Archive for December, 2011
December 29, 2011
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My friend Danielle makes really awesome jewelry. And now she has her own website, Inheritance Jewelry.
OK, granted, the website could use some work design-wise, but it’s still early days, she’s new to this world…
This is what Web 2.0 REALLY means to me, why it’s REALLY important.
It allows a young woman like Danielle to follow her dreams, without having to take out a loan, without having to sign a lease with some rich landlord in some expensive neighborhood.
This is why the web needs to stay open…
Go, Danielle, Go! Rock on.
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Thanks to Kathleen Warner for ordering the gapingvoid business card above.
I’m passionate about the idea that a business card should be more than just a way of handing out contact details, but a social object that states what you believe in, what you stand for.
Exactly.
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This cartoon was inspired by Matt Mullenweg’s very moving post over on GigaOm, “Open Web FTW”. He’s right, the web needs to stay open, WE need to stay open:
For a year now, I’ve said scripting is the new literacy. That’s something I strongly believe. In Douglas Rushkoff’s latest book, he talks about “program or be programmed.” That is, if you’re not in control of your inputs, you’re not really in control of your outputs either. You’re just a reactionary force.
[NB. gapingvoid is created on WordPress software, Mullenwag’s company. I’ve hung out with him a couple of times. A lovely fellow.]
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If a lawyer gives you her gapingvoid business card, what does that tell you?
Like Jeff says, that you’re not dealing with a normal lawyer…
Exactly.
[You can get the bizcard design above here, and if you like the design well enough to hang it on your wall, the print is for sale here. Rock on.]
I got the idea for gapingvoid business cards when I was living in New York, when I discovered that I preferred giving out my own, hand-drawn business cards to people, rather than the ho-hum business cards that my employer at the the time issued me with.
Of course, after a while it became a lot of work, drawing them every time I met someone. Eventually I started getting them printed. Then I thought, why not print them for other people? The rest is history…
I always thought there was a market for business cards that stood out. Cards that reflected the personality of the person handing them out, cards that said, “I’m not just one more random shmuck in a bar, doing the usual handing out his card to an equally random chick in a bar yada, yada, yada.”
Living in New York, in a sea of other equally opportunitist young people on the make, it was easy to be “another random guy”. I don’t want to be that random guy. I wanted to be something else.
And it worked. What started out as an act of rebellion among the suits and hipsters of Manhattan, turned into a successful business and art career.
I’m having fun. You?
December 28, 2011
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Thanks to Ben Nesvig for ordering a set of our gapingvoid business cards [You can get your own here…].
The gapingvoid business cards– my cartoons printed on the back, your personal details printed on the front– are designed to act like “Idiot Filters”. In other words, people who are cool seem to like them right away, people who are idiots always tend to ask “WTF?” So it’s a good way of gauging people, quickly.
That’s the idea, anyway. At the very least, they’ve created A LOT of fun for people over the years. And now we have more designs than ever. Feel free to ping me if you have any questions. Rock on.
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[Cartoon first published circa 2005 etc.]
So uber-famous-corporate-blogger-ninja-rockstar Jerimiah Owyang blogged about The Golden Age of Tech Blogging being over. His colleague, my friend, Brian Solis doesn’t agree. Lots of other people are yakkin’ about it as well, it seems. I guess that’s a good thing. Here are my thoughts:
1. Time to quote Shirky YET AGAIN: “So forget about blogs and bloggers and blogging and focus on this — the cost and difficulty of publishing absolutely anything, by anyone, into a global medium, just got a whole lot lower. And the effects of that increased pool of potential producers is going to be vast.” -CLAY SHIRKY in 2004.
2. The business model of blogging has been proven many times over, so pretending that it hasn’t is pointless. Indirectly, Fred Wilson’s blog is EASILY worth more to him, than what AOL paid Mike Arrington for Techcrunch, maybe by a factor of ten (and they paid over $20 million for the latter, I am told). I’m not kidding! Whether or not said proven business model suits your individual needs is another question…
3. Blogging is no longer about “The Conversation”. That moved over to Twitter, Facebook etc years ago. If you’re just looking to natter and rant with the other trolls, I guess the comment section of a large blog like Gawker or HuffPo is as good a place as any. One more waste of space wasting their time, whatever. I’m liking Google Plus a lot these days. It has the same spontaneity as Twitter, but a bit more engaging and thoughtful, somehow. I never go on Facebook much any more. Too many “civilians”.
4. We forget JUST how utterly time-consuming blogging used to be, back when it was the only game in town. I remember the early blogging days, don’t you? Remember how keeping up with the blogosphere properly took ten hours a day? Nowadays, the only people who are left blogging are the people who REALLY want to, who ACTUALLY have something to say. Everyone else is uploading cat photos on Facebook. I think this is a good thing.
