Brands
Banaja Samal appointed head visual merchandiser at Skechers South Asia
Former Puma executive to lead retail presentation and in-store experience
MUMBAI: Skechers South Asia Pvt. Ltd. has appointed Banaja Samal as head visual merchandiser, strengthening its focus on in-store storytelling and retail presentation across the region.
In her new role, Samal will lead the visual merchandising strategy and execution for Skechers’ South Asia operations. She will focus on enhancing the in-store brand experience while ensuring consistent retail presentation across the company’s growing network of stores.
Samal brings more than a decade of experience in retail design and visual merchandising across leading fashion and lifestyle brands. She joins Skechers after an eight-year stint at Puma Group, where she most recently served as visual merchandise manager.
During her time at Puma, she also worked as visual merchandiser and LFR concept manager, and earlier as assistant manager overseeing visual merchandising for regions including Karnataka and Mumbai.
Prior to this, Samal worked with Blackberrys Menswear as a visual merchandiser, managing multiple eastern markets including Kolkata, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. She also served as a concept designer at StudioJ, developing window displays and in-store concepts for various brands.
Samal began her career as a textile designer with Universal Textile Mills and Jaipuria Silk Mills, gaining early experience in surface techniques, prints and design development.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in design from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, India.
Brands
Amagi unveils AI tool to automate artwork for global streaming
New engine turns video into ready-to-use artwork across formats fast
MUMBAI: Amagi has introduced an AI-powered artwork engine designed to take one of streaming’s most tedious tasks off human hands: resizing and reworking visuals for every platform imaginable.
Part of its Amagi Now platform, the new feature uses the company’s Amagi Intelligence layer to transform raw video into fully formatted, platform-ready promotional artwork in a single workflow. In an industry where one title may need dozens of visual variants for Fast, OTT, connected TV and social media, the promise is simple: less manual grind, more creative breathing room.
Instead of starting with templates, the system begins with the content itself. It scans video frames, picking up cues like composition, emotion and narrative context to identify the one image that best captures the story. That chosen frame becomes the foundation for everything that follows, with editorial teams stepping in only to review and fine-tune.
From there, the engine gets to work. A single approved image is automatically adapted into multiple formats, from widescreen to vertical and everything in between, while preserving framing and complying with platform-specific layout rules. The result is a neat trick: consistency without compromise, and speed without chaos.
Crucially, the entire process stays within the Amagi ecosystem. Teams can add logos, overlays and title treatments directly inside the platform, while built-in controls ensure every change is tracked and approved without endless back-and-forth.
For media companies juggling global distribution, the implications are significant. Artwork that once took days can now be turned around in minutes, cutting down on repetitive tasks, rejection cycles and operational overheads.
Amagi co-founder and chief technology officer Srividhya Srinivasan, said the move is about more than efficiency. As the number of platforms multiplies, she noted, the final step of getting the right visual in the right place has become a bottleneck. By teaching AI to understand the “soul” of a story, the company aims to free up creative teams while keeping storytelling intact.
The feature is already available to Amagi Now users, with a broader rollout planned from the second quarter of 2026.
