Hugh MacLeod
Cartoons drawn on the back of business cards
I'm a cartoonist.
I sell limited-edition prints.
I wrote a book.
I'm CEO of Stormhoek USA, which markets South African wine in the States.
I also draw private commissions.
Prints |
Opening | Current |
|---|---|---|
NY NY |
$275 |
February 28, 2011
[Download the printable version here etc.]
For the past couple of months, I’ve been trying to capture the Rackspace essence in a single, 550-pixel-wide cartoon.
So what is THE ONE THING they need to let the world know? Above all else?
My opinion? That they love startups.
Hence the cartoon above.
Bada. Bing.
February 25, 2011
[“Burden”: You can buy the print here etc.]
My old buddy from my early London social media days, Lloyd Davis has an Evil Plan. A US road trip with a big social media angle:
“Please Look After This Englishman”.
In March 2010, I traveled, sometimes with others, sometimes alone, coast-to-coast across the USA from Boston to Los Angeles. Our main method of transportation was the train – We chose to pre-plan our itinerary and to organise tweetups wherever we could in order to meet people and make new connections.
One of our goals was to visit the SXSWi festival in Austin TX via a more interesting route than direct flight nut primarily we wanted to see whether it could be done and what help our online social networks could be.
I learned that letting go of control of where we were staying and what we would do led to far richer experiences. Yes it was interesting and exciting to meet new people and those I’d only ever tweeted at but the highpoints of the journey included not knowing where we were going to stay in New Orleans until a friend of a friend lent us her house for four days or when I unexpectedly found myself playing ukulele with 25 Hawaiian-shirted senior citizens in Maryland.
South By South West is an annual pilgrimage for a lot of people. Lloyd likes to take that annual SXSW pilgrimage to an extreme. An annual spiritual search, as it were. “Austin as Jerusalem 2.0″, as it were. As opposed to just another trade show for handing out business cards, getting drunk and hanging out in strip clubs. It’s inspiring to see…
[Got a good #EvilPlans story you want to share? Feel free to ping me via gapingvoid@gmail.com, Thanks!]
February 22, 2011
[Anthony Adams was a recent college graduate working for IBM. Now he sells hangover cures:]
Hi Hugh,
My name is Anthony Adams, I am 26 years old.
I worked at IBM out of college (2007) in a cubicle doing software sales/order taking and sitting in death-by-Powerpoint meetings and I hated it. Actually, hate is a strong word. I tolerated it. And that’s even worse in a weird way. Comparing horror stories with my fellow recent college graduates, my job actually wasn’t that bad. But I knew after about a year of trying to play the game that it wasn’t for me.
So I hatched an evil plan and spent my nights creating a dietary supplement that prevents hangovers at www.drinkthc.com. The site is pretty bland and in the process of being redone now that I have investors and bigger plans, but I started with nothing more than a desire to get out of the corporate world, threw myself into the unknown and came out alive and much better off than I was before.
I’ve sold my product through the internet to 41 countries on six continents and am just getting started, with appearances on NBC and Thrillist.com along the way. In hatching my evil plan, I have developed skills they don’t teach in business school (SEO, internet marketing, etc.) that will ultimately allow me to continue working for myself without ever having to go get another corporate job, even if my current evil plan happens to stall.
All the best,
Anthony Adams
[Got a good #EvilPlans story you want to share? Feel free to ping me via gapingvoid@gmail.com, Thanks!]
February 21, 2011
Chris Mitchell sent me the following e-mail:
Dear Hugh,
Recently I interviewed Kevin Kelly, the co-founder of WIRED magazine. The whole interview was about the “lost decade” of his life where he spent pretty much his entire 20s travelling through Asia taking photos. No money, no job security, no career, no nothing. Just taking photos and hanging around. 30 years on, he showcased some of those photos, which are stunning, in a book called Asia Grace. The images are now available to view for free at www.asiagrace.com.
The reason I’m bothering you with this is because there was one phrase which Kelly used in the interview that really stuck with me — he referred to travelling as “a jolt to the soul”. And that phrase struck me as EXACTLY the sort of sentiment I might see in one of your cartoons. Isn’t that what we all need (whether we know it or not — or want it or not?) — a jolt to the soul?
The interview is here if you want to see it for yourself.
Hope you find this interesting,
Best
Chris Mitchell
Get yourself an #EvilPlan. Give your soul a jolt.
Or give your soul a jolt, and watch the #EvilPlan suddenly appear in its wake. Yes, that is actually how it often happens…
[Got a good #EvilPlans story you want to share? Feel free to ping me via gapingvoid@gmail.com, Thanks!]