5. Traffic is now harder to get than ever, but I’m OK with that. The kind of effort it takes me to get a noticeable and sustainable increase in blog traffic, ballpark, is about the same amount of time and effort it takes me to get a book deal and write the first draft. Guess which option I chose? Exactly…
6. I’m waiting for the Golden Age of Facebook and Twitter to be over, too. That way we can all get away from our computers and back to actually getting some real work done. Ha!
7. It’s the product, Stupid. My social media strategy these days has only three words: “Draw more cartoons”. In other words, create more real work, ACTUAL PRODUCT (in my case, cartoons) and the social media will fall into place, but only AFTER I’ve done the thing that actually pays the bills. Getting all obsessed with social media BEFORE you’ve created something of real, lasting value is putting the cart before the horse. But that’s an easy mistake to make online, I’m as guilty of that as anyone. Never again.
8. None of this is new. My thoughts on blogging aren’t that different than the last time I wrote a post like this one, nearly two years ago. Nor are my thoughts that different to anybody else’s I’ve seen lately, frankly. Do the math…
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After this cartoon went out in the newsletter earlier this year, we received a number of emails from people asking for female version. Here it is!
I think the Buddhist in me came out in this one. So much human suffering is tied to hanging on to things; material, emotional, or otherwise.
I believe that happiness comes from inside us - We often forget that, and spend a lot of time blaming other people for our unhappiness.
The commentary on the original image read:
“If you’re unhappy, nine times out of ten it’s because you’re clinging onto something.
Nine times out of ten, happiness and letting go are synonymous.”
Exactly.
[You can buy the print here etc.]
December 27, 2011
12 Comments
Hardly a morning goes by these days without me hearing some story on NPR Morning Edition about American economic woe. Especially around this Christmas time. People who’ve been working hard all their lives, suddenly can’t afford presents for their kids. Those kind of stories. They’re sad as hell, and they seem to be getting more and more frequent.
At the same time I keep seeing news stories like this one from the WSJ: About how competition in Silicon Valley for engineering talent is so fierce, they’re fighting over interns now:
Silicon Valley’s talent wars are going younger.
Bay Area tech companies, already in a fierce fight for full-time hires, are now also battling to woo summer interns. Technology giants like Google Inc. have been expanding their summer-intern programs, while smaller tech companies are ramping up theirs in response — sometimes even luring candidates away from college.
And then there was another story from the BBC, about how Brazil has now overtaken the UK as the world’s sixth largest economy.
A lot of the world is in flux, so it seems. And to this cartoonist, it has a simple enough explanation:
The Great Convergence is upon us, and our friend, the Internet is accelerating the process. This would be happening with our without “The 1%” misbehaving themselves– whatever the mainstream media and the Occupy crowd might say.
The good news is, if you have a talent, the world wants it, and it has never been so easy to show your talent to the world.
The bad news is, especially for us fat & lazy Americans, is that the great, century-long era of Prosperity-on-Autopilot is over.
The world still wants serious talent. And it still wants people doing the grunt work: pushing mops, digging ditches, waiting tables, answering phones, flipping burgers etc..
It’s the people in the middle that nobody knows what to do with anymore. And the politicians who claim that they do, are lying.
It’s probably too late for my generation, that ship has already sailed. But for the kids out there reading this, who are just starting out?
Learn how to work hard, work long hours. Find something you love, and then excel at it. Above all else, learn how to create, learn how to invent. That’s your only hope, really.
Like I said, no more Autopilot.
December 25, 2011
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[Link:] Personent Hodie.
1. Personent hodie
voces puerulae,
laudantes iucunde
qui nobis est natus,
summo Deo datus,
et de virgineo ventre procreatus.
2. in mundo nascitur,
pannis involvitur
praesepi ponitur
stabulo brutorum,
rector supernorum.
perdidit spolia princeps infernorum.
3. magi tres venerunt,
parvulum inquirunt,
parvulum inquirunt,
stellulam sequendo,
ipsum adorando,
aurum, thus, et myrrham ei offerendo.
4. omnes clericuli,
pariter pueri,
cantent ut angeli:
advenisti mundo,
laudes tibi fundo.
ideo gloria in excelsis Deo.
Merry Christ-Mass, Everybody.
December 22, 2011
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December 21, 2011
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[Sent out today on the newsletter. Buy the print here etc.]
The benefits of Consumer Capitalism– the dominant ideology of our age– are pretty self evident:
Lots of people having stuff, lots of things being invented, lots of livelihoods being attained, plus the greatest measure of them all– life expectancy– being increased.
