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Romantasy has already taken over TikTok, bookstores, and Kindles far and wide. Next, its conquering board games. Hasbro announced that its struck a multi-program deal with Rebecca Yarros and Entangled Publishing, the author and publisher of the hit romantasy novel Fourth Wing. As the first installment of this collaboration, Hasbro is releasing a board game version of the Fourth Wing universe called Priorities. The game is now available for preorder at Amazon, Target, and Barnes & Noble, and will go on sale at most major retailers starting on October 1. In recent years, the romantasy (romance-slash-fantasy) genre has taken off through online communities like BookTok and Bookstagram, where the discourse around popular series like Sarah J. Maas A Court of Thorns and Roses and Lauren Roberts Powerless has felt almost unavoidable. Few works have attracted as much attention as Yarros Fourth Wing (the first book in her Empyrean series), which soundly proved that romantasy is not just a subculture, but a commercially viable treasure trove of IP. [Photo: Hasbro] ‘Fourth Wing’ conquers the board game Within a week of its release last January, Onyx Stormthe latest installment of the Empyrean serieshad sold 2.7 million copies, and Yarros occupied the first three spots of the New York Times bestseller list. Since then, the series has snagged a show deal with Amazon MGM Studios, and, now, its own dedicated board game. As one of Americas largest game and toy companies, Hasbro is picky about the IP it chooses to adapt. Historically, the company has worked with influential brands like Marvel, Star Wars, Transformers, and Nintendo for its licensed product launches. According to Ally Simpson, senior manager at Hasbro Games, Fourth Wings intensely dedicated fanbase, commercial success, and bestseller list placements made it a no-brainer for Hasbro. This is the companys first-ever foray into the romantasy genre. When Hasbro considers a property for a game, we look at a wide array of factorsfrom cultural impact, the fanbase and passion, and potential for an engaging and authentic gameplay experience, Simpson says. We analyze sales data, social engagement, and overall buzz to gauge the long-term impact of the brand as well. Fourth Wing has it all. [Photo: Hasbro] Hasbro taps romantasy for fresh IP According to a press release, Yarros herself was involved in every stage of the Priorities game development. The game, which involves ranking characters and features from the Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, and Onyx Storm books, is designed specifically to tap into the rise of book clubs among young readers (per the ticketing platform Eventbrite, book club event listings grew 24% in the United States in 2023 from the previous year). Simpson says that Hasbros development team worked at unprecedented speed to build the game in only a few weeks, so that it could be delivered to fans while the hype is still fresh. [Photo: Hasbro] Hasbro declined to share further details on what the rest of its collaboration with Yarros will entail. However, Simpson says, the company is actively looking into romantasy as an area of possible future expansion. We’re aways monitoring trends in entertainment and looking for opportunities to create games that resonate with a wide audience, Simpson says. The rise of romantasy is something we’ve been watching closely, and we believe it has a lot of potential for future game adaptations. As a passionate romantasy fan myself, I can attest to the fact that there is endless opportunity in this space for readers and gamers alike.
