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A new Marvel movie, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, is set to arrive in July, and fans are already invested in its marketing campaign. Earlier this month, the films Instagram account uploaded a promo poster, and people have been reacting. On the subreddit r/marvelstudios commenters praised the poster’s minimalistic design and color scheme. (The art for this movie has been [to] die for. Man. Whoever is doing this graphic design should be proud, read one comment.) The retro-futuristic design features only two colors: sky blue and white. Overlapping figure fours surround white silhouettes of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and the Thing standing in the middle of the title-less poster, which includes only basic details about the release date (July 25) and the studio (Marvel, of course). The design is distinct in a world full of floating head movie posters (and a far cry from the Fantastic Fours other, more provocative promotional poster). It calls to mind the art of Saul Bass, one of historys most famous graphic designers. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Fantastic Four (@fantasticfour) Who is Saul Bass Bass is the artist behind some of the most recognizable designs of the 20th century, including the title sequences for Alfred Hitchcocks films and the logos of Quaker Oats and AT&T. Born in the Bronx in 1920, Bass took classes at Brooklyn College, where he studied under György Kepes (whose teachings influenced Basss entire career). Jan-Christopher Horak is the former director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the author of Saul Bass: Anatomy of Film Design. He said the influence of both the Bauhaus German design school and gestalt principles, which focus on how psychology changes the way we view designs, manifest in the simple construction and geometric arrangement common in Basss designs. Minimal construction is a key part of Basss title sequences, which he started developing for directors in the 1950s. One of his first iconic images is the twisted arm that opens Otto Premingers film The Man With the Golden Arm. He breaks down the story, abstracts it into a kind of geometry, Horak said. In certain pre-credit sequences, youll have just lines moving through spaces. Youll have figures just moving through space. The Bass effect Horak recognizes Basss aesthetic in the design of the Marvel poster, beginning with the reduction to two primary colors. By limiting the color palette, the designer can create intense contrast in different elements. Horak points out that the design maintains its perception of depth despite its limited color scheme. The use of the figure fours layered on top of one another allows the design to be viewed as a tunnel with the characters monochromatic outlines inside. (This is especially true for the short video sequence also posted by the Fantastic Four Instagram.) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Marvel Studios (@marvelstudios) Its a visualization of the title, Horak said. Its focusing the eye and leading the eye. Basss striking work greatly influenced American design in the 1960s; the 1960s retro-futuristic aesthetic of The Fantastic Four: First Steps makes perfect sense, according to Horak. In this period, Bass completed design campaigns for major corporations, creating one unified aesthetic of primary colors and abstraction. This aesthetic screams 1960s to viewers and, likely from Marvels perspective, Marvel fans.
Category:
E-Commerce
President Donald Trump has a long-standing grudge against wind power. So it wasnt surprising that when he took office in January, he immediately started to fight the wind industry. In an executive order on his first day, Trump paused leases for offshore wind projects in federal waters. He also paused approvals for wind projects on federal land. At a rally the same day, he said, Were not going to do the wind thing. Big, ugly windmills, they ruin your neighborhood. He declared a national energy emergency, but didnt include windthe cheapest source of new energy, and an economic and job driver in red states like Oklahoma and Texasas a possible solution. He previously said he doesnt want any wind farms built while he is president. Its a big shift from the Biden administration, which saw wind power as a key part of getting to a carbon-free energy system by 2035. But despite the policy change, some wind developers say their business is still booming. Tech companies are driving energy demandand they still want renewables Demand is huge, says Jim Spencer, president and CEO of Exus Renewables North America, a company that develops, owns, and manages utility-scale renewable projects. The biggest reason: Tech companies are racing to build data centers as AI grows, and need an enormous amount of energy overall. By 2030, global data centers could require more than twice as much energy as they do now, with most of that demand coming from the U.S., according to the International Energy Agency. I’ve been doing this for 35 years and I’ve never seen such high power demandwind, solar, storage,” Spencer says. Tech companies were early adopters of large-scale wind and solar projects, and still want to source renewable energy to meet climate goals. But there are also practical and immediate reasons for the demand: Wind and solar are cheaper, in most locations, than building new gas power plants (or restarting closed coal plants, as Trump wants to do). And renewable energy is faster to build. Because of supply chain problems, it can take as long as five years to get some parts needed to make gas turbines for gas power plants. Planning and building new power generation takes years, so new projects that are opening now have been in the works since long before Trump took officeand theyre still mostly renewable. The majority of projects that are currently sitting in the interconnection queue, waiting for approval from grid operators, are also wind or solar. The wind industry still faces challenges Thats not to say that everything is easy for the wind industry now. Even before Trump’s election, wind projects declined last year due to a variety of factors, from high interest rates and permitting delays to supply