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 |
|---|---|---|
Bluetrain |
$900 | |
We Need to Talk |
$650 | |
Portfolio #2 |
$300 | |
NY NY |
$275 |
November 6, 2009
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Twitter. Limited Edition Prints. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
November 5, 2009
I drew this one in early 1998, during my first months of living in Manhattan.
I liked all those intense, late-night random conversations with all sorts of equally random Manhattan people– especially at first– but of course, after a while they all start to sound the same.
This is the kind of drawing one does sitting on a New York barstool, when one is not liking one’s day job nearly well enough. That was my situation at the time, anyway.
If today I met my younger self from back then, I’d say to him, “You’re just paying your dues, Kiddo. Frickin’ get over yourself…”
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Twitter. Limited Edition Prints. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
[Cartoon inspired by my friend, Mark Earls aka @herdmeister…]
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Twitter. Limited Edition Prints. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
November 4, 2009
Like I said in IGNORE EVERYBODY, “When your dream become reality, they are no longer your dreams.” This drawing is all about that…
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Twitter. Limited Edition Prints. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
November 2, 2009
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Work with Hugh. Twitter. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Work with Hugh. Twitter. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
November 1, 2009
[“Untitled 091101″. Ink on business card. Drawn earlier today.]
It’s been an interesting couple of weeks at gapingvoid Central. Sometime during September, I started drawing in earnest again, back in my original, no-frills ink on “Back of Business Cards” format. We’re talking 2 – 3 hundred of them in the last month.
I felt the need to get back to my roots– back to something simpler, back in touch with the “Utterly Basic” sensibility I had when I was living in New York– no other reason.
Plan to be seeing more of these efforts posted online soon. Very exciting!
I’m just so happy right now. I feel new again. Seriously.
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Work with Hugh. Twitter. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
October 26, 2009
[Update:] Afterthought by Mark Earls:
But the important thing — and the really revolutionary stuff at play here — is that this kind of (Internet) technology destroys many of the cultural, economic and politic brakes on our fundamentally social nature.
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Work with Hugh. Twitter. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
October 18, 2009
There’s been plenty of art made on the subject of business and capitalism, as this recent article in The Economist will attest.
Though as I was drawing this catoon earlier this morning I got thinking, the subject of The Entrepreneur? Far less coverage.
That might have to change. I might have to be the one to change it. Just sayin’…
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Work with Hugh. Twitter. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
October 4, 2009
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Work with Hugh. Twitter. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Work with Hugh. Twitter. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
September 18, 2009
Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.]
I sent the above cartoon in high-rez format to everybody who subscribes to my CDF Newsletter. So they can put it on their desktop, print it out as a “Cube Grenade” etc. etc.
I had this idea of making certain high-rez cartoons “CDF-only”. A way of me saying “Thanks” for their support etc.
I’m not really publishing new high-rez cartoons on the blog these day. For now, you’ll need to sign up to the newsletter for that. Though, who knows, I may change my mind back again. It’s all a work in progress…
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.]
August 21, 2009
[“Advertising Moleskine”. 5“x7”. Framed. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[Unframed. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Just shipped this off in the mail today– a commissioned, framed Moleskine drawing.
Dave Whittle, an advertising executive down in Australia, commissioned me to draw him a Moleskine, based on an old cartoon print-out of mine, that he had hanging on his office wall.
A Cube Grenade. Exactly.
I sold my first Moleskine to a collector in Paris. This one is going to somebody in the South Pacific. I love the way the Internet gives relatively small operations like my own a global reach. Thanks, Dave!.
[gapingvoid commissions…] [More Moleskines for sale on the gallery page here.]
August 18, 2009
[When I was in New York last year, I drew the above cartoon for my lovely friend, Kate. She kindly just sent me the photo. Thanks, Kate! P.S. Yes, if you knew Kate personally, then you’d know how well this cartoon applies to her. Rock on.]
August 16, 2009
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.]
August 12, 2009
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.]
August 5, 2009
[A print idea for #evilplans. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
EUREKA! I had my EVIL PLANS road trip idea, but it was lacking the social object it needed to really work.