Category:
E-Commerce
In Ralph Lauren’s latest campaign, Black men, women, and children wear the brand’s traditionally preppy clothes against idyllic coastal backdrops. The collection isn’t just some sort of woke fantasy of a post-racial America. It’s grounded in a very specific history that many Americans aren’t familiar with. The setting of this campaign is Oak Bluffs, a section of Martha’s Vineyard that has been home to Black communities for more than a hundred years. Oak Bluffs was a haven for educated, middle-class Black families looking for respite in a racist, segregated country. And in this place of relative peace and safety, Black people were able to nurture excellence. Key figures of the Harlem Renaissance and Civil Rights Movement, from Langston Hughes to Martin Luther King Jr., spent time there. President Barack Obama vacationed there with his family and now owns a house in a neighboring town. Ralph Lauren delves into this history in a gorgeous short film full of archival footage created in partnership with Morehouse and Spelman colleges. Directed by Cole Brown, A Portrait of the American Dream is a radical statement in our current cultural climate, when the notions of diversity, equity, and inclusion are under attack. Here is an American brand that understands how to meet the needs of Black consumers, who are expected to spend as much as $70 billion on fashion by 2030, according to McKinsey. Many pieces in this collection are already sold out. Rather than making a superficial effort to get these consumers to spend money, Ralph Lauren is doing the work. The company began partnering with the historically Black Morehouse and Spelman colleges in 2022, working closely with Black academics and cultural critics to understand how students there helped influence preppy fashion as we know it. The Oak Bluff collection goes deeper, reflecting how members of the Black middle class enjoyed their leisure time. [Photo: Nadine Ijewere/courtesy Ralph Lauren] A tale of two fashion ads Ralph Lauren’s new collection offers a contrast to American Eagle, which has been mired in controversy because of its recent campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney. As my colleague Jeff Beer explains, American Eagle’s campaign hinged on the double entendre that Sweeney has great jeans and great genes. In a video, the actress provides a scientific explanation of genetics, describing how genes pass physical traits from parents to offspring. Given that Sweeney is a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman, many people thought this ad reeked of eugenics, the idea that some people have better genes than others and that society should prevent the reproduction of those considered unfit. The outcry about the American Eagle campaign featuring Sweeney has everything to do with the political and cultural climate we’re living in. The extreme rightwhich includes white supremacists and neo-Nazisis on the rise, while the Trump administration attacks organizations that invest in DEI programs. In this context, it’s no surprise that a campaign about how a white woman has good genes evokes the most horrific aspects of racist history. The fact that American Eagle could not foresee how this campaign could go wrong suggests that it did not receive enough feedback from diverse people as it created its ad. Either the company did not have people in the room willing to point out how troubling it was, or the company didnt listen to those who did speak up. [Photo: Nadine Ijewere/courtesy Ralph Lauren] Ralph Lauren has taken a very different approach with its design process and marketing in recent years. It doesn’t just create clothes that celebrate the diverse strains of American history; it works closely with diverse designers, creatives, and thought leaders. To create the Oak Bluff collection, in addition to historians and cultural experts at the two HBCUs, it partnered closely with the Marthas Vineyard African American Heritage Trail, the Marthas Vineyard Museum, and the Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture. [Photo: Nadine Ijewere/courtesy Ralph Lauren] It also tapped Black creatives to produce the campaign. In addition to film director Brown, who spent summers on Marthas Vineyard for decades, the campaign features photography by Nadine Ijewere and video footage by Azariah Bjrvig. Consider its 2023 collection, which celebrated Native American style. Ralph Lauren brought in Naiomi Glasses, a seventh-generation Navajo textile artist and designer, to create garments inspired by her culture, and also empowered Glasses to select Native Americans as models, photographers, and creative directors. The company now has an ongoing artist-in-residence program where it brings other artisans preserving heritage crafts to collaborate with Ralph Lauren’s creative teams. [Photo: Nadine Ijewere/courtesy Ralph Lauren] Good for business To be clear, Ralph Lauren hasn’t always been this inclusive. For its classic American style, from preppy fashion to Native American iconograpy, in the past the 60-year-old brand appropriated aesthetics from Black and Indigenous communities, rather than collaborating with them. And the company was slow to bring in models of color for its campaigns. The company is now willing to acknowledge its missteps and blind spots, and is trying to do things right. Its designers have learned that the way to be more inclusive is to partner with diverse creatives, listen closely to their points of view, and give them creative freedom. [Photo: Nadine Ijewere/courtesy Ralph Lauren] With all of these collections, Ralph Lauren also gives proceeds back to these communities. This time around, it has partnered with a nonprofit comprised of 100 Black female homeowners on Martha’s Vineyard to support historic building restoration on the island. It has devoted $2 million to support scholarships for students at 10 historically Black colleges and universities. [Photo: Nadine Ijewere/courtesy Ralph Lauren] Many companies, including Target and Amazon, have backed away from their DEI initiatives in response to Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in both the public and private sectors. So Ralph Lauren deserves credit for having the bravery to continue investing in programs that bring more diversity to its brand. But make no mistake, this isn’t just a moral imperative. It’s good for business. America is becoming increasingly diverse. The U.S. census projects that white people will be a minority by 2045. Black and brown Americans will use their purchasing power to support brands that make an effort to understand them and respond to their needs. And they have long memories. They will hold American Eagles Sweeney campaign as a mark against the brand for years to come. And they’ll remember Ralph Lauren’s Oak Bluff campaign the next time they shop for a sweater or dress.