chain issues and rising turbine prices. Ironically, the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark bill designed to support decarbonization, also slowed down new projects. Developers were waiting for guidance about which equipment would be considered American-made and qualify for tax credits under the IRA. Because the law was also supposed to keep tax credits in place longer than before, there was less urgency to build. There was no immediate incentive for developers to start construction right now, says Stephen Maldonado, research analyst at Wood Mackenzie. Wind installations in 2024 were the lowest in the U.S. in a decade, according to a recent report from Wood Mackenzie. The report also lowered its projections of new wind installations over the next five years by 40%. One part of the projected decline comes from offshore wind and projects on federal land that are now threatened by Trump. Exus, like some other renewable energy developers, doesn’t work on either type of project. But the overall number of turbine orders was also low in the fourth quarter of 2024 and first quarter of 2025. Maldonado attributes that to uncertainty about federal policy. And though Trump didn’t specifically target onshore wind projects on private land, his executive order includes a temporary pause on federal permits for any wind projects. That could affect permits from the Federal Aviation Administration or Fish and Wildlife Service, for example. (Exus says permits are still being issued, though the process is slow, and it’s not clear whether that’s due to policy or the fact that so many federal employees have lost their jobs.) No slowdown yet Despite the challenges, and analysts’ projections, Exus says it isn’t seeing a slowdown in its own work. New renewable projects continue to come online, from a massive solar and storage facility that will soon open in New Mexico to support a Meta data center, to a wind farm that recently opened in Pennsylvania. The company is now working on multiple RFPs for new projects. Buyers haven’t hesitated, Spencer says, even as tariffs have raised the potential for slight price increases. Tariffs will affect renewables less than some other industries, he says, because the industry has been onshoring manufacturing for a decade, and the Inflation Reduction Act accelerated that. During Trump’s first term, wind power kept growing, with a record number of installations in 2020, despite a lack of support from the administration. (The solar industry also grew 128% during his first term.) More coal plants were also retired during Trump’s first term than Barack Obama’s second term, even though Trump had vowed to end the “war on coal.” It’s not inevitable that current policies will derail renewables now.
Category:
E-Commerce
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Despite the popular image of a strong leader as one who makes bold decisions and sticks with them, great leadership actually requires adapting to changing circumstances. A course of action that seemed like a great idea on one day may be a clear losing proposition when additional information becomes available. A complexity with changing your mind as a leader is that your previous choices and plans affect a number of other peoples lives. People who work for you are currently working to implement the plan you laid out. Others, like clients or suppliers, may be planning future engagements based on the initial plan you announced. Furthermore, your change of heart may have a negative impact on some of those people. Your decision may influence peoples jobs or the success of other companies. So it’s natural to feel some regret that your choice may hurt others. It might even feel humane to delay the impact of your decision to the last moment. Resist the urge to kick that can down the road. Why prompt communication is so important As a leader, you are responsible not only for the success of an organization but also for creating a trusted environment that enables people to thrive in their work. When you withhold key information about changes in plans, you may temporarily delay peoples disappointment, but you can have a more permanent impact on the overall environment you have created. The success of most plans is a self-fulfilling prophecy. As a leader, you chart a course of action, provide resources, and move forward. Trust in your leadership creates energy for people who work for you and with you to engage in the effort to turn that plan into a reality. When you delay an announcement about a change, you waste peoples time. They have invested themselves (and perhaps other resources) in your future vision. The longer you delay, the more of that investment they could have put elsewhere. That lost time will create a resentment that will likely affect how much work people want to put into future requests you make. So, kicking the can down the road rather than communicating quickly mortgages the success of future projects to avoid facing a hard conversation in the present. What happens when you do communicate effectively You may push off a difficult conversation to spare someone from having to get bad news, or perhaps to avoid having to deliver bad news. Ultimately, though, this delay does not avoid the problemif anything, it magnifies it. When you change your mind, some people might be upset. But they are going to have to find out eventually. You may as well get it out of the way at a time when you avoid other complications like leading people to make future plans based on their (now mistaken) beliefs about the future. Finally, you may be surprised at how well most people take it when you tell them of a change of heart. Often, other people also have reservations about a course of action you have selected, and so the people you fear upsetting may instead be relieved you have reversed course. Even when youre giving news that will genuinely disappoint someone else, they’re likely to recognize that not every decision in the workplace can go in their favor. Your colleagues are probably mature enough to handle bad news with grace and professionalism. So, your concerns about the consequences of difficult conversations ma be overblown.
Category:
E-Commerce
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