But there is a cost, mostly psychological. Consumer capitalism makes us more covetous.
And covetous makes us more stressed out and less happy.
There’s no answer to it really, other than greater self-awareness…
December 20, 2011
2 Comments
[A cartoon based on the two years I spent living in New York. Buy the print here etc.]
My friend, Euan Semple is probably the guy who convinced me to switch from PC to Apple, about five years ago.
“Even opening up the cardboard box is a religious experience!”, he said.
Heh. A slight exaggeration, certainly.
But then I’m thinking… Perhaps not?
As somebody who likes to study religion, I’ve always thought that one of the more interesting questions in the world to ponder is, “What is Holy?”
Exactly. Holy. What does it actually mean?
And the same with Unholy…
When a mundane act (such as the opening of a cardboard box) is elevated (in this case, by great package design), we experience what the mystics call “The Divine”.
This doesn’t have to mean a strong belief in God, either way. They’re called mystics for a reason: the whole thing is indeed a mystery. Call it “God” if you will, call it something else completely. The mystery remains, either way.
Work, whether business or craft or just plain hard, sweaty labor, is far more interesting, fun and meaningful when one can channel one’s own sense of divinity into it, religious or otherwise. This is how we find the Holy in everyday life, religious or otherwise.
This is how we plug into “The Mystery”.
Steve Jobs knew this, instinctively. It was glaringly obvious.
December 19, 2011
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December 18, 2011
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[Sent out in yesterday’s newsletter. Buy the print here etc.]
Lots of people ask where the gapingvoid.com name comes from. Here you go, the cartoon was originally published in the Austin Chronicle, while I was attending University of Texas. The fellow peering into the viewer is Gloop, I still draw him today, when I need a kinda lumbering, human, compassionate, slightly pessimistic character.
gapeintothevoid.com was too long, so I shortened it. The rest, as they say, is history.
The original hangs in the downstairs bathroom in my mother’s house. She was an early fan. Thanks, Mom!
December 17, 2011
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I love this video.
Pringle of Scotland [the famous sweater company] has commissioned artist David Shrigley to create a humorous short animated film about life behind-the-scenes at Pringle to celebrate the brands return to Milan Fashion Week.
I love this because:
1. Shrigley is one of my favorite cartoonists in the world, and I have VERY few of those. I actually know him personally [He’s really good friends with one of my best friends in the world, the film director Dave Mackenzie]. I met him at a gallery group show in Glasgow with Mackenzie back in 1994, plus on the set of Hallam Foe.
2. Famous Scottish brands tend to be VERY twee [growing up in Edinburgh, I know this to be very true], this idea is SO OUT THERE and SO NOT TWEE. Hell, it’s not even mainstream. But it IS interesting, especially when you think it’s basically just an animated sales brochure. As I’m fond of saying, evolution in marketing is an evolution of language. In terms of old, established woolen brands, Pringle is talking to the market in a way its never been talked to before…
3. Compared to most ads out there [And it is an ad, even they like to talk about “commissioning an artist” and calling it a “film” yada yada ], it’s insanely wonderful. And way longer than a traditional 30-second spot, and yet it still keeps your attention. And completely different. When was the last time you saw a major clothing brand express this much unvarnished humanity? Exactly.
4. Like most of Shrigley’s work, it’s got a wee bit of a dark edge to it. Pringle let him keep that. Pringle didn’t ask him to change his schtick in any way.
5. I want to send this to my pals at Dewar’s Whisky, just to say to any brand people there who may be feeling timid, “See? You can be TOTALLY OUT THERE and still relevant and interesting and cool. You don’t have to do the usual, expected, traditional, REALLY ANNOYING AND LAME twee Scottish thing [“Chivalrous golfers, Anybody?”]
6. Yes, it’s a culture jam. Yes, it’s a social object.
This made me so happy, it really did. Besides that, Shrigley’s a lovely guy. Rock on.
December 16, 2011
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For reasons too tedious to mention, every time I start Firefox I am automatically taken to this Comcast Xfinity homepage, the same people who connect my apartment to the Internet.
So this is the first thing Comcast wants to tell me about this morning, when I booted up my computer? Some trivial thing about some creepy kiddie video? OK…
Really, Comcast, Of all the amazing things in the world you could’ve shared with us, you chose this?
Seriously, is that the best you can do? Is that how you really see human potential?
Is that REALLY the signal you want to be giving out about how you see your customers?
I think you can do better. You just have to decide to. Just sayin’…
[P.S. For people working in large companies (like Comcast) who wonder why appealing to the mainstream mass market doesn’t work as well as it used to, my friend Seth Godin has a REALLY GREAT new book on the subject.]
