about gapingvoid
Send to Kindle
“Social Media happens around Social Objects, not the other way around.“At the core of any social media campaign, there are Social Objects.
Social Objects are the Alpha and Omega of Social Media. Without the former, THERE IS NO LATTER, end of story.
So that’s what gapingvoid does. We make Social Objects; that’s what the cartoons are, that’s what “Cube Grenades” are.
We make social objects, big and small. For businesses, brands and individuals.
Check out the Cube Grenade page. We’ve made social objects for large companies like Microsoft, Rackspace and Purina; we’ve made them for small startups and individuals.
I went on record years ago, saying, “Social Objects are the future of marketing.” With the Internet, time has proved me right.
My business partner, Jason Korman and I are experts at this stuff. Feel free to email us anytime at gapingvoid@gmail.com, Thanks.
We’re currently accepting new private and corporate commissions a.k.a. “Cube Grenades”. Please read on for some selected case studies, or for more background theory, read the commission archives. Thanks! gapingvoid@gmail.com.
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.
1. SHIT CREEK CONSULTING
The groovy cats over at Shit Creek Consulting commissioned me to design them their business card. After looking at the half-dozen or so ideas I presented to them, they chose the one above.
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 commission archive is here…]
2. TECHCRUNCH
For the last five years I’ve designed the poster for the annual Techcrunch Party. This is the one I did for July, 2010.
[The commission archive is here…]
3. THOUGHTWORKS
A “cube grenade” commission I just completed for Thoughtworks, the global IT consulting company.
Thoughtworks has this term, “Watermelon”, to describe a project that goes terribly wrong, that looks all well and good on the outside (green), but as the project comes to an end, turns out to be a huge ol’ expensive mess on the inside (red). I just took the idea and ran with it.
We’re going to turn this design into a 100 large framed prints, as Christmas presents for their clients. A fun little “conversation starter” to hang on their walls… which of course, is what the the whole cube grenade idea is all about. “Art With Purpose” etc.
Fun!
4. INTEL
“The processor is an expression of human potential”. Exactly.
“Silicon chip as metaphor for blank canvas.” Exactly.
So this was my idea for my client, Intel. You know, the big microprocessor company. “Silicon Chips” etc.
First I drew a wee doodle of a microprocessor, like the one above.
Then I added a tagline to the image. “The processor is an expression of human potential”.
This was my “blank canvas” to start with, as it were.
And then I started to fill said blank canvas with images. As demonstrated below:
The images themselves don’t matter per se. The fact they were drawn by me doesn’t matter, either. That’s not the point.
The point is, as always, human potential. And what Intel can do to help said human potential reveal itself.
“The processor is an expression of human potential”. Exactly.
“Silicon chip as metaphor for blank canvas.” Exactly.
Then I added the Intel logo and their tagline, “Visibly Smart”.
We printed these up as fine art prints. Then I hand-signed them at the Intel stand at the 2001 CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas. You can seethe photos here on Flickr.
[The commission archive is here…]
5. ORGPRENEUR.COM
[“Sacred Zombie Cow”. Click here to download free high-rez download etc.]
Thanks to David Gammel of Orgpreneur.com for the great commission. Backstory here.
A “Sacred Zombie Cow” is David’s term for an idea that still lives within an organization, that has long outlived its usefulness.
[The commission archive is here…]
6. PRIVATE COMMISSION– TARA AND REMI
Recently I completed one of my most ambitious pieces in a while– a private commission from Tara, for her boyfriend, Remi’s birthday.
Go here to check out all the photos and the complete backstory.
[Though I haven’t talked about it too much on the blog, yes, I do private commissions. Feel free to contact me at gapingvoid@gmail.com if you want to discuss further, Thanks.]
[The commission archive is here…]
7. PURINA
February, 2010 I flew to St. Louis, to give a talk at Purina, the giant pet food company that’s owned by Nestle. It was their big, annual digital summit. All their top digital marketing folk (and their top ad agency digital folk) were there.
I talked about “Social Objects”, and how I believe they are the future of marketing.
Above is the print they commissioned me to draw for them. I like how it turned out. “All products are information” refers back to something I wrote a few years ago, “The Kinetic Quality”.
