Archive for the ‘prints’ Category

September 14, 2009

can art have “users”? [revisited]

Quality0909A

One of my collec­tors, Tom LaPi­lle just emai­led me this– a photo of his “Qua­lity” cube gre­nade, now safely han­ging on his office wall.

Like I said back in April, it’s what the art DOES that’s inte­res­ting to me, more than what it IS per se.

We’ve always seen the Kine­tic Qua­lity wor­king in mar­ke­ting, wor­king with brands. “By buying Brand X, I feel hip­per, coo­ler, sexier, more secure, more in con­trol” etc etc. But what I’m fin­ding out is, this also works with art. To me, the inte­res­ting thing about art is not the usual “Heroic, absinthe-soaked, vision quest lone indi­vi­dual archety­pal artist crap”, but how the art is USED by the per­son who has it han­ging on the wall. What’s it actually there for? Deco­ra­tion? Sho­wing off? A con­ver­sa­tion star­ter? An ice brea­ker? A way of telling a story? Something to brigh­ten up the room? A sym­bol of social sta­tus? An expres­sion of indi­vi­dual world­view? An expres­sion of emo­tion? A totem to remind one­self of something ins­pi­ra­tio­nal and/or impor­tant? Perhaps a bit of all these?

So I’m seeing two worlds collide here: The inter­nal, soli­tary part of making the art, and the exter­nal social part of how the piece of art is actually used. Art? Used? Is art actually allo­wed to be “used”? Would the Art Police allow that? Ins­tead of calling them “Patrons”, can we call art buyers “Users” ins­tead? Would you be offen­ded if I called you that? There’s no wrong answer…

Any­way, as always, I love it when y’all send in pho­tos. Keep ‘em coming, Thanks! Rock on.

[Backs­tory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Twit­ter. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. EVIL PLANS. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des.]

September 1, 2009

notes on office art

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[This could make a nice print, one day…]
Recently on Twit­ter, I wrote:

Art that brigh­tens up the office vs Art that brigh­tens up the home. Two dif­fe­rent vibes alto­gether. I pre­fer making the former.

To which my friend, Kathy Sie­rra replied:

Good! Homes are less likely to *need* brigh­te­ning the way offi­ces do. I can brigh­ten my home just by making toast.

Whether we’re tal­king wee cube gre­nade laser copies or something much lar­ger, like The Pur­ple Cow Print, when I launched the gaping­void gallery ear­lier this year, that was my inten­tion– to make art for the works­pace.
This desire goes back to my early years wor­king as an adver­ti­sing crea­tive. There was always cool stuff– fine art, pos­ters, graphic design, car­toons– han­ging up everywhere. Stuff to amuse and ins­pire us, stuff to tweak our brains in the right direc­tion. And though its effect on the agency’s bot­tom line would’ve been hard to mea­sure, somehow it wor­ked– or at least, hel­ped.
Why can’t all offi­ces be more like this? Is there some law that requi­res cer­tain types of busi­nes­ses to main­tain a dull, gray, machine-like, life-sucking visual envi­ron­ment? You could ague that maybe for some com­pa­nies, sure, but that’s not a world I’ve ever aspi­red to belong to.
“Office Art” tends to come in two main cate­go­ries: 1. REALLY expen­sive. 2. REALLY cheesy.
I wan­ted to make office art that was neither…
[Afterthought:] Of course, a lot of my collec­tors work from home, the­re­fore their offi­ces are in the house, not in an office buil­ding. But the prints were made with the works­pace in mind, not the “living” space, regardless.

[Backs­tory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Twit­ter. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. EVIL PLANS. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des.]

August 27, 2009

framed dinosaur

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[I love this photo. Mike Orren’s cube gre­nade, just back from the framer’s. For sale here on the gallery page etc.]

[Backs­tory: About Hugh. Twit­ter. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. EVIL PLANS. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des.]

August 23, 2009

the social event of the year: the purple cow print party, NYNY, October 8th

PurpleCow0909.jpg
[The Pur­ple Cow Print. Click on image to enlarge etc.]

[UPDATE:]  CONFIRMED: The print party will be held at Ilili, 6pm-Late, on 8th Octo­ber, 2009.

Bet­ween 27th & 28th
236 5th Ave­nue, New York, NY 10001, USA
(212) 683‑2929‎
ililinyc.com

The res­tau­rant will be suppl­ying food, Stormhoek will be suppl­ying wine. Plus there will be a cash bar, if you’d rather have beer or liquor. It’ll be a fun eve­ning. Rock on.

For those of you still in the dark re. The Pur­ple Cow Print that I wor­ked on with Seth Godin, one of the grea­test mar­ke­ting thin­kers in the world, this is just a note to say I’ve set up an archive of all the blog posts about it here
Seth blogs about it here as well…
And of course, it’s for sale on the gaping­void gallery

The other bit of news is, Seth and I will be thro­wing an offi­cial launch party for the print in New York City on the eve­ning of Octo­ber 8th, 2009. A chance for friends of both gaping­void and Seth to hang out and meet n’ greet. A bit bela­ted, maybe, but we both had very busy sum­mers.
We’re thro­wing the party in a Leba­nese res­tau­rant in Chel­sea, I’ll also have some of my other works on dis­play– both prints AND ori­gi­nal dra­wings. And yes, they’ll be for sale. So it’ll be a bit like an art ope­ning, with perhaps more empha­sis than usual on the peo­ple atten­ding [not to men­tion, food and drink], than the actual art itself. Stormhoek, natu­rally, will be suppl­ying the wine.
Details to follow shortly. Watch this space etc.
Any­way, I hope if you’re in the area, you’ll be able to make it. Thanks.
[NOTE TO SELF: What a crazy adven­ture this has all been so far…]

[Backs­tory: About Hugh. Twit­ter. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. EVIL PLANS. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des.]

August 19, 2009

portfolio number two update

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[Note To Self:] Sales of Port­fo­lio Num­ber Two are going well. I am pleased…

[Backs­tory: About Hugh. Twit­ter. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. EVIL PLANS. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des.]

August 17, 2009

“ignore everybody” portfolio series number two: signed and numbered, 11“x14”, $300.00 pre-order, $50 deposit

mistakenly%20001A%20jpeg.jpg
[“Mis­ta­kenly”]
nobody%20cares%20001%20jpeg.jpg
[“Nobody Cares”]
vanished%20001%20jpeg1.jpg
[“Vanished”]
cfa%20001%20jpeg.jpg
[“CFA’}
[Click on ima­ges to enlarge etc.]

[UPDATE: These prints are now also for sale indi­vi­dually. Go check out gapingvoidgallery.com to see more.…]

After the very suc­cess­ful launch of Port­fo­lio Series Num­ber One, we’re happy to announce the launch of Port­fo­lio Series Num­ber Two.
After con­sul­ting with y’all recently about what designs to use, we narro­wed it down to the four designs you see above.
Same deal as last time: They mea­sure 11“x14”, and can be fra­med and hung, or kept in a port­fo­lio to view or use for mee­tings and then put away etc. They are all hand-pulled seri­graphs, and prin­ted on Rives-Arches paper. All four are taken from car­toons that appea­red in my book, IGNORE EVERYBODY.
You can pre-order them for $300 for the set of four, by just lea­ving a $50.00 depo­sit using the Pay­Pal but­ton below. We’ll send you an invoice for the remain­der when they’re prin­ted an ready to ship.


[$50.00 deposit/pre-order Pay­Pal but­ton etc.]

Port­fo­lio One used black and red. This time we used mainly a black and blue theme. This group of car­toons I selec­ted comes out of my New York days, when my tone was less about busi­ness– more per­so­nal– and more about being sar­do­nic and han­ging out in bars too much. Blue is the per­fect color for that…
They came out loo­king well. I’m exci­ted! Hope you like. Rock on.

August 12, 2009

shortlist: portfolio number two

TheShortTail112%20copy.jpg
[The Short Tail]
CompanyHierarchy112%20copy.jpg
[Com­pany Hie­rarchy]
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[Wel­come To…]
91387_I_dont_have_friends%20copy.jpg
[I Don’t Have Friends.]
91365_choose%20copy.jpg
[I Choose This Life.]
91343_mistakenly%20copy.jpg
[Mis­ta­kenly.]
91305_complete_asshole%20copy.jpg
[C.F.A.]
91303_lifestyle%20copy.jpg
[Vanished.]
Like I said on my last blog post, after the great suc­cess of the “Port­fo­lio Num­ber One” launch, we’ve deci­ded to do another one i.e. Port­fo­lio Num­ber Two.
port001
[“Port­fo­lio Num­ber One”.]
And like last time, all ima­ges cho­sen will be taken from my book, IGNORE EVERYBODY.
So here you go– a short­list of eight poten­tial “cube gre­na­des”. Four of these will be made into a limited-edition print.
Which ones get your vote? Please feel free to leave a com­ment below, Thanks!

[Visit my print gallery here.]
[Backs­tory: About Hugh. Twit­ter. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. EVIL PLANS. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des.]

August 10, 2009

coming soon: portfolio number two

cfa2.jpg
[One of the car­toons from the book etc.…]
After the great suc­cess of the “Port­fo­lio Num­ber One” launch, we’ve deci­ded to do another one i.e. Port­fo­lio Num­ber Two.
And like last time, all ima­ges cho­sen will be taken from my book, IGNORE EVERYBODY.
So if you’ve read the book already, I’d love to hear your feed­back. Which cartoon(s) from the book do you think would make good “cube gre­na­des”? Please feel free to leave a com­ment below, Thanks!