Sure, driving around Texas with a video camera and an idea about “Dream Big” was all very well, but it needed something to work as a totem for the Stormhoek wine.
IDEA: Hand-painted wine bottles.
I’ve drawn on Stormhoek wine bottles before, using painting sticks. They looked kinda cool. While I travel around Texas, I’ll be making them to hand out to people who went to all the trouble to support this enterprise. See image above to get a rough idea what it might look like…
This is exciting. The road trip idea is suddenly A LOT More interesting, all of a sudden. Rock on.
[Update: Just added this blog post to EVIL PLANS.]
August 3, 2009
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.]
July 27, 2009
From the “Social Marker” blog post:
When I visit San Francisco I am always surprised how often the name of my friend, Robert Scoble comes up in random conversation, unprompted by myself. Why is that? Why is he so well known? Is his blog REALLY that good? Is he REALLY that smart and interesting?
Well, I could give a whole stack of reasons to explain why I think Robert’s success is well-deserved. But one major reason that his blog’s traffic is so high, and his name so well-known, is that his personal brand has somehow managed to become a Social Marker inside the Silicon Valley ecosystem. The same could also be said for Mike Arrington, Loic Le Meur or Mark Zuckerberg. Dropping their names into random conversations allows people to quickly and efficiently contextualize themselves.
[Thanks to @scobleizer and @arrington etc.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
July 22, 2009
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
July 7, 2009
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
July 6, 2009
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
June 29, 2009
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.“EVIL PLANS”.]
[Cartoon inspired by this blog post.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. Twitter. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades.#evilplans.]
June 23, 2009
[“Confused”. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
I drew this cartoon earlier this evening.
It’s conveys the state I found myself in, back in New York a decade ago, when I was doing what I consider to be my best, or at least, my most formative work.
No artist wants their best work behind them. No human being wants their best days behind them. Yet my my Inner Doubting Thomas keeps telling me, I’ll never be that young again; I’ll never have my work be that fresh & new again. Nor, sadly, will the world, at least to me.
To Hell with it. I’ll carry on, regardless.
And of course, so will you, at whatever insanely impractical path you chose for yourself. We knew what we were doing, when we signed up for this tour of duty.
We still have a few tricks up our sleeves, don’t we?
Doubting Thomas can go fuck himself…
[etc: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
June 18, 2009
[This quote was an excerpt from my last CDF Newsletter.]
[etc: About Hugh. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
June 8, 2009
[etc: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
[etc: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
June 7, 2009
[Hat tip to Kilgore Trout, of course.…]
[etc: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
[“Advertising Moleskine”. 5“x7”. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Dave Whittle, an advertising executive down in Australia, commissioned me to draw him a Moleskine, based on an old cartoon print-out of mine, that he had hanging on his office wall.
A Cube Grenade. Exactly.
Yes, I’ll have it framed, like this one.
It was a fun project. It turned out well. I am pleased. Thanks, Dave!.
[gapingvoid commissions…]
June 3, 2009
[“Dinosaur”]
[“Hughtrain”]
[“Quality”]
[“Talked”]
A week ago I wrote that we’d be producing some new prints based on some of the cartoons appearing in my book, IGNORE EVERYBODY.
After receiving a lot of feedback from y’all, we decided on the four designs above. Here are some notes:
1. They’ll be smaller. Approx 9.5“x14”, roughly the same dimensions as my Mac laptop.
2. They’ll be more affordable. Circa $125.00 US, $400.00 for the complete set of four.
3. They’ll be of the same high-quality. They’ll be silk-screened by hand. Old School. They’ll be signed and numbered by me. Because they are more affordable, they’ll be larger editions, say, 800 or so. We could have saved money if we used digital printing, but we decided against it — hand pulled serigraphs, still.
4. Finding Space: We realized that about 35% of each edition done so far is being purchased by the same group of people. Many of them are saying, we want to collect, but we are running out of wall space. So these images are of a size that can be framed and hung on a small wall, several at a time. Or maybe people will do what I do i.e. keep the images in a small portfolio, for taking out when they have meetings, or entertaining. In any case, it seems to me that making lower cost, true high-quality, limited editions, lots more people will be able to enjoy them. No worries for those with big walls, I am going to continue to do the larger images as well.