How often do large, well-known companies call you up and ask you to draw a cartoon for them? Exactly. I’ve worked in the tech world for big clients before– Sun, Dell, Microsoft etc– but this is my firstcommission with a large, FMCG brand (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods). Not to mention, I’ve always held Nestle and Purina in very high regard. So naturally, I was pretty excited. Rock on.
[The commission archive is here…]
8. FIZZ
I did this cube grenade for Fizz, the well-known Word-Of-Mouth marketing agency [They did all that ground-breaking stuff for Pabst Blue Ribbon etc.].
This idea is so simple… do I really have to explain it? Exactly.
[The commission archive is here…]
9. RACKSPACE
These are three from an ongoing series of cube grenades I was commissioned to do for Rackspace, the large hosting company in San Antonio. I was hired by Rob La Gesse [he’s the same guy who hired uber-blogger, Robert Scoble], to create new ideas/messages in order to shake things up internally. So far it’s working.
[You can see the Rackspace cartoon archive here.]
[The commission archive is here…]
10. 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 their businesses, but trying to get them over their fears of achieving 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 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 commission archive is here…]
11. CRASHCOURSE.CA
A wee commission I did for crashcourse.ca, an education resource. Yes, I wrote the headline. Go see.
[The commission archive is here…]
12. THE ESCAPE POD
My old advertising buddy, Vinny Warren, commissioned me to draw him a Cube Grenade for his Chicago-based ad agency, The Escape Pod.
“We are not in the advertising business, we are in the decommodification business” is a line of mine that Vinny has been borrowing from me for a while now. So it seemed appropriate to design something around that.
[The commission archive is here…]
13. ZEALEAP
Tim Porthouse over at Zealeap.com commissioned this design for his company. The copy at the bottom (which I wrote) reads:
“when a business stops creating, it dies. when a business stops creating culture, it dies. business cultures are not created, they are re-created. business cultures are not created, they are co-created. without collaboration, there is no creation. a business that does not understand its own culture. does not understand its own business. culture matters. the world has gotten too interesting and too competitive to think otherwise. reality is scary. reality is wonderful.”
Cultural Transformation, Baby. That’s where it’s at these days. Exactly.
[The commission archive is here…]
14. HNI
A cube grenade I did for HNI Insurance.
A lot of HNI’s trucking clients operate with profit margins of around 2%. Ouch.
I like the cartoon just because it’s brutally in-your-face and to the point. No messing around.
Of course, the easiest way for their clients to increase their margin, is to lower their risk. Which is where HNI comes in. Ker-chiing.
[More HNI cartoons here etc.]
[The commission archive is here…]
15. 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 commission archive is here…]
16. MICROSOFT: THE BLUE MONSTER
The Blue Monster was a cartoon-based “Social Object” that me and my Microsoft buddy, Steve Clayton, unleashed on the good but unsuspecting folk at Microsoft back in 2007. For those unfamiliar with it, you can find the backstory here on Google. It’s probably my best-know idea to date.
[The commission archive is here…]
17. LINE2
One of cartoons I did for the hackthephonecompany.com campaign for the client, Line2, the SF-based VoIP company.
Yeah, we went after AT&T. Naughty us.
[The Line2 cartoon archive is here.]
[The commission archive is here…]
18. RACKSPACE 2
There seems to be a conversation happening internally at my client, Rackspace. Spearheaded by people like Robert Scoble and the guy who hired him (and who also hired me), Rob La Gesse.
“Don’t be normal”.
Who wants a “normal” job, anyway?
Who wants a “normal” employer, anyway?
Who wants a “normal” life, anyway?
Exactly.
So why not say it, loud and proud?
So I drew some cartoons on the subject.
I’m thinking they’d make great recruiting posters…
[P.S. At the time of posting these on the blog, Rob hadn’t seen these cartoons yet. He lets me post my ideas “live”, without having to go through him first. THAT IS WHY I’m psyched to be working with Rob and Rackspace. Just so you know.]
[The commission archive is here…]
19. JEFF SANDQUIST
Jeff Sandquist, Robert Scoble’s old boss at Microsoft’s Channel Nine, commissioned me to design this business card for him.
He wanted a design that worked for both techies and non-techies alike. Something that made him appear both good at his job, but still a human being etc.