[Visit my print gallery here.]

[Backs­tory: About Hugh. Twit­ter. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. EVIL PLANS. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des.]

August 7, 2009

“cube grenades” start arriving

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[@macfowler: “Totally hyped that my @gapingvoid prints arri­ved today” http://twitpic.com/d3fk2]

The Port­fo­lio Series Num­ber One
, a.k.a. the “Cube Gre­na­des”, which I announ­ced the same day that my book launched, have star­ted arri­ving at their new owners’ homes. Thanks, Mac, and Every­body Else who orde­red! Rock on.
cod090909
[Update: The Create or Die prints have star­ted arri­ving as well. Thanks Again!

[Backs­tory: About Hugh. Twit­ter. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. EVIL PLANS. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des.]

July 28, 2009

the “ignore everybody” prints, pre-order at $275.00, with a $50.00 deposit.

ignore%20everybody%200905jpeg.jpg
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[UPDATE: This offer is only valid until 5 PM EST Mon­day, August 3rd, Thanks!]
I am deligh­ted to report that the “IGNORE EVERYBODY” car­toon, a fond favo­rite of com­pu­ter desk­tops everywhere, is now on offer as a limi­ted edi­tion print. It will sell on the gallery site for $ 495.00 after it is published [mid-August], but is now avai­la­ble as a pre-order offer of $275.00, with just a $50.00 depo­sit. To make the depo­sit, click on the Pay­Pal but­ton below. As always, we’ll send you an invoice for the remain­der once the print is sig­ned, num­be­red and ready to ship.


[$50 Payal Depo­sit But­ton etc.]
Ear­lier this year, Patrick Bren­nan was stuck in an air­port lounge for seve­ral hours, wai­ting for his con­nec­ting flight. To kill time, he star­ted mes­sing around visually on his com­pu­ter with the forty chap­ter tit­les of my book “Ignore Every­body”. He came up with this, then emai­led it to me.
I liked it so much, I went ahead and re-worked it, in my own handw­ri­ting. Very cool.
The book began life as a blog post, back in 2004. It had a very sim­ple pre­mise: “So you want to be more crea­tive, in art, in busi­ness, wha­te­ver. Here are some tips that have wor­ked for me over the years.”
Then I made a list, and kept adding to it…
I never expec­ted it to reso­nate with so many peo­ple, but it did, somehow.
The fact is, there are millions of peo­ple out there who want to do something more crea­tive with their lives. Of course there are. “Crea­ti­vity” is NOT an exc­lu­sive domain for those goofy, trendy hips­ter types. “Crea­ti­vity” is a basic human need.
And I don’t think a life spent figh­ting like hell, to get that basic human need expres­sed and ful­fi­lled, is a bad thing.
So I deci­ded to make these prints, in order to have something on the wall to remind us of this, every day. Rock on.
[Backs­tory: About Hugh. Twit­ter. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des.“EVIL PLANS”.]

July 27, 2009

the dinoasaur print

dinosaur001jpeg800-thumb.jpg
The “Dino­saur” print is now for sale up on gaping­void­ga­llery…
Deri­ved from the old maxim, “Never try to teach a pig to sing, it was­tes your time and annoys the pig.”
Limi­ted edi­tion, sig­ned and num­be­red, prin­ted with the same high-quality inks and papers as the lar­ger stuff etc.
A nice cube gre­nade for any office. Rock on.

[Backs­tory: About Hugh. Twit­ter. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des.“EVIL PLANS”.]

July 16, 2009

home again

SG1111.jpg
[Me and Seth sig­ning the silksc­reen…]
Got back to West Texas last night after almost a week on the road. A quick visit to Sili­con Valley for the Techc­runch Party, then an equally brief visit to New York.
I was on the East Coast mostly to co-sign the Pur­ple Cow print with Seth Godin.
That was a great after­noon, visi­ting his office in Westches­ter County. He’s a seriously inte­res­ting guy. We tal­ked a lot about all sorts of things…
Other high­lights were the #NYCt­wee­tup- about 50 peo­ple came. Secondly, I got to meet my edi­ting team at Penguin/Portfolio for the first time. They seem very happy with how the book is doing, so it was all good.

godin-macleod111.jpg
[Update: Galley­cat, the publishing blog, also cove­red the print sig­ning:]

Hugh Mac­Leod (right) became Internet-famous by dra­wing car­toons on the back of busi­ness cards and publishing them online at his Gaping Void blog. Along the way, he gai­ned some valua­ble insights into mar­ke­ting and crea­ti­vity which he also hap­pily sha­red with rea­ders; that was enough to attract the atten­tion of the Port­fo­lio imprint at Pen­guin Group, which recently published MacLeod’s first book, Ignore Every­body.
Now, one of MacLeod’s friends (and ins­pi­ra­tions) hap­pens to be Seth Godin — if you’ve been rea­ding Galley­Cat long enough, you know we’re right there with him on that — and back in April, Mac­Leod drew a ver­sion of the cover to Godin’s Pur­ple Cow (on a much big­ger sur­face than a busi­ness card). “To me the book, as a totem, as an icon, repre­sents a huge shift in thin­king that came along, almost unin­vi­ted, back in the early 2000’s,” Mac­Leod emai­led Godin shortly after. “The dra­wing repre­sents [to me] my own abi­lity to inter­na­lize it.” By the end of the month, he was taking orders for limited-edition prints which he flew into New York City ear­lier this week to sign along­side Godin. The pre-order price for the prints was $495, but if you want one now, it’ll set you back $1,100.

[Backs­tory: About Hugh. Twit­ter. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des.“EVIL PLANS”.]

July 9, 2009

sf & nyny

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In about twelve hours time I head for the air­port, hea­ding for SFO for the anual Techc­runch Party. Like I’ve done for the last four years, for the event I desig­ned a sig­ned, limi­ted edi­tion print, pic­tu­red above– a play on the “Dream Big” cam­paign I’m doing here in Alpine, Texas.
Then it’s off to New York, NY the follo­wing day to sign prints, inc­lu­ding Pur­ple Cow and Create or Die.
Hope to be back home, slee­ping in my own bed by Wed­nes­day night.

[NOTE TO SELF: Why is it, that the more internet-enabled the world beco­mes, the more time we all seem to have to spend on air­pla­nes? Don’t get me started…]

July 8, 2009

the “hughtrain” cube grenade

hughtrain001Bjpeg.jpg

[Buy the “Hugh­train” print indi­vi­dually here.]

Another “Cube Gre­nade”, Hurrah!
A while ago, I announ­ced that we’d be making sma­ller prints avai­la­ble, based on the car­toons found in IGNORE EVERYBODY.
On June 11th, the same day the book came out, we announ­ced our first efforts: The “Ignore Every­body” Port­fo­lio Series Num­ber One.
Four silksc­reens, 11“x14”, limi­ted edi­tion of 100, sig­ned and num­be­red, $320 for the set.
So again, I’m deligh­ted to report that we’ve just made the “Hugh­train” print avai­la­ble for purchase indi­vi­dually. $100, plus S&H. Here’s the blurb on the gallery web­site:

It’s pro­bably my most famous car­toon. It pretty sums up my mar­ke­ting phi­lo­sophy. Like my friend, Seth Godin said:
“You can’t drink any more bott­led water than you already do. Or buy more wine. Or more tea. You can’t wear more than one pair of shoes at a time. You can’t get two mas­sa­ges at once…”
So, what grows? What do mar­ke­ters sell that sca­les?
I’ll tell you what: Belief. Belon­ging. Mat­te­ring. Making a dif­fe­rence. We have an unli­mi­ted need for this.”

I hope you’ll check it out. Thanks!
[Backs­tory: About Hugh. Twit­ter. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des.“EVIL PLANS”.]

June 23, 2009

the “quality” print now available individually

quality005jpeg.jpg

[Buy the “Qua­lity” print indi­vi­dually here.]

If this doesn’t make a good good “cube gre­nade”, I don’t know what will…
A while ago, I announ­ced that we’d be making sma­ller prints avai­la­ble, based on the car­toons found in IGNORE EVERYBODY.
On June 11th, the same day the book came out, we announ­ced our first efforts: The “Ignore Every­body” Port­fo­lio Series Num­ber One.
Four silksc­reens, 11“x14”, limi­ted edi­tion of 100, sig­ned and num­be­red, $320 for the set.
I’m deligh­ted to report, that we’ve just made the “Qua­lity” print avai­la­ble for purchase indi­vi­dually. $100, plus S&H. Here’s the blurb on the gallery web­site:

A cou­ple of deca­des ago, Ford had a tagline for its car com­mer­cials: “Qua­lity is Job One”.
Well, that may be fine if you’re a big, old car com­pany, but it never quite grab­bed my ima­gi­na­tion. I figu­red if you’re a young, small com­pany, or a per­son wan­ting to make a dif­fe­rence on a tiny shoes­tring bud­get (like I was), stron­ger words might be more appro­priate. Events pro­ved me right– this ended up being one of my favo­rite car­toons of my blog readers.

