a marketing 2.0 icon

[The Pur­ple Cow print. 39“x28”]

A few days ago, with the bles­sing of Seth Godin, I announ­ced the Pur­ple Cow Print. Here are some more of my thoughts, in no par­ti­cu­lar order:

1. I wan­ted to create an icon for the world I currently live in. The internet-enabled, Mar­ke­ting 2.0 world. Seth’s 2003 book, “Pur­ple Cow” see­med to sum up that world for me best. Tur­ning into a print i.e. an ico­nic ver­sion of the world he spoke about, was a no-brainer. You walk into somebody’s office and see that print on their wall, you have no doubt wha­tsoe­ver which world­view he’s alig­ned to.
2. I lear­ned this while mar­ke­ting wine: What’s inte­res­ting is not the liquid in the bottle, or what vine­yard it came from, but the con­ver­sa­tions that hap­pen around it. Same with art. I wan­ted to make a print that HAD NO CHOICE but to start a con­ver­sa­tion. A con­ver­sa­tion about what? Not the work of art per se, but what the thing that the icon repre­sents– the ideas in the book.
3. It’s the big­gest print I have made so far: 39x28”. That’s BIG for a print. That’s a lot of pur­ple.
4. Though I used “Web 2.0″ tech to mar­ket it, in many ways the print was a sta­te­ment AGAINST what Web 2.0 seems to have been evol­ving into these last cou­ple of years… a place where the shiny new tools seem to mat­ter A LOT MORE to peo­ple than the objects peo­ple were buil­ding WITH the shiny new tools.
5. Though I’m really, really unbe­lie­vably happy with the num­ber of pre-orders we have got­ten so far, I believe the print will be A LOT MORE inte­res­ting to A LOT MORE peo­ple once they see it han­ging on other people’s walls. Once they see the mole­cu­les with their own eyes. Once THE REAL con­ver­sa­tions begin. The cen­tral the­sis to Seth’s book is “Be Remar­ka­ble”. I went all meta and used his book design as a star­ting point to create something remar­ka­ble myself.
6. Some­body asked me recently if the way I mar­ke­ted my prints [i.e. via Web 2.0] was part of the art­work itself? Well, I believe that all art is infor­med by its social dimen­sion, inc­lu­ding the com­mer­cial bit. The fact that you bought the print off a blog, rather than from a tra­di­tio­nal art gallery, does indeed inform the story behind it. But you can just as easily take that theory so far. In the end, it’s made of paper and hangs on a wall. Theory can be a dis­trac­tion. some­ti­mes.
7. One of my great car­too­nist heroes, Char­les Schultz, once said, “If I were bet­ter at dra­wing, I’d make pain­tings. If I were bet­ter at wri­ting, I’d write books. So ins­tead I draw car­toons”. That’s exactly how I feel about my own work. I don’t see my work han­ging in the Louvre any time soon. What I do see, howe­ver, and what gets far more inte­res­ting to me with time, is how peo­ple use my work fro their own ends, for hel­ping them find their own sense of pur­pose. Seth’s book, or this print, won’t change your life. ONLY YOU will change your life. It’s only the job of the artist or wri­ter to maybe give you a nudge in the right direc­tion.
8. I am insa­nely gra­te­ful to Seth Godin for allo­wing me to run with this idea. He rules. Thank you, Seth!
[Check out The Pur­ple Cow print over at gapingvoidgallery.com.]