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[Sent out earlier in today’s newsletter…]
I am fortunate to have lived in Britain. It taught me JUST HOW DIRE some office parties can be. They have Christmas-office-party direness down to an art form. So I wanted to make a Xmas cartoon that paid tribute to that. With a great deal of affection, I might add…
December 15, 2011
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The sentiment of this cartoon is so self-evident, I don’t think there’s much need to paraphrase it. Suffice to say, I am reminded of an old Kung Fu maxim:
“Everybody wants to be like Sifu (i.e. teacher). And what does Sifu do? That’s right. She teaches.”
Make of that what you will…
[Sent out in today’s newsletter…]
December 14, 2011
1 Comment
SO WHAT COMES AFTER ADVERTISING?
The Golden Age of advertising– the “Mad Men” era– started about 50 years ago, with people like David Ogilvy, George Lois, Bill Bernbach leading the way, and shops like Weiden & Kennedy, BBH, Fallon, BMP, GGT, CDP and Goodby following in their wake.
This golden age came to an abrupt end, when our friend the Internet came along, with a lot of people on Madison Avenue suddenly starting to fear for their jobs.
So if traditional advertising is “dead”, what comes after it? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for the last ten years, ever since I launched gapingvoid back in 2001.
Though I wasn’t paying too much attention at the time, the answer kinda-sorta came to me back in 2004, in a line I wrote in The Hughtrain:
[Continue Reading…]
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The rumors are true: You can now get gapingvoid cartoons printed on the back of your business cards.
Check out today’s newsletter for more info, or go visit our partner’s website, overnightprints.com/gapingvoid.
Most business cards are pretty boring. I don’t think they have to be. Like anything else, there’s an art to it, there’s a decision that has to be made.
In a world of endless “sameness”, there has never been a worse time to embrace sameness. I think it’s time to up the ante.
There needs to be a smarter conversation about business cards, there really does…
Big kudos and thanks to Overnight Prints for helping make this happen. Rock on.
[PS: If you tweet this, please use the hashtag, #businesscards. Thanks!]
December 12, 2011
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[Sent out on the gapingvoid newsletter:]
We are living in a world that gets weirder all the time, especially this time of year.
So much of people’s day to day satisfaction comes from consumption, that it’s becoming harder and harder to remain objective about what matters.
We love our gadgets, we love our cars. We love our stuff. Where does this all lead?
One thing you can do around products though, is to use them as a vehicle for creating community.
Whether we like it or not, ALL community has love baked in there somewhere, even if you can’t always taste it. Maybe that is the upside here?
Even in the non-romantic usage, “Love” is a highly loaded word. Dynamite. Nitroglycerin. It’ll burn your eyes and then your skull.
But we wouldn’t have it any other way.
[Buy the print…]
December 11, 2011
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From the gapingvoid newsletter:
This is one of my favorite cartoons I drew this year. Highly autobiographical.
People who wonder why I spent so much time living in big cities– New York, London, LA etc etc need only to look at this cartoon to find their answer.
The city, besides being a great hub is also, for many people, a great metaphor for “becoming”. That’s why the kids move there. Without that metaphor, #OWS wouldn’t exist.
December 8, 2011
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Now this is a happy coincidence: The cartoon above went out in the newsletter today (I originally drew it a few years ago, during Twitter’s “Fail Whale” phase). A couple of hours after pushing the newsletter “send” button, I learn that today is also the five-year anniversary of me starting on Twitter.
I had no idea. But it certainly made me smile…
December 7, 2011
1 Comment
Very cool. Rackspace are using the cartoon above for their new “Small Teams, Big Impact” homepage.
Here at gapingvoid, we feel very honored. We really do.
Like Rackspace says,
Small teams can have a huge impact on the world.
Here we hope to inspire the small teams of tomorrow by highlighting and celebrating those impacting the world today. Return here for videos, blogs, web casts and other information on the latest startups and emerging technologies.
OK, so Rackspace and gapingvoid do it differently. No matter. It’s still prayer to the same god, basically.
Trying to change the world for the better, while making an honest living in the process.
Trying to be helpful, as Rob La Gesse likes to say.
December 5, 2011
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December 1, 2011
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This cartoon caused quite a stir last week, when I sent it out in the newsletter. If you want to print it out, you can download the high-rez version here etc.
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This cartoon is a reworking of a riff I have done before, on Virgil’s great and eternal aphorism, “Love Begets Love”.
Lots of little love hearts with little bits and pieces, connecting them in random clusters.
In this hyper-networked, post-psychedelic world of ours, expect allusions between “Love” and “Connectivity” to become more common.
Because they are, anyway…
[This cartoon went out originally in the daily newsletter. Subscribe here etc.]
