Recently in Behind-the-Scenes Category

How WIRED magazine helped visualize the movie Argo

The first time I heard Argo pitched as a magazine story was back around March 2007 in WIRED's monthly pitch meeting on the 3rd floor of our swanky SOMA offices in San Francisco. These meetings would take place towards the back of the open floored offices in a large conference room with a gigantic fluorescent pink rolling door. There was never enough seats so people would be crowded around the conference table, standing along the perimeter, calling in etc.

Nick Thompson, who was pitching this story, was calling in through a VTC from the Condé offices in NYC. I genarally loved when Nick pitched because he would always just go for it and the stories and writers he sourced were often fringe, his enthusiasm palpable.

To honor the members of this year's Best-Dressed Hall of Fame, Chris Dixon and the team at Vanity Fair commissioned fashion illustrator David Downton to sketch 5 of their stylish ladies.

Downton traveled to Paris, New York, and London to paint his portraits from real-life sittings, a unique way of doing illustration in this day and age. 

Take a look behind the scenes HERE as Downton sketches Sofia Coppola, Carolina Herrera, Daphne Guiness, Iman, and Countess Jacqueline De Ribes for Vanity Fair's September issue.

Anybody who knows former Brides CD (and former SPD VP) Gretchen Smelter knows she was born to travel. So, after a stellar career that has included stops at Fast Company, Martha Stewart Living, SmartMoney, and Real Simple, it was not a big surprise that in September 2010, she jumped at the opportunity to work in Hong Kong as the Group CD for Edipresse, publishers of the Asian editions of the renowned British Tatler franchise and 180 other properties.

In early 2011, Smelter and photographer Frédéric LaGrange traveled to Bali to get married, and decided they wanted to stay. By October, they were living in the island paradise, and traveling and working all over Asia. Gretchen can count Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, China, Macau, Japan, and Turkey among the recent stamps in her passport.

Recently she and her husband were hired by Aman Resorts to create a book about their outpost in Bali. That's where we caught up with her.

Welcome to FTDO (From the Desk of...), a new series that answers the question "What IS all of that crap on your desk?"