Fun! Thanks, Jeff!
[The commission archive is here…]
[Sign up for Hugh’s “Daily Cartoon” Newsletter.]
[PERSONAL BACKSTORY:] My name is Hugh MacLeod. I’m a cartoonist. I started gapingvoid.com a decade ago in in May, 2001 when I started publishing “Cartoons Drawn On The Back Of Business Cards”. I used to be an advertising copywriter. Eventually I wrote a couple of books.
I now draw “Cube Grenades” i.e. business-focused cartoon commissions for a living for clients like Rackspace. I have a daily cartoon newsletter, which I send out every weekday to tens of thousands of people. I also have an online gallery, where I sell art. Thanks for reading!
The Drawings:
[This is the cartoon that inspired the name “gapingvoid”. I drew it way back when, in college. Click on image to enlarge.]
When I first lived in Manhattan in December, 1997 I got into the habit of doodling on the back of business cards, just to give me something to do while sitting at the bar. The format stuck.
All I had when I first got to Manhattan were 2 suitcases, a couple of cardboard boxes full of stuff, a reservation at the YMCA, and a 10-day freelance copywriting gig at a Midtown advertising agency.
My life for the next couple of weeks was going to work, walking around the city, and staggering back to the YMCA once the bars closed. Lots of alcohol and coffee shops. Lot of weird people. Being hit five times a day by this strange desire to laugh, sing and cry simultaneously. At times like these, there’s a lot to be said for an art form that fits easily inside your coat pocket.
The freelance gig turned into a permanent job. I stayed. The first month in New York for a newcomer has this certain amazing magic about it that is indescribable. Incandescent lucidity. However long you stay in New York, you pretty much spend the rest of your time there trying to recapture that feeling. Chasing Manhattan Dragon. I suppose the whole point of the cards initially was to somehow get that buzz onto paper.
Although I haven’t lived in New York since 1999, it still lives in me. Far too much, some would say…
The originals are drawn on either business cards or Strathmore Bristol Board cut to the same size i.e. 3.5″ x 2″. I use mostly Koh-I-Noor rapidograph pens of varying widths. Occasionally I’ll use other things– pencil, watercolor, ballpoint etc, but not often.
Personal Faves [Originally posted, May, 2001:
An artist is quite a fucked-up thing to be, and to be honest I’m not sure if I would recommend it to anybody. Still, in my collection there are a couple of examples that, in some sick and twisted way, make the whole thing seem worthwhile. For the first five minutes, at least:
The Shark Bar
When I first moved to New York, I stayed at the YMCA on West 62nd.
My first drawing as a New York resident was on my second evening, sitting on a barstool at the Shark Bar– a hip, young place in SoHo.
Having only been in town just over 24 hours, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by New York, to say the least. Plus I had drunk quite a lot that evening. I think both show up in the drawing.
I’ve been back to the Shark Bar a couple of times since then, but it never had the same insane magic of that first evening. Great name for a bar, though. Especially in Manhattan.
Vanished
Spring ’98. I was at a bar, it was late, I was kinda tipsy.
Suddenly I realized that my life hadn’t changed much in the last decade since leaving college. Work, bars, cartoons, random conversations of a big-city nature, second-hand bookshops and art films, the occasional bout of random or regular sex to tide things over etc etc.
It wasn’t as interesting as it used to be. But I hadn’t moved on, really. And I had no idea where to go next.
Welcome to New York.
The best cartoons are the ones that give you these amazing moments of clarity as you draw them. That’s the best thing about cartooning, really. Everything else seems rather secondary in comparison.
Fanelli’s
December 29th, 1997. Fanelli’s, on Prince and Mercer in SoHo, is one of the great bars in Manhattan. I had been in New York only a couple of days when I found myself there, drinking heavily.
I no longer drink much, however at the time I had this idea that seriously heavy drinking was essential in order to enjoy New York properly. I don’t think I was wrong, either.
Around midnight at the bar I bump into an old acquaintance of mine from Chicago, Mark Mann. He had moved to New York about 3 months previously to do something with his film career. He is one of the funniest and most interesting people I know, but at the time I didn’t know that. We were quite suspicious of each other for the longest time before we admitted that we actually were friends.