I hope you’ll check it out. Thanks!
[etc: About Hugh. Inter­view. News­let­ter. Book. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des. Hugh­train.]

June 7, 2009

purple cow pic

pc777A.jpg
[A pic­ture of me hol­ding up one of the Pur­ple Cow prints. They look UTTERLY AMAZING in real life…]

[etc: About Hugh. Inter­view. News­let­ter. Book. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des. Hugh­train.]

June 3, 2009

“ignore everybody” cube grenades: the new small print series

dinosaur001jpeg800.jpg
[“Dino­saur”]
hughtrain001Bjpeg.jpg
[“Hugh­train”]
quality005jpeg.jpg
[“Qua­lity”]
talkedjpeg002.jpg
[“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.]

May 25, 2009

work with hugh: everything you always wanted to know about ‘cube grenades’ but were afraid to ask

dinosaur001jpeg800.jpg

[“Dino­saur” Cube Gre­nade.]

[I’m currently accep­ting both pri­vate and cor­po­rate com­mis­sions for car­toons, com­pany logos, ‘Cube Gre­na­des’, large pie­ces, Moles­ki­nes,  spea­king enga­ge­ments, workshops and wha­te­ver else you might be in the mar­ket for. Please read on for more details, Thanks! E-mail: 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. That’s my busi­ness. That’s my busi­ness model. Exactly.

[P.S. The Cube Gre­nade blog archive is here.]

1. HOW ‘CUBE GRENADES’ ARE RE-INVENTING THE ADVERTISING BUSINESS [AT LEAST FOR ME]

scc001B

In Sep­tem­ber, 2009, I wrote about how Shit Creek Con­sul­ting had hired me to draw the above “Cube Gre­na­de” for them.

As a car­toon, it works. As a piece of adver­ti­sing, it works. As a piece of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, it works. As a Cube Gre­nade, it works. As a social object it works. As a con­ver­sa­tion star­ter, it REALLY works. I was happy; so was the client.

Like a lot of blog­gers with an adver­ti­sing back­ground, I have spent a lot of time over the years asking the ques­tion, “What is the future of advertising?”

Sure, in the last decade there’s been a lot of spe­cu­la­tion about how Web 2.0 is going to change EVERYTHING in the industry– everything from put­ting mains­tream agen­cies out of busi­ness, to Goo­gle ruling the world with an iron fist. But in spite of all the talk out there, a defi­ni­tive ans­wer has always remai­ned somewhat elusive.

I think I may have FINALLY had a major breakthrough:

These last few weeks, while I have been VERY busy wor­king on some new Cube Gre­nade busi­ness, it occurs to me that the Cube Gre­nade con­cept somehow mana­ges to get both my back­grounds in car­too­ning and adver­ti­sing wor­king seam­lessly together.

The Cube Gre­na­des aren’t really desig­ned to “sell”, like tra­di­tio­nal adver­ti­sing. They’re desig­ned to hit a nerve and start con­ver­sa­tions. Maybe that will help lead to sales down the road, but it’s not the pri­mary pur­pose. Its pri­mary pur­pose takes a more indi­rect, perhaps more dis­rup­tive path.

So what is the future of adver­ti­sing? Well, I don’t know what yours is, but mine is The Cube Gre­nade. If that’s what you want, you come to me. If you want something dif­fe­rent, go elsewhere.

Some peo­ple will get this, some peo­ple won’t, but that’s pro­bably a good thing. Rock on.

[If you think the Cube Gre­nade idea could help your busi­ness, as always, feel free to e-mail me, Thanks.]

[Backs­tory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Twit­ter. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. EVIL PLANS. Limi­ted Edi­tion Prints. Pri­vate Com­mis­sions. Cube Gre­na­des.]

2. THE ORIGINAL ‘CUBE GRENADE’ PAGE

[Ori­gi­nally pos­ted here, May, 2009.]

cg555.jpg

Above is a photo that one of my friends on Twit­ter sent me. He basi­cally down­loa­ded one of my car­toons off my blog, prin­ted it out, and stuck it outside his cube at work, for other peo­ple to see, hope­fully to com­ment on, and hope­fully, to start a conversation.

Again, this, I believe, is where my car­toons work the best– “Cube Gre­na­des”- 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.

bm999A3.jpg

[The Blue Monster]

The Mic­ro­soft Blue Mons­ter is pro­bably my best-known Cube Gre­nade, which is why I made it into a limi­ted edi­tion print eventually.

carton888.jpg

Seth Godin first put his Pur­ple Cow book into a pur­ple milk car­ton for the same rea­son– he gues­sed [quite rightly, as it tur­ned out] that peo­ple would see the car­ton on somebody’s desk, inquire about it, and a con­ver­sa­tion about the mar­ke­ting ideas con­tai­ned in the book would be started.

PCsmall124.jpeg

[The Pur­ple Cow print]

And the Pur­ple Cow print was desig­ned the same way. OK, it might be a bit big to dis­play in a cube– you need a lot of wall space for this one– but the idea is the same– Con­ver­sa­tions that hap­pen around the object are more inte­res­ting than the actual object itself.

“Cube Gre­na­des”. Exactly. Car­toons desig­ned to affect change as “Social Objects”. Exactly.

[Check out some of my limi­ted edi­tion prints over at gapingvoidgallery.com.]

MORE NOTES:

cg22222.jpeg

[More “Cube Gre­na­des” in action. Click on image to enlarge etc.]

1. Like I said, my car­toons work best when they’re used as “Cube Gre­na­des” i.e. small objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage– to start a con­ver­sa­tion, to spread an idea etc. But other social objects can be used as well– pur­ple milk car­tons, home­made coo­kies, funky mou­se­pads, rub­ber toys, news­pa­per clip­pings etc. It’s the peo­ple that mat­ter, not the object they socia­lize around. I don’t claim to have a monopoly.

2. Repeat After Me: Cube Gre­na­des are Social Objects. Cube Gre­na­des are Social Objects. Cube Gre­na­des are Social Objects

3. All big change in com­pa­nies come from the peo­ple in the trenches, who do the actual day-to-day work. To change their beha­vior, you have to change the way they inte­ract. Peo­ple inte­ract around social objects. Change the social objects, and you change the company.

4. My friend, Mark Earls once told me a story about a friend of his. The friend pla­yed a key role in the mas­si­vely suc­cess­ful cor­po­rate tur­na­round recently under­ta­ken by McDonald’s.

His friend told him, “We knew we were scre­wed, NOT when the nutri­tion and green issues star­ted hit­ting the news­pa­pers, but by the sim­ple fact that our staff on the floor just weren’t clea­ning the tables and the bath­rooms like they used to. We knew THEN that our peo­ple had lost faith in our company.”

What social objects were peo­ple using, both during the company’s dec­line and during its tur­na­round? What cube gre­na­des were being thrown about, both before and after? I bet you they weren’t the same.

5. Yes, I am fully aware that your cus­to­mers are paying for the qua­lity of the pro­ducts and ser­vi­ces your busi­ness pro­vi­des, not for the qua­lity of the cube gre­na­des flying around your cor­po­rate head­quar­ters. But they are all rela­ted. Everything of value that your busi­ness crea­tes is the pro­duct of a already-existing social dyna­mic. Busi­nes­ses are peo­ple, not machi­nes. And peo­ple socia­lize around objects.

6. An Open Let­ter to Ad Agen­cies: Guys, you are NOT selling mes­sa­ges any­more. You are selling social objects. The work that you create will affect the cube gre­na­des and social objects, that your clients and their cus­to­mers use to inte­ract with each other.

my_desk_222.png

[More Cube Gre­na­des. “I use them as covers for my bin­ders strewn about my desk, to start con­ver­sa­tions”, says the per­son who e-mailed me the photo. Click on image to enlarge etc.]

7. You see a guy wal­king out of an Apple store, loo­king all exci­ted about his new Apple com­pu­ter he’s carr­ying under his arm? Why is he so exci­ted? Sure, he just got him­self a nice-looking piece of kit, but what REALLY exci­tes him is all of the COOL, DISRUPTIVE STUFF he’s going to MAKE with his new machine. Videos, music mixes, wha­te­ver. For his FRIENDS and his PEERS. Again, it’s the SOCIAL that makes it inte­res­ting. Apple makes cube gre­na­des, just like the ad agen­cies. Just like you do.

8. Peo­ple down­load my car­toons and stuck them on their walls by the THOUSANDS. A much sma­ller num­ber spend money to buy the more expen­sive ver­sions i.e. my prints. But the idea is the same i.e. a way for peo­ple to inte­ract. As I’m fond of saying: The con­ver­sa­tions AROUND the object are FAR more inte­res­ting than the object itself. And what is true for me is true of your pro­duct, as well. “Peo­ple Mat­ter. Objects don’t.” Exactly.

9. So when do I start char­ging? You can down­load my stuff for free, so why should you buy a print? Who says you should? I’m gues­sing that if one of my car­toons is mea­ning­ful enough to you, you’ll get tired of seeing it prin­ted on the office laser­prin­ter paper in low-resolution, get­ting all worn and torn, with the Scotch tape get­ting all yellow and crinkly. If you like the dra­wing enough, even­tually you’ll want to upgrade. The same way, back in college, that I would upgrade to vinyl or CDs, once the cheap and nasty cas­sette tape of my favo­rite band star­ted get­ting all fuzzy and worn out. The same way I gladly paid $20 to hear the band play live, rather than hear the same songs on the cas­sette. “Mea­ning Sca­les”. The more cube gre­na­des I throw out there, the more mea­ning­ful inte­rac­tion I create for other peo­ple, the more peo­ple will want to pay for it even­tually. If I loc­ked it all down as a cash-only tran­sac­tion, it would all die a horri­ble death overnight.