Category:
E-Commerce
Sometimes, the simplest photo feats are the most satisfying of all. Me? Ive lost count of the number of times Ive needed to remove the background from an image for one reason or another. Maybe its a perfect portrait of my kids or a moderately acceptable photo of my own plus-sized potato headbut then whatevers in the background falls somewhere between messy and just plain meh. Whatever the case may be, removing the background of an image is one of the simplest and most effective ways to edit a photo and take total control of how it looks. But it isnt always easy to figure out how to make that happenquickly, cleanly, and without all sorts of time-wasting hassles. The tool Ive found for you today changes that once and for all. Unearth all sorts of little-known tech treasures with my free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. A spiffy new discovery in your inbox every Wednesday! Buh-bye, background Ive tried all sorts of image background removers over the years. Some of em are actually quite decent, but almost all of em have some sort of asteriska limit in how often you can use em without paying, a restriction in how large of a file you can download when youre done, or some other sort of constraint that keeps em from being completely ideal. Todays tool is a rare exception. Its a simple stand-alone image background remover thats completely free, entirely web-based, andas far as I can tell as of this moment, at leastwithout any meaningful restrictions around how and how often you use it. The service is a relatively new (and certainly new to me!) element of the online Adobe Express service for image editing. It takes literally 10 seconds to get going and pull off your first image transformation. You just pull up this page in any browser, on any device youre using, and either click or tap the photo uploading box or just drag and drop an image from your device into that area. All it takes is a single clickor a drag and dropto get going with Adobe’s web-based background remover. [Screengrab: Adobe Express] In 10 seconds or less, the site will spit back a perfectly crisp version of your photo with the background completely erasedno rough edges, no awkward remnants, and no effort whatsoever from you to make it happen. A handful of seconds, and bam: Adobe’s web tool has the background stripped out of your image and the file ready to be saved. [Screengrab: Adobe Express] Heres the before and after of my sample image, for a closer comparison. Whats especially impressivethough slightly tough to see at this sizeis that in the original image, the edges of the Android figure were actually slightly blurry. But the tool still got it exactly right, on the first try, and made it look pixel-perfect without the background present. My original image, at left, and the background-free version, at right. [Screengrab: Adobe Express] The only catch Ive found with the tool so far is that after your first time using it, the site will prompt you to sign in for any subsequent requests. Thats because its goal seems to be to get you in the habit of using Adobes broader Adobe Express image editing suitewhich actually is free and can be quite useful in its base form but also includes an optional $10-a-month premium plan that the company ultimately wants you to embrace. But you definitely dont have to do that to keep using the background remover for free as often as you like. Youll just have to sign in onceusing any email address, Google account, or existing Adobe IDand then you can keep on erasing image backgrounds quickly, easily, and effectively whenever the need arises. Keep that link handy, my fellow image-infatuated iguana. If youre anything like me, your future self will thank you. The Adobe image background remover runs entirely on the web. You can opt to download the Adobe Express Android or iOS app to find a similar function, but the real beauty of this tool is its simplicity and the lack of any required installations. The tool is completely free to use. And it follows Adobes standard privacy policy, which doesnt contain anything especially unusual or eyebrow-raising (and doesnt claim any rights to save, share, or do anything shady with your stuff). Keep the discoveries coming with my free Cool Tools newsletter. You’ll get an instant introduction to an incredible audio tool and a new off-the-beaten-path treasure in your inbox every Wednesday!
Category:
E-Commerce
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