I hadn’t told anybody I was moving to New York except on a need-to-know basis, so he was quite surprised to see me there. A ghost from his former Chicago life– just popped out of nowhere.
Told him my story. Told him about being laid off in Chicago. Told him about this new job I got in New York. Told him I only knew I got the job officially 5 days before Christmas– only about a week previously. Asked him how he was liking New York.
“It’s great,” he said. “Everybody’s insane with loneliness, but that’s OK. After a while you realize that’s part of the edge.“
I was hit with a paradox. I wanted to be in New York, I wanted to be “part of the edge”, but I didn’t want to be “insane with loneliness”. Was one necessary in order to have the other? Was it a price worth paying? To this day, I still have no answer.
A couple of months later (July, ’98) I drew this, sitting on a barstool. Thinking back to that conversation with Mark, suddenly I had a realization: The simple truth about big cities is that people don’t go there to give. They go there to take, or at least, to get. If you feel like giving, good for you, somewhere an angel is smiling yada yada yada, just don’t expect other people to follow your example. And if you’re feeling lonely, at least now you now know why. This drawing is partly about that.
Commitment
Within 1 week of meeting this person you realize that not only have you found your soulmate, but you’ve found your soulmate who likes to have sex 4 times a day in the bed, on the dining table, on the kitchen floor, in the changing rooms at Bloomingdale’s etc.
Within 2 weeks you’re already talking about moving in together.
Within 3 weeks you’re talking about having babies together.
Within 4 weeks you realize this person is a complete psychopath.
Within 5 weeks this person also thinks you’re a complete psychopath.
Within 6 weeks you’re sitting at a restaurant with an old friend who is giving you the “How come you only call me when you’re single” speech.
I Knew My Pain
Sometimes life throws you a devastating curve ball. And you’re never ready for it. Ever.
Eric
I remember being young and stupid. How utterly sweet and simple life seemed back then, but I also knew in the back of my mind that these days weren’t going to last forever. Ouch. Hopefully, in a decade or two I’ll be looking back to this time now with equal affection. I think that’s all you can do, really.
Complete
Early 30s is a great time to be alive– you’re still young, but you have experience. A powerful combo.
The downside is all that weird rockstar shit you believe about yourself is well past its sell-by date, and if you haven’t outgrown it by then, it starts to fuck up your life.
New York is tough enough if you’re a man. God knows how the women manage to do it.
Please
The piece is not particularly clever nor especially beautiful to look at. But something gently disturbing resides just beneath the surface. Hmmmm� sort of like apartment brokers.
C.F.A.
Yes. Exactly.
Mighty
All clients want one, I am told.
Cheap Plastic Toys
Some of it was my fault, some of it wasn’t. Regardless, I’ve made a list and they will pay dearly.
Mistakenly
There are many advantages of getting older… more money and respect from the world at large being the main one. However, with all this newly found cash & kudos comes the idea that maybe the world isn’t such a nice place, after all. That maybe all that unhappiness you see on the faces of your fellow commuters is there for a reason. And no matter how much you try or how hard you work, none of that will ever change.
Still, I suppose it’s better to know that said brutality exists, rather than burning all those calories pretending it doesn’t. I just wish I’d wised up a decade earlier than I did.
Lying
OK, this one isn’t exactly subtle. But it doesn’t take any prisoners, either. Unrestrained bile is actually pretty hard to pull off, artistically.
Wolf vs Sheep
No, I don’t have an answer to which option is better. Both exact a heavy toll, eventually.
Too Many Cats
Good thing a certain friend of mine never reads my website.
Dorothy
I’ve always been a big Dorothy Parker fan. Urbane wit at its finest. Would I trade my life for hers in order to be that talented and famous? No way. Like all intoxicants, talent can be a poison. Reading her biography, it seems she learned that more than most.
It’s 2 am and I’m in this crazy Midtown Irish bar. I have no idea why I’m there. I shouldn’t be there. I should be somewhere else. Asleep, comfortable, happy, sharing my bed with a sensible girl from a good family, Brooks Brothers’ pyjamas, insufferably middle class. But no.
Everybody in that bar is crazy. I tell myself I’m the only sane one but I think I’m kidding myself.