10. My long-term goal is to make more privately-commissioned “Cube Gre­na­des” for more clients like agen­ciac­lick. It was a won­der­ful wor­king expe­rience for me, and I want to spend more time in that busi­ness. If you find this idea inte­res­ting, please feel free to e-mail me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Thanks.

3. CUBE GRENADES: LIMITED-EDITION, FINE ART PRINTS

agenciaclick334.JPG

[Privately-commissioned “Cube Gre­na­des” i.e. limi­ted edi­tion, fine art prints that I did for my Bra­zi­lian client, agen­ciac­lick. Click on image to enlarge etc.]

“This, I believe, is where my car­toons work the best– ‘Cube Gre­na­des’- small social objects that you ‘throw’ in there in order to cause some damage– to start a con­ver­sa­tion, to spread an idea etc.”

Pro­bably the job I’m most proud of recently, is when I was hired by a Bra­zi­lian ad agency, agen­ciac­lick to create a pri­va­tely com­mis­sio­ned edi­tion of cube gre­na­des i.e. fine art prints. See photo above.

They didn’t want these prints 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.

My long-term goal is to make more privately-commissioned “Cube Gre­na­des” for more clients like agen­ciac­lick. It was a won­der­ful wor­king expe­rience for me, and I want to spend more time in that business.

[The Cube Gre­nade archive is here..]

4. “THE AD AGENCY PITCH”

To keep everything on the same page, I copied & pas­ted the entire “Ad Agency Pitch” from May 30th below. Thanks.

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[Sig­ning the agen­ciac­lick cube gre­nade a cou­ple of weeks ago…]

Over the last cou­ple of weeks I’ve been tal­king with various adver­ti­sing and PR folk about the Cube Gre­nade idea. Here are some notes:

1. In terms of the adver­ti­sing and PR indus­tries, the Cube Gre­nade is basi­cally con­cei­ved as a rela­ti­vely cheap and effec­tive Social Object to arti­cu­late the Purpose-Idea of a brand or company.

2. If the agency has an idea they REALLY want to sell to their client, they might have bet­ter luck if they first arti­cu­late the idea via a Cube Gre­nade desig­ned by me, rather than the tra­di­tio­nal “agency pitch” model. The agency’s idea is somehow arti­cu­la­ted as a com­mis­sio­ned print, the print is given out as a gift, to peo­ple within the rele­vant cons­ti­tuency. The print hangs on a wall, other peo­ple see it, and if the idea is any good then peo­ple will start tal­king about it. That con­ver­sa­tion will lead to other con­ver­sa­tions. If the idea is any good, other ideas [and oppor­tu­ni­ties] will be spaw­ned from it.

3. The Cube Gre­nade is not a glo­ri­fied adver­ti­sing pos­ter. I’m not pri­ma­rily inte­res­ted in why peo­ple should buy the client’s pro­duct per se. I’m far more inte­res­ted in the human dyna­mic, the collec­tive human drive that makes the client’s peo­ple want to get up in the mor­ning and go to work. That is where THE REAL VALUE is created.

4. Because the Cube Gre­nade is given as a gift– an act of love, as it were– AND NOT A DELIVERABLE WANTING TO BE SOLD, it will break through the cul­tu­ral barriers of the client com­pany a lot more cheaply and quickly than your stan­dard “Big Adver­ti­sing Idea”. The game here is not about “Selling An Ad”, the point is to make the client more alive, more human, more aware of their own human poten­tial. Again, this is where is where THE REAL VALUE for the client-agency rela­tionship is created.

5. Whether the Cube Gre­nade “works” or not in the end, both agency and client will find out if the thought behind it works A LOT soo­ner and inex­pen­si­vely than exe­cu­ting your ave­rage ad cam­paign. Like all com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the idea needs to RISK FAILURE if it’s ever to be any good. “Fail cheap, fail often”, as the great ven­ture capi­ta­list, Esther Dyson likes to say.

6. As I’ve said before to the ad agen­cies: “Guys, you are NOT selling mes­sa­ges any­more. You are selling Social Objects. The work that you create will affect the Cube Gre­na­des and Social Objects, that your clients and their cus­to­mers use to inte­ract with each other.” This is why I’m tal­king to adver­ti­sing folk. At the end of the day, we’re both in the same business.

7. To get more back­ground rea­ding, please visit my Cube Gre­nade archive here. You might also want to check out “The Hugh­train” to get a bet­ter unders­tan­ding of where my ideas are coming from.

8. As always, if this idea is of any inte­rest to you, please feel free to con­tact me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Or if you know someone in the adver­ti­sing industry, please send them along to this page [Here’s the link]. Thanks!

5. “OFFICE ART”

Ori­gi­nally pos­ted on this blog, Sep­tem­ber, 2009: a little bit of the phi­lo­sophy behind my work:

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[This could make a nice print, one day…]

Recently on Twit­ter, I wrote:

Art that brigh­tens up the office vs Art that brigh­tens up the home. Two dif­fe­rent vibes alto­gether. I pre­fer making the former.

To which my friend, Kathy Sie­rra replied:

Good! Homes are less likely to *need* brigh­te­ning the way offi­ces do. I can brigh­ten my home just by making toast.

Whether we’re tal­king wee cube gre­nade laser copies or something much lar­ger, like The Pur­ple Cow Print, when I launched the gaping­void gallery ear­lier this year, that was my inten­tion– to make art for the workspace.

This desire goes back to my early years wor­king as an adver­ti­sing crea­tive. There was always cool stuff– fine art, pos­ters, graphic design, car­toons– han­ging up everywhere. Stuff to amuse and ins­pire us, stuff to tweak our brains in the right direc­tion. And though its effect on the agency’s bot­tom line would’ve been hard to mea­sure, somehow it wor­ked– or at least, helped.

Why can’t all offi­ces be more like this? Is there some law that requi­res cer­tain types of busi­nes­ses to main­tain a dull, gray, machine-like, life-sucking visual envi­ron­ment? You could ague that maybe for some com­pa­nies, sure, but that’s not a world I’ve ever aspi­red to belong to.

“Office Art” tends to come in two main cate­go­ries: 1. REALLY expen­sive. 2. REALLY cheesy.

I wan­ted to make office art that was neither…

[Afterthought:] Of course, a lot of my collec­tors work from home, the­re­fore their offi­ces are in the house, not in an office buil­ding. But the prints were made with the works­pace in mind, not the “living” space, regardless.

6. “Art And The Real World”.

[Ori­gi­nally pos­ted on this blog, Octo­ber, 2009]

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[“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 were.”

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…

[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.

7. MOLESKINES:

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[“Moles­kine 42″ in a nice woo­den frame. Click on image to enlarge etc.]

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[“Moles­kine 42″ before the fra­ming, approx 5“x7”: Click on image to enlarge etc.]

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[Close-up view]

In May, 2008 I blog­ged about a new dra­wing, “Moles­kine 42″.

Since then I’ve got­ten a lot of requests for them. So I plan to be doing more in future.

ADVERTISING MOLESKINE:

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[“Adver­ti­sing Moles­kine”. 5“x7”. Fra­med. Click on image to enlarge etc.]

advertising%20moleskine%20001.jpg

[Unfra­med. 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. 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!.

[The Moles­kine archive is here.]

[Backs­tory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Work with Hugh. Twit­ter. Car­toon Archive. News­let­ter. Book. Inter­view One. Inter­view Two. EVIL PLANS. Limi­ted Edi­tion PrintsCube Gre­na­des.]

May 23, 2009

“ignore everybody” prints on their way

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[Me sig­ning copies of “Ignore Every­body” ear­lier this week. 25 boxes, 40 books in each…]
With my upco­ming book launch less than three weeks away, we deci­ded to published prints from some of the car­toons found in the book.
The book has eighty-odd car­toons in it, I’ve made a short­list of four­teen [See Below], from which I’ll actually print up three in the next cou­ple of weeks, to coin­cide with the books hit­ting the shops [UPDATE: I’ve also inc­lu­ded two or three car­toons that aren’t in the book, but maybe should have been etc.].
These prints will be sma­ller than the last ones [approx 9“x14” i.e. roughly the same dimen­sions as my Mac­Book] and chea­per [around $100-$125 for one, around $300 for the set]. They may be black and white only, or we may use maybe one color, we’re not sure yet.
In spite of their small size, like last time, they will be sig­ned, and will be prin­ted as high-quality silksc­reens.
Upmar­ket Cube Gre­na­des. Exactly.
Here is the short­list. Feel free to leave your feed­back in the com­ments, Thanks!
MISTAKENLY
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WOLF VS. SHEEP
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WE NEED TO TALK
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I DON’T HAVE FRIENDS
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WELCOME TO…
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IT’S NOT WHAT THE SOFTWARE DOES
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ANGELS
angel319-thumb.jpg
COMPANY HIERARCHY
CompanyHierarchy112.jpg
DINOSAUR
dinosaur001.jpg
IF YOU TALKED TO PEOPLE
ifyoutalkedtopeople111.jpg
QUALITY
QualityIsnt112.jpg
GOOD FOR YOU
ReadMyBlog112.jpg
THE HUGHTRAIN
SomethingtoBelievein112.jpg
THRIVING IN MARKETS
ThrivingMarkets112.jpg

May 2, 2009

the cat

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[A “Wolf vs Sheep” print arri­ved at Matt Langdon’s house. The cat is imme­dia­tely sus­pi­cious etc.]
[Update:] Matt left the follo­wing in the com­ments:

My cats love plas­tic, what can I say?
Fan­tas­tic print Hugh. The qua­lity actually sur­pri­sed me and I was expec­ting high quality.

