May 25, 2009
‘cube grenades’: using my cartoons to help your business kick ass
["Dinosaur" Cube Grenade for sale at the gapingvoid gallery.]
I’m currently accepting new commissions for “Cube Grenades”. Please read on for some Cube Grenade case studies, or for more background theory, read the Cube Grenade archives. Thanks! gapingvoid@gmail.com.
‘Cube Grenades’, I believe, is where my art works the best- small Social Objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage– to start a conversation, to cause disruption, to spread an idea etc. And I want to work with clients to make more of them.
1. CASE STUDY: SHIT CREEK CONSULTING
The groovy cats over at Shit Creek Consulting commissioned me to design them their own “Cube Grenade”. After looking at the half-dozen or so ideas I presented to them, they chose the one above. I believe they’re looking to use it for their business cards, for example.
Shit Creek are a Microsoft Gold Partner. It seems a big part of their business is coming in and cleaning up the mess left behind by the large tech consultancies [I’m not naming any names]. So that’s the idea I ran with.
The name of their company implies they have a lot of attitude. They wanted a cartoon that conveyed this. Easy. It was a fantastic commission and I’m very happy with the cartoon they chose.
[The Cube Grenade archive is here...]
2. CASE STUDY: KULA MARKETING
[The “Cube Grenade” that Kula Partners commissioned me to draw for them. You can download it here and print it out etc.]
In December, 2009 Social Marketing Whizz, Carman Pirie and his colleagues launched a new company, Kula Partners.
As the idea behind their company was partially inspired by my writings on Kula and Social Objects, they commissioned me to design a special Cube Grenade for them, which I gladly did.
I’m very happy with how the piece turned out. It illustrates nicely a point I’ve been harping on for a while now– “People Matter, Objects Don’t”- i.e. what makes a product or brand interesting is not the thing itself, but the human conversations that happen around it.
Congrats to Kula Partners on their launch, and Big Thanks for being such great clients! Rock on.
[The Cube Grenade archive is here...]
3. CASE STUDY: THE MONSTER IN YOUR HEAD
Jerry Colonna used to be a Venture Capitalist. He was EXTREMELY successful as a partner with Fred Wilson at Flatiron Partners. Before that, he was an investment banker on Wall Street.
Then he decided he wanted out of the business. He had made his money, he now wanted to give back. He wanted to teach.
After teaching business classes at CUNY in New York for a little while, he set himself up as a business coach. A damn good one.
“A bit like being a shrink,” he told me, “but more business-focused.”
A big part of his modus operandi is not telling people what to do with teir businesses, but trying to get them over their fears of acheiving that which they MUST do, if they want to become the people they one day hope to be.
“The issues my clients fear the most tend not to be the actual stuff out there- competition, cashflow, marketing,” he says, “but the worst-case imaginary scenarios. ‘The Monster Inside Their Heads’, as it were. So a central tenet to what I do is helping them to get over The Monster.”
So he commissioned me to draw a Monster-themed “Cube Grenade”, as a signed, fine-art print to give away as presents to his best customers and allies. something to keep on the office wall as a constant reminder.
I was glad to do it. I’ve always got my fair share of Monsters, myself. Rock on.
[The Cube Grenade archive is here...]
4. CASE STUDY: AGENCIACLICK
In early 2009 I was hired by a Brazilian ad agency, agenciaclick to create a privately commissioned edition of the Cube Grenade above.
As with my other clients, they didn’t want these prints just for themselves; they wanted to give these out to their clients, as conversation starters.
“All brands are open brands? Huh? What does that mean? Do you agree with it? Why? What does “open” actually mean? What does “brand” actually mean…?” You get the picture. The same idea that made The Blue Monster so successful. Again, it wasn’t about the message, the object. It was all about the social.
[The Cube Grenade archive is here...]
5. CASE STUDY: STORMHOEK
This is a design I did for Stormhoek, a small wine brand in South Africa, that I’ve been working for, off and on for five years.
[The Cube Grenade archive is here...]
6. “ART AND THE REAL WORLD”
[Originally posted on this blog, October, 2009]
[“Portfolio Number One”, hanging in a collector’s office in Germany.]
I’ve been playing around with this line a lot recently: “Art For The Real World”.
I’m interested in how art affects what some people call “The Real World”- the workplace, the world of work, the world of business. That’s what the Cube Grenade idea is all about.
My advertising buddy, Vinny Warren, grew up in a Roman Catholic household in Ireland. He was telling me that his parents would always have a few religious icons hanging on the wall somewhere. Pictures of Saints, Mary & Baby Jesus, that kind of thing.
Why? Says Vinny, “To remind us who we are.”
Art that reminds you who you are. Exactly. What applies in Catholic households also applies in places of business. Shared Meaning. Exactly. Social Objects. Exactly.
I don’t think any of this is rocket science…
[The Cube Grenade archive is here...]
[Update:] John left a good comment:
I think surrounding ourselves with icons, art, books and such to remind ourselves of who we are, where we have been and where we hope to go is essential to keeping our hearts alive. It is too easy to lose our way. My office is full of these things.
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Very engaging work! Best wishes.
Love the moleskins…
Great stuff…. Do you have 125×125 ad available for my websites and blogs? Well, my site is a blog, but you get the idea
And, are crumbs available?