February 18, 2011
Fun.… Tanya Mulkidzhanova from the Ukraine read EVIL PLANS, then posted this picture via Twitter.
“Everybody needs an Evil Plan”. Exactly.
[Available from: Amazon. Barnes & Noble. Borders. 800-CEO-READ etc.]
February 17, 2011
I took this photograph when I was in New York last week, back in my old neighborhood…
The Corner Bistro was my regular watering hole, back when I lived in the West Village in the late 1990s, back when I was first drawing my trademark “cartoons on the back of business cards”.
I’d stumble in there late-at-night a few times a week. Great hamburgers.
Jeff would pour me a drink. Maker’s Mark on the rocks.
Jeff was a photographer. Nice guy. Great bartender. He liked my cartoons. I’d show him the new ones. He’d tell me which ones he liked.
I liked Jeff. We had a rapport. This was before I was ever published. This was long before blogging or Web 2.0.
This was when I was still unknown. A nobody. A goofball nobody in a tweed jacket, who would sit at the end of the bar for hours on end, doodling on the back of business cards for no reason.
So the Saturday I was in New York last week, I walk into The Corner Bistro, again.
Jeff was working; he’s still there. He’s married and has a kid now. He’s got a regular job doing something, but tends bar once a week for the hell of it.
He remembered me!
I give him a signed copy of Ignore Everybody [I had brought one with me, with the express intention of giving it to him], the book that was inspired by my days when I lived in New York– my lazy weekends in the West Village, my Saturday afternoons at the Corner Bistro, enjoying a drink, watching the cabs through the window, driving up Hudson, as Charlie Parker played on the best jukebox in Manhattan.
It as really good to see Jeff again. It had been over a decade. It felt like coming home. It was nice to be able to say to somebody from the old ‘hood. “Yeah. I made it. Finally.”
“This is an awesome New York story,” he said.
He’s right. It is.
Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, New York. Seriously…
[ Available from: Amazon. Barnes & Noble. Borders. 800-CEO-READ etc.]
“Everybody needs an EVIL PLAN. Everybody needs that crazy, out-there idea that allows them to ACTUALLY start doing something they love, doing something that matters. Everybody needs an EVIL PLAN that gets them the hell out of the Rat Race, away from lousy bosses, away from boring, dead-end jobs that they hate. Life is short.”
My second book, EVIL PLANS launched today. Here are some notes:
1. EVIL PLANS is basically a meditation on “The Unification of Work and Love”. Something a lot of us strive for; something worth striving for. What does it take for somebody to be able to love what they do for a living? What has to happen? What has to be given up? What state of mind does one have to be in? Questions that never get old.…
2. Like I said earlier, the book doesn’t matter; the conversation matters. How people conceive and execute their own Evil Plans is a subject worth exploring deeply. All the book can do is help get the conversation going. Same with this blog.
3. The first line in the book is, “Everybody needs an Evil Plan”. That is my belief, that is my mantra. Besides drawing cartoons, Evil Plans is what my career has been about all these years– writing about them, discovering them, uncovering then, studying them, creating them, My own and other people’s.
4. People are talking about the book already. Fellow Penguin/Portfolio authors, Pam Slim, Jonathan Fields and Daniel Pink already have reviews up, plus you can see what people are saying on Twitter via the #EvilPlans hashtag.
5. This is only the beginning. I wrote the book to start a conversation about Evil Plans, not to be the definitive answer on the subject. Yes, I have some Evil Plans about Evil Plans. Funny how that works…
6. Thanks to everybody who helped make this happen, especially Jillian and Maureen over at Penguin, and my business partner, Jason, who had to put up with my nonsense for all those weeks. You guys rock.
February 14, 2011
I remember the day, back in the early 1990s, when I first came across the great business writer, Tom Peters. Most TV shows are forgotten within hours of watching, but this one still stays with me, two decades later.
Tom was doing a PBS program on the Mittelstand, those amazingly plucky, medium-sized German companies that somehow manage to compete successfully on a global level, in spite of their relatively small size.
Tom was interviewing Horst Brandstätter, the owner and CEO of Playmobil, the famous German toy company.
And this is the part I REALLY remember– to paraphrase:
TOM: Hmmm… These Playmobil toys of yours… they do amazingly well, all over the world. So what’s their secret? What do they do that’s so interesting?
HORST: It’s not what the toy does that’s interesting. It’s what the child does with the toy that’s interesting.
BOOM! A moment of clarity. One that sticks with me, like I said, twenty years later.
When I was doing that cartoon work for Intel last month- “A processor is an expression of human potential”, I was still thinking about what Horst had said, all those years ago. Very much so.