As they say in Inter­net circ­les, w00t!

May 1, 2009

social proof: “where the molecules are”

wrap555.jpg
I took this pic­ture when I was in Miami, while the “Wolf vs Sheep” prints were being pac­ked and ship­ped. A cus­to­mer asked me on Twit­ter for a pro­gress report. So I sho­wed her [and all my other Twit­ter follo­wers] this photo– the print moun­ted on ship­ping card­board, as “Social Proof”.
When you’re run­ning an online busi­ness, where everything is arti­cu­la­ted via digi­tal, it’s good to offer your cus­to­mers a real-time glimpse into the real world, “Where The Mole­cu­les Are”.
This is why I ask all my cus­to­mers to please send me pho­tos. It offers ME social proof, that all this is real, that yes, my idea went all the way from con­cept, to design, to prin­ting, to ship­ping, to cus­to­mers’ walls. It’s a won­der­ful fee­ling. These are my “babies”, after all– I love seeing where they end up!
This is also why I set up a Flickr pho­tos­tream for the prints i.e to offer more “Proof”.
Proof is a good thing. Proof is my friend. The more “Proof” that is freely avai­la­ble out there, the more easy it is for some­body to trust my name, my brand and my pro­duct.
And this, of course, is also true with your business…

April 30, 2009

a marketing 2.0 icon

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[The Pur­ple Cow print. 39“x28”]

A few days ago, with the bles­sing of Seth Godin, I announ­ced the Pur­ple Cow Print. Here are some more of my thoughts, in no par­ti­cu­lar order:

1. I wan­ted to create an icon for the world I currently live in. The internet-enabled, Mar­ke­ting 2.0 world. Seth’s 2003 book, “Pur­ple Cow” see­med to sum up that world for me best. Tur­ning into a print i.e. an ico­nic ver­sion of the world he spoke about, was a no-brainer. You walk into somebody’s office and see that print on their wall, you have no doubt wha­tsoe­ver which world­view he’s alig­ned to.
2. I lear­ned this while mar­ke­ting wine: What’s inte­res­ting is not the liquid in the bottle, or what vine­yard it came from, but the con­ver­sa­tions that hap­pen around it. Same with art. I wan­ted to make a print that HAD NO CHOICE but to start a con­ver­sa­tion. A con­ver­sa­tion about what? Not the work of art per se, but what the thing that the icon repre­sents– the ideas in the book.
3. It’s the big­gest print I have made so far: 39x28”. That’s BIG for a print. That’s a lot of pur­ple.
4. Though I used “Web 2.0″ tech to mar­ket it, in many ways the print was a sta­te­ment AGAINST what Web 2.0 seems to have been evol­ving into these last cou­ple of years… a place where the shiny new tools seem to mat­ter A LOT MORE to peo­ple than the objects peo­ple were buil­ding WITH the shiny new tools.
5. Though I’m really, really unbe­lie­vably happy with the num­ber of pre-orders we have got­ten so far, I believe the print will be A LOT MORE inte­res­ting to A LOT MORE peo­ple once they see it han­ging on other people’s walls. Once they see the mole­cu­les with their own eyes. Once THE REAL con­ver­sa­tions begin. The cen­tral the­sis to Seth’s book is “Be Remar­ka­ble”. I went all meta and used his book design as a star­ting point to create something remar­ka­ble myself.
6. Some­body asked me recently if the way I mar­ke­ted my prints [i.e. via Web 2.0] was part of the art­work itself? Well, I believe that all art is infor­med by its social dimen­sion, inc­lu­ding the com­mer­cial bit. The fact that you bought the print off a blog, rather than from a tra­di­tio­nal art gallery, does indeed inform the story behind it. But you can just as easily take that theory so far. In the end, it’s made of paper and hangs on a wall. Theory can be a dis­trac­tion. some­ti­mes.
7. One of my great car­too­nist heroes, Char­les Schultz, once said, “If I were bet­ter at dra­wing, I’d make pain­tings. If I were bet­ter at wri­ting, I’d write books. So ins­tead I draw car­toons”. That’s exactly how I feel about my own work. I don’t see my work han­ging in the Louvre any time soon. What I do see, howe­ver, and what gets far more inte­res­ting to me with time, is how peo­ple use my work fro their own ends, for hel­ping them find their own sense of pur­pose. Seth’s book, or this print, won’t change your life. ONLY YOU will change your life. It’s only the job of the artist or wri­ter to maybe give you a nudge in the right direc­tion.
8. I am insa­nely gra­te­ful to Seth Godin for allo­wing me to run with this idea. He rules. Thank you, Seth!
[Check out The Pur­ple Cow print over at gapingvoidgallery.com.]

April 28, 2009

the new gapingvoid print: the purple cow “totem”: pre-order $495

pc777A.jpg
[UPDATE: A pic­ture of me hol­ding up one of the Pur­ple Cow prints. They look UTTERLY AMAZING in real life…]

PC133.jpg
[“Pur­ple Cow” Printer’s Proof, pho­to­graphed straight on. Dimen­sion: 39“x28”, Click on image to enlarge etc.]

[Update: Seth Godin blogs about the prints here.]

sethPSDmainJPEG.jpg
[The ori­gi­nal design. Click on Image to Enlarge etc]
A cou­ple of weeks ago I pos­ted a new car­toon, basi­cally a re-working of the front cover of my friend and men­tor, Seth Godin’s semi­nal 2003 mar­ke­ting book, “Pur­ple Cow”. Like I told Seth in an e-mail:

It has occu­rred me many times recently, that one rea­son MANY, MANY peo­ple in the world are currently suf­fe­ring during this current recession/crisis/whatever, is simply because they didn’t follow the advice in Pur­ple Cow.
That’s a bit sim­plis­tic, I know, but it still has a ring of truth too it.
ALL your books are great, but Jeeze, Pur­ple Cow is the one that really got under my skin, which is really what ins­pi­red the big dra­wing I did. To me the book, as a totem, as an icon, repre­sents a huge shift in thin­king that came along, almost unin­vi­ted, back in the early 2000’s. The dra­wing repre­sents [to me] my own abi­lity to inter­na­lize it.
You and I both somehow mana­ged to find a way to currently live in this Pur­ple Cow/Hughtrain world now, that we wrote about 5+ years ago. But now I see that same world sud­denly arri­ving for millions of peo­ple… and it’s cold & scary for a great many of them.
Which is why I now think peo­ple now need to read Pur­ple Cow more than ever…

I read Seth’s book right about the same time I really star­ted to “get” this whole blog­ging and Web 2.0 thing. Pur­ple Cow was almost ico­nic to me.
Which is why it was easy for me to envi­sage it as an icon.
So with Seth’s bles­sing, I tur­ned this icon into lite­rally ANOTHER icon– a very large, pur­ple, ico­nic, fine art print. A “Totem”, as it were. Like Seth said on his blog, when he first announ­ced the print ear­lier today:

Totem poles have been around for a long time, because they work. We need a place to tell our sto­ries, and a remin­der of what to talk about.

On a pro­fes­sio­nal level, the stuff Seth talks about in Pur­ple Cow is still very rele­vant. Be remar­ka­ble, Ever­yone is a mar­ke­ter etc.- is what to me, Web 2.0 was all about. It WASN’T about yak­king on end­lessly about the latest shiny object or the latest crazy web-celeb stunt. It was about get­ting inte­res­ting ideas, pro­ducts and ser­vi­ces out to mar­ket a lot more cheaply, quickly and easily than it ever was before before. THAT’S WHAT EXCITED ME.
And that’s what this “Totem” is ALSO all about.
The print will be co-signed by both me and Seth. A limi­ted edi­tion of 380.
You can a pre-order one below for $495.00 below by making $150 Pay­Pal depo­sit. This offer is open only to the first 100 peo­ple who res­pond. Once they’re in pro­duc­tion, you can purchase one at the retail price of $1,100.00 over at The gaping­void Gallery, my new e-commerce web­site that launched offi­cially today.
Seth and I are plan­ning on having some sort of “Sig­ning Party” in mid-June up in New York City, to sign the prints live. If you’re in town, I hope you can make it.
Thanks, Seth, this is going to be insa­nely great!
[The Small Print:]
1. The pre-order price is $495.00 for the first one hun­dred peo­ple who order. Once the prints have been co-signed by both me and Seth, the price reverts back to retail i.e. $1,100.00
2. It will be a limi­ted edi­tion of 380 seri­graphs, plus artist’s proofs.
All prints will be co-signed and dated by both me and Seth.
3. The prints will be ship­ped out circa July 1st, 2009, soon after the NY print party.

