Lauren Conrad Collection Ashlee Dress

Lauren Conrad is one of the hottest fashion icons on the market right now. She hit the big time as the star of MTV's Laguna Beach and has become even bigger with her reality show The Hills. Her collection, the Lauren Conrad Collection, hit stores early 2008 and has already become a hit. For her holiday collection she's taken her line to the next level with super cute Ashlee Dress. Keep reading to find out more about it.

The Lauren Conrad Collection Ashlee Dress (spelled with a double , not the traditional Ashley) is a one shoulder knee length cocktail dress. As all fashionista's know, this fall asymmetry is all the rage, which is why it was terribly smart for Lauren to make the Ashlee Dress only sit on one shoulder. But it's not like your typical one shoulder dress, this one has a heart shaped neck line, making the dress really stand out. And it's built like a tube dress, so one doesn't have to worry about the other side falling down.

Lauren Conrad loves this dress so much that she's been seen on more than one occasion wearing it. She wore the black one with a skinny belt, and she also wore the Ashlee dress in red to a pet event, pairing it with a slightly wider, bow belt. She accessorized the black one with black slingbacks and an oversized light blue clutch, which was an interesting choice. This look was also featured in US Magazine, showing girls how they can get the look. Lauren wore the same shoes with the red Ashlee dress.

The Lauren Conrad collection can be found at a variety of boutiques on the web in a wide array of colors. The Ashlee dress retails for $198.

OohLaLuxe.com carries the Lauren Conrad collection and has the Lauren Conrad Ashlee dress in red. Save 20% with code STYLEBAKERY.

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Tips for Creating a Great Character Design I

Whether be it for games, comics, animation or merchandise, we cannot ignore the fact that good character designs play an active role in driving the sales of the product in question. While good character designs help to drive sales, great character designs grow companies and even shape the landscape of the creative industry. This is the first of 3 articles dedicated to the topic of creating great character designs and some tips to bear in mind when designing your characters.

The Core Product

What is the core product or platform which your character will be appearing on? Where will the character be seen and in what medium? This will directly affect how you should design your character, as different products will have different presentation platforms. Ideally your character should translate across several platforms to maximize its licensing potential.

Target Demography

What is your core product's target audience? Have you considered the traits and personality that will appeal to the target audience and not only makes sense in the game, but also gives the game play a boost? Characters aimed at young children, for example, are typically designed around basic shapes and bright colours.

Licensable and Merchandisable

When designing your character, always bear in mind its potential for licensing and merchandising. It is no good if your character has limited potential to be exploited. Ask yourself these questions: Is your character charismatic as merchandise? What kind of merchandise can your character be made into? What kind of merchandise would look good with your character on it? How many different categories of merchandise can your character lend itself to?

Distinct, Different and Visually Impactful

Is your character design unique? With so many characters out there on the market, you need to ensure that your character stands out. Your character needs to be strong and interesting in a visual sense to get people's attention. Take the Simpsons for example - the characters' unusually bright yellow skin colour is an immediate attention grabber. Do a thorough check and be perfectly honest with yourself. Does it look distinct and different enough or does it look like something out of another game or animated series? If it even remotely resembles something else on the market, chuck it away and go straight back to the drawing board! Do not hesitate!

The Lead and the Followers

Do ensure that you differentiate your lead characters well from the supporting characters. It would be a tragedy if your lead character blends so much into the supporting cast that he fails to stand out. Even if all your characters look great, a potential licensee may end up being spoilt for choice because all your characters look great but your lead doesn't look extra great! Licensees lose interest quickly when licensing your characters becomes too complicated for them.

You can visit the Mediafreaks blog to pick up more tips on anime character design

This article was contributed by Aldric Chang - a creative businessman who is active in music composing and production, internet marketing, casual games production, animation production, cartoon production and character licensing. His 3d animation studio - Mediafreaks - is focused on producing high-end animation work for documentary producers, advertising houses and cartoon animated series - with projects ranging from the animation of dinosaurs to the visualization of natural disasters and something as chic as 3d jewelry animations.

Mike
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