Over the next week, I’ll be working out all the details with this new size. Watch this space.
[More: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
June 2, 2009
[etc: About Hugh. Interview. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
June 1, 2009
[etc: About Hugh. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
[etc: About Hugh. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
[etc: About Hugh. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
[etc: About Hugh. Newsletter. Book. Limited Edition Prints. Private Commissions. Cube Grenades. Hughtrain.]
April 10, 2009
[“Hamster Wheel”. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
I’ve sold or given away a lot of cartoons to my peer group over the years.
And given the choice between the two, I have generally preferred it when they hung it in their office, as opposed to in their homes.
Not that I have the slightest objection to people hanging it in their homes, of course. But ever since I was a kid, I’ve wanted my place of work to be a creative environment, not an environment of slow, lingering, death-by-endless-drudgery. And when I think of my peer group, they always FELT STRONGLY the same way as well, regardless of what they actually did for a living.
Idealistic? Sure. Unrealistic? Often. But we never had a problem with that. We knew it was the price we paid for trying to be true to our guts.
And yes, I always liked making cartoons that reflected this “creative” streak we all aspired to professionally. And my peer group liked it, too. And this is basically where my office-centric cartoon shtick came from.
One of the buzzwords you hear a lot in the business world these days, is “Innovation”. Yes, it’s a genuinely worthy thing to aspire to. Genuine innovation creates lots of genuine value, every young intern knows this. Which is why people like to throw it around like confetti. It’s one of those words that sound good in meetings, regardless of how serious one is about ACTUALLY innovating ANYTHING.
Here’s some friendly advice for all you Innovation-buzzword fanboys: You don’t get to be more innovative, until you make yourself more creative FIRST.
“Innovative” is an “external” word. It can be measured. It generally talks about things that have been tested properly and found to have worked in the real world.
“Creative”, however, is more of an “internal” word. It’s subjective, it’s murkier. It’s far harder to measure, it’s far harder to define. It’s an inward journey, not outward. Which is why a lot of people in business try to keep the word out of their official lexicon, preferring instead more neutral, more externally-focused language like “Value”, “Excellence”, “Quality” and yes, “Innovation”.
The trouble is, of course, that approach doesn’t work as well any more. In this globalized, hyper-linked, internet-enabled world, “Boring” has suddenly become a very expensive luxury.
Do you REALLY think Apple is afraid to use the word, “Creative”? Do you REALLY think Steve Jobs goes around his office yakking on endlessly about “Value, Excellence, Quality and Innovation”? No, of course he doesn’t. Apple’s UTTERLY AMAZING design, business and marketing prowess comes from the UTTERLY AMAZING creative fire in their collective belly, not the other way around.
I want to make limited-edition prints that somehow, even in a small, indirect way, helps make companies and individuals less afraid, and more willing to be CREATIVE, more willing to embrace the CREATIVITY that they already have. Because economically and spiritually, that is ultimately where our future lies, even if that idea sometimes terrifies us.
There. So now you know my secret, evil plan. You have been warned.
April 9, 2009
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
There’s a wonderful metaphor in the Bible [Revelation 2:17] about “a white pebble”.
17 Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations: To him that conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white pebble, and upon the pebble a new name written which no one knows except the one receiving it.
The metaphor was once explained to me by a Catholic monk. To paraphrase:
“You have three selves: The person that you think you are, the person that other people think you are, and the person that God thinks you are. The white pebble represents the latter. And of the three, it is by far the most important.”
He then gave me some good advice, something I’ve always kept with me:
“When life gets really tough, just remember the white pebble. Just remember who you really are. Just remember the person that only God can see.”
Whatever your thoughts on God or Religion may be, positive or negative, the white pebble is a very simple metaphor that audaciously asks the question: “Who are you, really?”
Yes, why are you here, exactly? Who are you here for? Yourself? Other people? God? Or maybe some other cause? You tell me…
It’s one of those questions that never gets old. Unlike the poor body that houses us.