[Click on Pay­Pal $150 Depo­sit]
4. To secure your pre-order, please use the Pay­Pal but­ton above to make a $150 depo­sit. The Pay­Pal form will ask you for all your details [inc­lu­ding your pre­fe­rred ship­ping address], which of course we’ll have for our records. Why are we asking for a depo­sit? To weed out the spam­mers, fla­kes and trolls out there [This is the Inter­net, after all], lea­ving only com­mit­ted buyers in the mix. No other rea­son.
5. When asked for your details, please inc­lude your real name, not just your busi­ness name. The ship­per won’t deli­ver it other­wise.
6. We’ll email you a Pay­Pal form for the outs­tan­ding invoice once the art­work is prin­ted, pac­ked and ready for ship­ping.
7. We’ll be prin­ting these to the same high stan­dards as always i.e. top-of-the-line inks and paper, approx 39″ x 28″ in dimen­sion. Please note this print is quite lar­ger than the ear­lier edi­tions, so make sure you free up plenty of wall space!
8. Ship­ping & hand­ling [approx $45 USA, $65 abroad] is not inc­lu­ded in the price. The buyer is also res­pon­si­ble for any Cus­toms & Excise outside the USA. We ship them rolled, pro­tec­ted in tis­sue paper, in extra sturdy, 5-inch mai­ling tubes. If you insist on having it ship­ped flat, we can cer­tainly do that for you, but it costs extra and the risk of ship­ping damage is far higher.
9. If you have any ques­tions, please feel free to drop me an email at gapingvoidprints@gmail.com, and either Laura or me will hap­pily ans­wer them.
10. Thanks, as always, for your love and support!

April 25, 2009

art as ‘social marker’

wntt432.jpg
[Brian Man­ley kindly just sent me a pic­ture from his Flickr stream of his new “We Need To Talk” print, fra­med and han­ging in his office. Thanks, Brian!]
A while ago, I tal­ked about “Social Mar­kers”, a form of “Social Object” that pla­ces you in con­text within a group.

Social Mar­kers are a prime form of social shorthand, that peo­ple use to STAKE OUT the ecosys­tem they’re occup­ying. So why do I find this such a use­ful term for mar­ke­ters? Because obviously, if your pro­duct is a Social Mar­ker in your industry ecosys­tem [the way the iPhone is in the mobile world, or Star­bucks is in the cof­fee world, or Ama­zon is the book world, or Goo­gle is in the search world, or Whole Foods is in the super­mar­ket world, or Vir­gin is in the air­line world, or English Cut in the bes­poke world etc etc] you will have an AMAZING com­pe­ti­tive advan­tage to call your own.
And if the pro­duct your com­pany makes is not a Social Mar­ker, I guess the first ques­tion would be, “Why the hell not?” Quit your job and start over.

A few weeks ago I read an article in The Eco­no­mist about how very rich Rus­sians have sud­denly star­ted buying the art of Damien Hirst and other Wes­tern Con­tem­po­ra­ries in large num­bers.
Hirst is very, very famous. His work sells for millions. We could argue his work’s artis­tic merits till the cows come home… his work is cle­verly desig­ned to pro­voke that kind of con­tro­versy, any­way. But I’m not here to play art cri­tic. I’m here to talk about something else.
When peo­ple buy expen­sive, famous art, it’s not just about the art in ques­tion. It’s also about the social dyna­mic that surrounds it.
When you spend a king’s ran­som on a work of art, you are basi­cally sen­ding a mes­sage to the world, “I HAVE ARRIVED”.
“I, too, am now a mem­ber of a cer­tain elite group. Like my peers, I too can appre­ciate and afford the likes of Hirst, or Warhol, or Johns, Rauschen­berg, Matisse, Picasso etc etc. ”
“Art as Social Mar­ker”. Exactly.
Peo­ple buy large yachts for the same rea­son. Or large apart­ments in May­fair or Cen­tral Park South. Or deers­tal­king esta­tes in Scot­land. Or golf mem­berships to Augusta. Or islands in the Carib­bean. “Social” dri­ves the purchase just as much as the object’s inhe­rent uti­lity, pro­bably more.
As far as I can tell, peo­ple don’t buy my work to adver­tise the fact that they’ve arri­ved somewhere BIG, like these wealthy Rus­sians buying Damien’s work.
It seems more like to me, peo­ple buy my work because they ASPIRE to arrive somewhere, one day. Somewhere inte­res­ting and mea­ning­ful, with any luck.
Whe­re­ver that place may be, I can relate. I hope to arrive there one day, too…

April 24, 2009

signing prints in miami

4321a.JPG
[The “Agen­ciaC­lick” prints being sig­ned and num­be­red…]
4321b.JPG
[The “Wolf vs Sheep” prints, freshly sig­ned and num­be­red…]
I’m in Miami for the wee­kend, mainly here to sign some more prints and do some more dra­wing…
Drawn in Alpine, Texas. Prin­ted in NYNY. Sig­ned in Miami. Sold all over the world, via the Inter­net. A glo­bal mic­ro­brand, if ever there was one…

April 23, 2009

prints, people and pics

Puppy%20002LB.jpg
TechPRGuy%20and%20Hugh%20print2.JPG
In my last CDF News­let­ter I asked peo­ple to please send me any pic­tu­res they might have of my prints in their pos­ses­sion.
Larry kindly sent me two, with the follo­wing note:

Attached is my “Pur­ple Puppy” on my far kitchen wall, along­side a Haring print I bought 20 years ago at his Pop Shop in NYC.
Also attached is “Techc­runch Party 2006″ in my old office space. What’s inte­res­ting is that it sur­vi­ved an major elec­tri­cal explo­sion and fire in that buil­ding two years ago, and was the first thing I chec­ked when allo­wed a brief visit while the buil­ding was clo­sed for weeks after­ward.
And, yes, I am a Crazy, Deran­ged Fool. Star­ted my own small PR firm on Nov. 1, 2008, while Wall Street was implo­ding, repla­ced my prior income, and just recently excee­ded it, with more growth immi­nent. Won’t kid you — the first two months were scary. But I stuck with it, and am merrily pres­sing on.
 – Larry Bouchie

Thanks, Larry! If you have any print pho­tos your­self– espe­cially ones with PEOPLE in them, please feel free to send them to me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Thanks!

April 16, 2009

“create or die”

redknight002.jpg
Chris over on Twit­ter left me the follo­wing mes­sage:

@gapingvoid “create or die” is a timely slo­gan for the country and eco­nomy. we have shif­ted too far over to the con­su­mer side

Yep, I would agree…
[The gaping­void “Create or Die” print.]

April 13, 2009

the next gapingvoid print: “create or die”: $265 pre-order

create%20or%20die%20jpeg.jpg
[Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Though this car­toon, “Create or Die” is less than a week old, it see­med to really reso­nate with peo­ple, and by the time the end of last week rolled around, the num­ber of peo­ple emai­ling me about this image almost equa­led those who voted for Wolf v. Sheep. So, being the kind of per­son that hates to disap­point, I deci­ded to damn the tor­pe­does and go ahead and publish it, as it seems to make lots of peo­ple happy.
The car­toon was ins­pi­red by a dia­log I had going with one of my clients, Dell Com­pu­ters, just before Christ­mas. The more I thought about it, the more I rea­li­zed that this “crea­ti­vity” thing isn’t just a Dell issue, it applies to all of us.
Like I said in my pre­vious blog post:

In this glo­ba­li­zed, hyper-linked, internet-enabled world, “Boring” has sud­denly become a very expen­sive luxury.
[…]
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.

I can’t tell you what to make. I can’t tell you what your cus­to­mers will find inte­res­ting or use­ful. I can’t tell you what’s going to knock their socks off. I can’t tell you what “Create” means to you or some­body else.
But I will tell you, I AM RIGHT about this one. Create or Die. That’s why I wan­ted to make this into a print. Something on the wall to serve as a steady remin­der.
[The Small Print:]

1. It’ll be prin­ted around the end of April, and will retail at $450.00. Not yet sure on the edi­tion size, we’ll decide when it is going to print, all hand-signed and num­be­red by me. Using the Pay­pal but­ton below to make a $100 depo­sit, you can own at the pre-publication price of $265.00. The pre-pub price will expire by Thurs­day. Any orders after that, but before the publi­ca­tion date can buy it for $350.00. The minute the image is prin­ted, the price reverts back to $450.00. 

[UPDATE: The Pay­Pal Depo­sit has been removed.]


2. To secure your pre-order, please use the Pay­Pal but­ton above to make a $100 depo­sit. The Pay­Pal form will ask you for all your details [inc­lu­ding your pre­fe­rred ship­ping address], which of course we’ll have for our records. Why are we asking for a depo­sit? To weed out the spam­mers, fla­kes and trolls out there [This is the Inter­net, after all], lea­ving only com­mit­ted buyers in the mix. No other rea­son.
3. When asked for your details, please inc­lude your real name, not just your busi­ness name. The ship­per won’t deli­ver it other­wise.
4. The print will be ready to ship in 4 – 6 weeks from today. We’ll email you another Pay­Pal for the outs­tan­ding invoice once the art­work is prin­ted and pac­ked.
5. We’ll be prin­ting these to the same high stan­dards as last time i.e. top-of-the-line inks and paper, approx 24″ x 35″ in dimen­sion. If for some rea­son, I don’t like the way the colors lay down when I am proo­fing it, I reserve the right to change the colors and if you don’t like the final image, you can have your depo­sit back, no ques­tions asked.
6. Ship­ping & hand­ling [approx $45 USA, $65 abroad] is not inc­lu­ded in the price. The buyer is also res­pon­si­ble for any Cus­toms & Excise outside the USA. We ship them flat, not rolled.
7. If you have any ques­tions, please feel free to drop me an email at gapingvoidprints@gmail.com, and either Laura or me will ans­wer them.