Being an artist/creative is like wearing funky clothing. Every year gets a little bit harder. After a while it just looks stupid. Eventually the stupidity reaches critical mass and the late-night tailspin begins. At a midtown Irish bar at 2am, while I’m drawing this picture, these things no longer seem to matter.
I like this card because it’s the kind of thing poor old Dorothy would have written.
All The Time
After years of struggling in impecunious obscurity, a very old friend of mine recently had a bit of success in his business.
Suddenly, everybody in the industry knew who he was, and would mob him at trade shows and conventions. People who wouldn’t have given him the time of day only a year before were shamelessly throwing themselves at him, scattering business cards like confetti.
My friend, the rock star. Who knew?
Shortly after one of these little feeding frenzies, we meet up for a drink, as we do.
He’s telling me all about it. All the off-the-record stuff that happened. All these relentless people coming after him, like terriers on the bone.
“How weird,” I say.
“Sure is,” he says. “Now I know what it’s like to have a vagina.“
Pickaxe
One evening after a gruesome day at the office I went into a coffee shop on 6th Ave to write. Got a coffee, found a table, opened my laptop and looked around. I’m not kidding; there were nine other people in the cafe with open laptops, writing away, just like me. Nine. I counted. They were probably writing the same tedious crap I was.
“It’s a novel about some guy who moves to New York to break into the high-brow literary scene and score with lots of chicks yada yada yada…“
One of the reasons I stick to cartooning is because my traditional prose writing is so godforsakenly awful.
Writing about New York is a bit like writing about sex– it’s already been done to death. And done. And done. And done again. It’s a form of literary necrophilia. Unless you have something completely unique and visionary to say about New York (I have yet to meet somebody in the flesh who does), any kind of Manhattan-fuelled artistic ambition runs the risk of turning you in to a “ligger”.
“Ligger” is Scottish slang. A ligger is a hanger-on, a wannabe, a parasite-to-the-hip. Somebody who goes to art openings to drink free wine, but never buys a painting. Somebody who sees art as not something you make, but something you milk. Somebody who is always seen, but never remembered.
Living in New York is only possible if you treat it like a religion. Liggers are really good at this, for some reason. Hence their vast numbers; hence why a big part of your average day in New York is spent seperating the liggers from the real people.
Henry
So you’re going out a lot. Pretty soon you’re going out too much. Parties. Bars. More parties. More bars. So you decide to cut back a bit, y’know, start living like a normal person.
So you trade in those wild & crazy times for delivered Chinese food, Forbes Magazine and Seinfeld reruns. You’re just going to try it for a couple of weeks, and see how it feels. After all, this is a “new you” we’re talking about. A better you. A saner you. A wiser, more sensible and compelling you.
But you know in your heart of hearts that you didn’t move from suburban Cleveland, Denver, Pittsburgh etc to a $3000-a-month Manhattan apartment just to watch Seinfeld.
In New York, you always think that if you try harder, work longer hours, make more money, spend more time at the gym, put more effort into networking, read more books, go to bed earlier, drink less booze, avoid negative people, be less shallow about the whole sex thing, be more supportive to your close friends, eat more vegetables and stop smoking so many damn cigarettes, you will eventually be able pull off that great Miracle Of Miracles i.e. you’ll finally, finally, finally be able to live in Manhattan while simultaneously leading a healthy, productive, emotionally-balanced life.
Ha.
(PS: I no longer live in New York, obviously)
Hugh MacLeod
I’m Hugh MacLeod. I’m a cartoonist. Occasionally I write books.
gapingvoid is interested in start-up culture, because changing business for the better is what we’re about; that’s what Social Object Factory is about. We live and breathe it; we help everyone from lone entrepreneurs, to mid-sizers, to Fortune 500’s do the same. Check out our work here.
We create art that helps companies kick ass, end of story.
We also have a daily cartoon newsletter that makes a lot of people happy.
If you just want to say ‘Hello’, feel free to email me, anytime.
If you want to talk business, then it’s probably best to please contact my business partner, gapingvoid CEO Jason Korman, here. We look forward to working with you. Thanks!
Prints |
Opening | Current |
|---|---|---|
NY NY |
$275 |
