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Nagi Noda was maybe best known for her “Sentimental Journey” video for Japanese pop star Yuki, which featured multiple “analog” clones of the singer and influenced Jack White’s 2006 Coca-Cola commercial. Noda’s body of work included short films, sculpture and even character art like Hanpanda, the half panda/half other beast who appeared in her art exhibits and was also part of a collaboration with L.A./N.Y. fashion brand Libertine. Last year, she collaborated with painter Mark Ryden on her own fashion label Broken Label. Her most recent creations included delightfully strange hairpieces in the shapes of various breeds of dog.

“Beyond being a brilliant artist and wonderful talent, Nagi was one of the most incredibly unique spirits that I have known,” says Sheila Stepanek, CEO/EP Partizan US, which represented Noda. “Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends.” Stepanek says that Noda passed “in her Mark Ryden dress, Chanel boots, perfect make-up with Viktor & Rolf lace black eye lashes.”

Source: Creativity Online.

Much as we love Nick Park’s national treasures, surely they are much more suited to flogging tea bags than glad rags? Mother‘s Hibby and Harvey campaign from the late 90s was far more on-brand. With their delightfully catty captions — “Nice Helmut” — the knitted dolls spoke directly to the fashionistas who shop at Harvey Nicks as well as modelling the clothes. It’s hard to see Wallace and his dog having the same high fashion resonance.

And yet. Marks and Spencer has just launched an ad campaign featuring that beloved working class stereotype Del Boy in an attempt to move away from its current upmarket image. Food retailers in the UK are increasingly under pressure from the ‘Aldi effect’ with credit-crunched shoppers switching to budget outlets. M&S claims that Del Boy has “universal appeal with the British public”. Maybe Harvey Nics is attempting a similar shift by adopting the distinctly mainstream Wallace and Gromit. But what does a luxury brand have without its exclusivity? Luxe brands from M&S upwards may well be about to find out…

Google has announced its launch of a ‘cloud computing’-focussed web browser, Chrome. Is this just what the world needs, or a sign that the Big G has jumped the shark? Hard to tell at this point, but they’re certainly pressing a lot of the right buttons with both product and announcement. Chrome is based on the WebKit open source renderer (same as Apple’s Safari), and the whole project is also Open, natch. The system’s architecture is, according to Google, designed with security and performance in mind.

And — most excellently exciting for alphanerds everywhere — Google has commissioned an explanatory online comic from the Tufte of comic design himself, Scott McCloud, which explains exactly What Chrome is All About. Perfect material for writers (such as yours truly) having their first latte of the day and in need of primo fresh bloggables. Now that’s how to market yourself online in 2008…