Thanks, as always, for your love and support!

April 10, 2009

gapingvoid’s secret, evil plan finally goes public…

hampster444.jpg
[“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 8, 2009

the next gapingvoid print: “wolf vs sheep”, pre-order at $265

ws0904%20jpeg.jpg
[“Wolf vs. Sheep”. Click on image to enlarge]

[UPDATE: Wolf vs Sheep $265 is now clo­sed. The price is now $350 pre-order until the print ships, early May. Thanks for the support!!!!!]

“Wolf vs. Sheep” will be the next gaping­void print.
The votes are in, and it is always inte­res­ting to see which image wins, and what peo­ple have to say about why. We were bet­ting that the win­ner was going to be “Love Begets Love”, but bet­ween the emails and com­ments, it was at least three-to-one for “Wolf vs Sheep”. [Which just pro­ves that I still do not know why peo­ple like one car­toon over another]. Even though, fewer peo­ple voted for the other ima­ges, they were no less pas­sio­nate about the ones they selec­ted, and that star­ted us thin­king… as I will explain below.
I am always remin­ded that I need to spell out the ‘fine print’, as follows:

1. It’ll be prin­ted around the end of April, and will retail at $450.00. It’ll be an edi­tion of roughly 100, hand sig­ned and num­be­red by me. The first 30 peo­ple who pre-order it by making a $100 depo­sit using the Pay­Pal but­ton below can have it at the pre-publication price of $265.00. Any orders after, but before the publi­ca­tion date can buy it for $350.00. The minute the print goes into pro­duc­tion, the price reverts back to $450.00. 

[UPDATE: PAYPAL BUTTON REMOVED, EASTER SUNDAY.]
2. To secure your pre-order, please use the Pay­Pal but­ton above to make a $100 depo­sit. The Pay­Pal form will ask you for all your details [inc­lu­ding your pre­fe­rred ship­ping address], which of course we’ll have for our records. Why are we asking for a depo­sit? To weed out the spam­mers, fla­kes and trolls out there [This is the Inter­net, after all], lea­ving only com­mit­ted buyers in the mix. No other rea­son.
3. The print will be ready to ship in 4 – 6 weeks. We’ll send you another Pay­Pal for the outs­tan­ding invoice once the art­work is prin­ted.
4. We’ll be prin­ting these to the same high stan­dards as last time i.e. top-of-the-line inks and paper, approx 24″ x 35″ in dimen­sion. If for some rea­son, I don’t like the way the colors lay down when I am proo­fing it, I reserve the right to change the colors and if you don’t like the final image, you can have your depo­sit back, no ques­tions asked.
5. Ship­ping & hand­ling [approx $45 USA, $65 abroad] is not inc­lu­ded in the price. The buyer is also res­pon­si­ble for any Cus­toms & Excise outside the USA. We ship them flat, not rolled. When you give us your details, please remem­ber to inc­lude your name, not just your com­pany name. Other­wise the Post Office won’t accept it.
6. If you have any ques­tions, please feel free to drop me an email at gapingvoidprints@gmail.com, and either Laura or me will ans­wer them.

Though “Wolf vs Sheep” was the clear win­ner, there was still a lot of PASSIONATE sup­port for the two other con­ten­ders, “Create Or Die” and “Love Begets Love” [see the com­ments]. We’re loo­king at ways to make those avai­la­ble to you as well. I draf­ted a post ear­lier today that I’ll publish in a few days. In part, it says:

EVERY DAY now, I’m get­ting emails from peo­ple, reques­ting that I turn their favo­rite gaping­void car­toon into a limi­ted edi­tion print. The good news is, in an ideal world, I would do it in a nano­se­cond. The bad news is, it is just not eco­no­mi­cally fea­si­ble. These sorts of print edi­tions are really expen­sive to make, and without a cri­ti­cal mass of cus­to­mers per edi­tion, it simply doesn’t work
The funny thing about my work is, that because there is so much of it, so many dif­fe­rent ima­ges mean so many dif­fe­rent things to so many dif­fe­rent peo­ple. On one level, I’ve been really bles­sed at being very pro­li­fic, but on another level, I strug­gle with deci­ding what to ima­ges to choose for pro­duc­tion. Yes, there are obvious ones, like “The Blue­train”, but many, like “Corinthians”, which pro­ved to be really popu­lar in the end, I could have just as easily not have cho­sen.
There HAS to be a bet­ter way. Somehow, I need to make the selec­tion pro­cess more open to Ever­yone.…
So I’m thin­king to myself, wouldn’t it be cool if peo­ple could SPONSOR their own limi­ted edi­tion? Seriously.

We’re loo­king into this idea where indi­vi­duals can fea­sibly “spon­sor” the pro­duc­tion of their favo­rite car­toon into print form, and har­nes­sing the power of the Inter­net to get other peo­ple to join their cause. We’ll either build or own web­site for that, or we’ll use something like Fundable.org.
lovebegets25CCCC.jpg
create%20or%20die%20jpeg.jpg
[“Love Begets Love” and “Create or Die”.]
“Love Begets Love” and “Create or Die” will be the gui­nea pigs. It’ll be really inte­res­ting to see what hap­pens. Please watch this space.
Thanks, as always, for your love and support!

April 7, 2009

art, the kinetic quality and social objects

vinnyWAAA.jpg

Vinny Warren, a highly res­pec­ted Crea­tive Direc­tor in Chi­cago [He wrote the Bud­wei­ser “Whas­sup” ad cam­paign] has kindly hung his new “Blue­train” print in a key focal point of his agency, the con­fe­rence room. He blogs about it here.

Fresh from the fra­ming store, it’s one of just 85 sig­ned Hugh Mac­Leod prints from the first in a series of limi­ted edi­tion prints he’s doing. This was always my favo­rite car­toon of his. I used to have a b/w prin­tout of it on my office wall. It pretty much sums up how I feel gene­rally. And I love the wildly opti­mis­tic yet utterly truth­ful tone. The text reads: THE MARKET FOR SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN IS INFINITE.

This adver­ti­sing con­nec­tion got me thin­king about something I pos­ted back in February, 2004, during the tail end of my own adver­ti­sing career, called “The Kine­tic Quality”:

“The Kine­tic Qua­lity”: All pro­ducts are infor­ma­tion. The mole­cu­les are secondary.

The future of brands is inte­rac­tion, not com­mo­dity. It’s not something you buy, but something you pati­ci­pate in.

i.e. a brand is not a thing, but a place.
[…]
In the old days, the three most impor­tant words in adver­ti­sing were “Uni­que Selling Pro­po­si­tion”. To me, the three most impor­tant words are “By Inte­rac­ting With…”

–By inte­rac­ting with Ger­ber, she beco­mes a better-informed mom.
–By inte­rac­ting with The Wall Street Jour­nal, she beco­mes more tuned into the world of capi­ta­lism.
–By inte­rac­ting with Apple, she brings her entre­pre­neu­rial dreams clo­ser to rea­lity.
–By inte­rac­ting with McDonald’s, her busy sche­dule is made slightly easier by avoi­ding a lot of fuss over lunch.
–By inte­rac­ting with Rals­ton Purina, she beco­mes more attached to her canine friend.
–By inte­rac­ting with your brand, she becomes…?

A good brand is a two-way con­ver­sa­tion.
What we blog­gers know about the nature of infor­ma­tion (a great deal) can be applied far beyond our usual diet of media, poli­tics and jour­na­lism. Because all pro­ducts are infor­ma­tion. All pro­ducts are ideas. The mole­cu­les are secondary. 

Back when I wrote that, I was an adver­ti­sing crea­tive i.e. selling other people’s stuff. Now I’m selling my own stuff i.e. my prints. And the same rules still apply:

–By inte­rac­ting with gaping­void, Vinny Warren [or whoe­ver] becomes…?

The short ans­wer is, roughly: “Bet­ter able to arti­cu­late his own world­view to him­self and to peo­ple around him.”
That’s the idea, at least. Which of course, is THE WHOLE PURPOSE of art in the first place: Self-expression through third-party “Social Objects”.
Anyone who’s ever owned an iPhone or a Har­ley David­son will know exactly what I’m tal­king about…
[Sign up to the gaping­void “Crazy, Deran­ged Fools” News­let­ter here.]

the next gapingvoid print: “wolf vs sheep”, “love begets love”, or “create or die”

ws0904%20jpeg.jpg
lovebegets25CCCC.jpg
create%20or%20die%20jpeg.jpg

[UPDATE: “Wolf vs Sheep” will be the next gaping­void print. Details here.]