What Horst said is true, whether you’re running a small mom n’ pop cheese emporium in Greenwich Village, or a multibillion titan like Intel: To borrow heavily from Kathy Sierra, the product doesn’t get to be kick-ass until the user kicks ass first.
Don’t talk about yourself. Talk about something else. Aim for something higher. Talk about the user. Remember Playmobil. Never forget the child playing with it.
I know I like to yack on endlessly about “It’s all about human potential.” I know its cliche, but then again, I’m not wrong, either. This is why we exist. To find out.
Thanks, Tom…
February 13, 2011
This Valentine’s, if you want to send somebodye some love, eHarmony, the big dating site has a “Virtual Valentine’s” app over on their Facebook page.
And yes, their using my cartoons for it.
This is very cool– it gets my work seen by a lot of people that I don’t reach by my normal channels.
And of course, if you like any of the cartoons, they’re available as fine art prints over at the gapingvoid gallery…
February 9, 2011
[The Cube Grenade I did for Shit Creek Consulting etc.]
Traditional advertising doesn’t work very well.
Sure, it tries, and tries hard, but most of the time, it fails.
It fails far worse now than it ever did during the golden era of TV or print. Those days are gone. We live in The Internet Era now.
Old, traditional advertising was all about creating messages for the media, not about creating social objects for the people using the media.
“Social Objects” is what makes the Internet work, what makes the Internet possible.
Without the social objects, there would simply be no World Wide Web.
Social objects are part of the Web’s very DNA.
In The Internet Era, an ad that isn’t first and foremost a social object, is useless waste of money. Even if we’re not talking about the Internet, per se.
Which is why I invented Cube Grenades: social objects in cartoon form, designed to star real conversations between people.
To me, Cube Grenades aren’t just about cartoons. Cube Grenades are about something far more important– they’re about doing something that creates real change between people, that creates something that actually matters to people.
Social Objects: I use cartoons. What do you use? Serious question.
February 3, 2011
[The EVIL PLANS print. Signed, limited-editon of 500 etc.]
As most of you already know, my second book, EVIL PLANS comes out on February 17th.
To celebrate the book launch, I’m offering a FREE, signed, 8″ x 10″ limited edition EVIL PLANS art print to the first 500 people who pre-order the book.
[Yes, you can get a signed print if you’ve already pre-ordered the book. Sorry, this offer is US-only, not international. No, Sorry, this offer is not open to Kindle buyers, hardback only etc.]
1. The first 500 people who order the book AND send their electronic receipt/confirmation number to EvilPlansBook@gmail.com will get a free, signed, limited-edition “EvilPlans” print like the one above. 8 x 10″. Limited edition of 500. Hand-signed by me.
2. Order the EVIL PLANS book from any one of these online booksellers:
Amazon.
Barnes & Noble.
Borders.
800-CEO-READ. (great for bulk buys)
3. Then please forward your receipt/confirmation number to this special email address: EvilPlansBook@gmail.com. You’ll receive a confirmation email with directions for submitting your shipping address within 24 hours.
4. This offer is limited to only the first 500 people who email us their receipts — I’ll post an update here to let you know if and when the special offer has been closed.
5. This offer is for U.S. ORDERS ONLY. Sorry, Global Sportsfans, but the logistics are just WAY too complex to ship them abroad. Long story. Ouch.
6. If you’ve already pre-ordered the book and live in the U.S., no worries, you can still get in on the deal - just be in the first 500 to send in your receipt, and I’ll happily honor it.
7. This offer is hardback only. Not for Kindle. Sorry.
8. Please do not contact me personally to get on this list — please just use EvilPlansBook@gmail.com.
9. Thanks Again, As Always, for your Love and Support!
–Hugh
February 1, 2011
So I drew this cartoon earlier today for Rackspace.
An idea for a greeting card. An “Apology” card. For when Rackspace screws up [ALL companies screw up occasionally].
Just a way of saying sorry. Of staying human.
It could be printed on to a card and put in an envelope. Or it could just be a digital image you put in an email or on a website.
That kind of thing…
[You can see the other cartoons I’ve done for Rackspace here.]
[Download the printable version here etc.]
To mark the launch of my upcoming book, EVIL PLANS on February 17th, I thought I’d do a special cartoon for my biggest client, Rackspace.
The first line in the book is “Everybody needs an Evil Plan”. This sentiment would apply to both big companies like Rackspace and, or course, the people who work for them.
So there was a natural fit. Plus I dig the red…
Hmmm… Thinking of making this one a print.
[You can pre-order the book here.]
[You can see the other cartoons I’ve done for Rackspace here.]
![[Download the printable version here etc.]](http://gapingvoid.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/rackspace-wls-001j2.jpg){kind=link}
