a plan, “a how”, a means of getting from here to there; whereas Product Strategy is defined as a marketing plan for a product based on the characteristics of the target market, market share objectives, desired product positioning within the market, and profit objectives.

Strategic Plans for a product are based on decisions regarding the four P’s (product, price, place and promotion), financial targets and budgets and tactical plans. The top management of an organisation frames the product strategy to gain a competitive edge by understanding their perspective, mission, vision, values, beliefs, attitude and norms.

For effective Product Strategy the company evaluates its strengths and weaknesses to maximise the opportunities and minimize the threats which can be done by answering the following questions: -

1. What is their total production, financial, marketing, selling, personnel and operational capabilities?

2. How they can fulfill their customers’ expectations?

3. Where is the market?

4. When is the right time for product launch?

5. Why will the buyers prefer my product? By answering the above questions an organisation can determine various techniques for appropriate product positioning, effective branding and packaging and also to reduce wastages, cut expenditures, develop market for new product, select most appropriate distribution channel, upgrade their technologies, decide promotional tools, maximize customer satisfaction to enhance their goodwill which will help in retaining the existing customers as well a getting new ones thus increasing organisation’s productivity as well as profitability.

Thus, Product Strategy is rightly, defined as the element of a firm’s decision-making concerned with developing the most appropriate products for its target market.

10 Tips For Launching Your Clothing Company

It seems nowadays everybody's selling t-shirts and, if you haven't started already, you might be next. Before you jump into the t-shirt biz you might wanna take a few pointers, and T-Shirt Magazine's got you covered.

Here are ten tips to help kick start your label.

1. Do your research.

Make sure you know a few things about the clothing industry before you dive in too deep. At least have a general understanding of how business works. Another key thing to research is how other successful companies became so successful, and some guidelines and tips for running a successful business.

2. Plan everything.

Before you get started, have a clear idea of what you plan on doing. Try to decide things like what kind of t-shirts you plan on selling, who you expect to buy your tees, whether they'll be available online only or if you'll be selling in stores.

3. Know your competition.

You should always know what other clothing labels you'll be competing with. If you're starting a label based on humorous t-shirts you should watch what all the other funny t-shirt labels are doing. Keep track of things like their design variety, pricing, and promotion.

4. Create products people would actually buy.

It seems this step should be obvious, but you'd be surprised at some of the t-shirts you can find these days. Test the quality of your t-shirts by getting honest opinions from others, preferably people who are within your target audience.

5. Know the finances.

Once you know what you plan on doing get an idea of how much everything is gonna cost you. When you start producing and selling t-shirts, keep track of all of your expenses. Alot of this should help you decide how much you should charge for your clothing.

6. Come up with a promotion strategy.

See, you wanna become a t-shirt millionaire. The only way to do that is by selling millions of t-shirts, and the only way to do that is by telling millions of people about your shirts. But how? Figure out a way to spread the word. For starters, your strategy can include PPC ads, press releases to blogs, and social networking.

7. Find partners.
You might start your business on your own but you should find partners to help you maximize your potential and help you reach your goals more efficiently. Have people working with you on your label and also collaborate with other businesses that may be of some help to you.

8. Set business goals.

How many t-shirts do you plan on selling this year? How about this month or this week? A successful business sets goals of success. Set a goal and believe in your ability to reach it. If you know you're gonna get it, you're gonna get it.

9. Don't quit because your not seeing sales the first day.

That's a good way to get you nowhere. Try to figure out ways of improving your designs, your strategy or your work habits. When you're just getting started you're still learning so keep at it. Winners never quit and quitters never win.

10. Have fun.

If your in it just to make a quick buck you're probably not gonna get too far. Love what you do and do what you love, and if you're a real tee maniac then this is definitely the right profession for you.