In case you haven’t been follo­wing, I have been upda­ting a few ima­ges from my back cata­lo­gue [which num­bers over 5,000 dra­wings, the last time I coun­ted] and tur­ning them into limited-edition silksc­reens.
It has been a great expe­rience. It’s allo­wed me to reac­quaint myself with the ima­ges, that in some cases, I haven’t really thought about for years. It brings back some old memo­ries, and puts my mind to work in a new medium: How to trans­late 2″ x 3 1/2″ busi­ness card-sized doodle into large, 2-or –3-foot ima­ges.
As I spend time with this, I can’t help thin­king about that age-old, never-quite-answered ques­tion, “What is Art?” How is it dif­fe­rent, how has our rela­tionship chan­ged with it from even say, a cou­ple of deca­des ago? Espe­cially with the Inter­net evol­ving our sense of “Media” at such a light­ning pace?
I don’t have a defi­ni­tive ans­wer to this, but I do have a few thoughts on the sub­ject:
The artist whose work best sum­med up for me the Modern, post-World War Two, 20th-Century world that most of us were born into, is the late, great Andy Warhol. A fan­tas­tic maga­zine illus­tra­tor in the 1950s, who got into the ima­gery of tele­vi­sed, mass media in the 1960s. VERY mass-media. Who appro­pria­ted the visual lan­guage of a mass-produced, top-down, broad­cast, CORPORATE world. The visual lan­guage of Madi­son Ave­nue, the visual lan­guage of Kellog’s Corn Fla­kes, Heinz Ketchup and of course, Campbell’s Soup. And we look at his work with the same sort of detach­ment as a TV com­mer­cial, or a can of beans in the super­mar­ket. And we NEED to remain detached, or else this rather loud, gla­mo­rous, oppres­sive, con­su­me­rist world­view would bury us, would turn our brains to corn syrup.
Then along comes the Inter­net. A place that doesn’t do shotgun-media,“Broadcast” well. A place where if what you’re saying isn’t enga­ging, isn’t hit­ting peo­ple on a inti­mate, human level, it doesn’t get seen, it doesn’t get sha­red, it doesn’t exist.
Which explains why, as a rela­ti­vely dedi­ca­ted citi­zen of the Inter­net, I am far more inte­res­ted in what a piece of “Art” can do for you, once it is on your wall, than what I got out of crea­ting it. What it can do as piece of com­mu­ni­ca­tion bet­ween you and the peo­ple close to you, not as a piece of aca­de­mic Art Theory. I like the “Social-bility” of the work. I like crea­ting “Social Objects”. And this to me, of course, is what the Inter­net also runs on. This, to me, is also what the new internet-enabled, post-TV world is all about. Ins­tant, Human Con­nec­tion.
And where does this “Human Con­nec­tion” come from? Easy– from tal­king about the world you and I actually live in, not the world the “Theory Police” live in. Yes, that one. The messy one. You know EXACTLY what I’m tal­king about…
And yes, that’s what car­toons have ALWAYS been about to me, long before the Inter­net was inven­ted, long before I even knew what Art Theory was. As I’m fond of saying, “It isn’t roc­ket science”. Real, Human Con­nec­tion never was.
So, with this brave new world in mind, we’re thin­king of publishing one of the three follo­wing car­toons:
1. “Wolf vs Sheep”. This is a re-working is one of my his­to­ri­cal favo­ri­tes. I first drew it when I had just to moved to New York, in 1998. It was about what I saw as the choi­ces that peo­ple are con­fron­ted with in the rat race. They were fas­ci­na­ting times and eli­ci­ted other favo­ri­tes of mine, like “Com­pany Hie­rarchy”.
2. “Love Begets Love”. Virgil’s famous quote. I drew the car­toon as a con­ten­der for the Stormhoek Valentine’s wine in 2007. It never made it onto the bottle as a label in the end, but a lot of peo­ple loved the dra­wing.
3. “Create Or Die”. Though I only pos­ted this car­toon for the first time a few hours ago, I’ve so far recei­ved about 20 emails from peo­ple expres­sing serious inte­rest in it as a print. I never saw that coming, but what the heck, up it goes…
We’ll publish one of the three, depen­ding on the feed­back we get. If you have an opi­nion either way, please feel free to leave a com­ment below, ping me on Twit­ter, or if you think you’re in the actual mar­ket for buying one, send me an email. Thanks.
The silksc­reen print will be roughly the same size [approx 24″ x 35″] and of the same high qua­lity as “Corinthians” and “We Need To Talk”. The price and num­ber of the edi­tion will also be in the same ball­park.
Please let me know your thoughts. All very exci­ting. Thanks Again.

April 1, 2009

print update: signing

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Today was “Print Sig­ning” Day. Spent most of the mor­ning sig­ning “Corinthians” and “We Need To Talk”. Rock on.
As you can see, “WNTT” is red & white. It was con­cei­ved as a pur­ple & blue print, but as I e-mailed to peo­ple who had pre-ordered one:

As you will remem­ber, it was envi­sio­ned as a mostly pur­ple print, with some blue and black.
It loo­ked good on the com­pu­ter screen [i.e. lit from behind]. The trou­ble is, it didn’t look so good as a prin­ted proof. It simply didn’t work. Somehow the pur­ple didn’t gel with the other colors. It all loo­ked kinda muddy.
So we mes­sed around, as you can see in the second photo above. We took out the pur­ple, just to see if that hel­ped.
Then we chan­ged the ori­gi­nal blue to fire-engine red, we also tried orange-yellow.
And the red.… simply put.… loo­ked SMOKING HOT! I’m wri­ting this down in Miami. The WNTT edi­tion [red] just arri­ved here in a woo­den crate, and it looks utterly fabu­lous. Trust me; the photo doesn’t do it jus­tice.
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[The prints, 30 seconds after ope­ning the cra­tes…]
I know that the pur­ple image above was what you plan­ned on buying, and you may in fact have had your heart set on something pur­ple. I totally unders­tand that. Then again, Art is a work-in-progress. I didn’t know exactly HOW things were going to turn out until I was actually in the prin­ting stu­dio. C’est Le Gue­rre.
I’m sig­ning the prints tomo­rrow and ship­ping them out this week. If you’re not happy about the new red color, I unders­tand com­ple­tely, and I will gladly refund your money in full, or cre­dit you with a later print edi­tion. It’s totally your call.

The vast majo­rity of peo­ple were cool with this, a lot of them actually said they pre­fe­rred the new red ver­sion. One per­son did have her heart set on pur­ple, so we gave her a refund, fair enough. One other per­son agreed to take a “Corinthian” in its place. So it all tur­ned out rather well, all things con­si­de­red.
The prints are being ship­ped out tomo­rrow, so expect to see yours in the mail in the next few days. To be honest, I’m over the moon with how well these two edi­tions tur­ned out. These are very exci­ting times. Thanks, as always, for your love and sup­port. Rock on.

March 25, 2009

gapingvoid commissioned prints

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[“Open Brands”. Com­mis­sio­ned by Agen­cia Click, Sao Paulo, Bra­zil. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
I’m deligh­ted to announce my first pri­va­tely com­mis­sio­ned gaping­void print.
A cou­ple of weeks ago I was invi­ted down to Bra­zil by Agen­cia Click to do a bit of public spea­king and some con­sul­tancy work for them. While I was at it, they also com­mis­sio­ned me to design a print for them, something that arti­cu­la­ted their “Open Bran­ding” idea. So I desig­ned the dra­wing above, which goes into pro­duc­tion next week.
The black lines repre­sent “The World”, as it were. The red lines repre­sent “The Brand”. In “Open Bran­ding”, the brand is “Everywhere”, not “Con­tro­lled” or “Iso­la­ted” somewhere spe­ci­fic.
I took their idea, fil­te­red it through my own visual lan­guage to create a third thing, an image that cap­tu­res the “Purpose-Idea”.
I did pretty much the same thing with Mic­ro­soft and The Blue Mons­ter
I love this kind of work. It allows me to do my dra­wing thing, while still get­ting my brain out of the stu­dio and out into the real world. Not to men­tion, I get to visit Bra­zil! Heh.
Thanks to Abel and Jeff for making it hap­pen. Rock on.
[NB: If you’re in the mar­ket to com­mis­sion a limi­ted edi­tion print, feel free to email me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Thanks.]

March 19, 2009

bluetrain prints arriving!

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[Blue­train cus­to­mers posing their prints online etc…]
Yes­ter­day the “Blue­train” prints star­ted arri­ving in the mail. So far the recep­tion has been really posi­tive…
What star­ted out as just an idea on my blog last Decem­ber is now beco­ming rea­lity.
Yes, I am very happy. Thanks to Every­body who sup­por­ted this wee pro­ject. Seriously.

March 2, 2009

the next gapingvoid print: “corinthians”, $250 pre-order

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[“Corinthians”. Click on image to enlarge etc.]

[UPDATE: The “Corinthian” pre-orders are now sold out. Howe­ver, we do have some still avai­la­ble at the retail price i.e. $450. Click on Pay­Pal but­ton below to make a $100 depo­sit. Thanks for the sup­port, Everybody!]

[Click on Pay­pal but­ton to make $100 depo­sit etc.]
I first heard 1 Corinthians 13 read out in church when I was about nine or ten. Like a lot of things in the Bible, as a kid I found it puzz­ling at first. And over the years, it kept on giving new mea­ning to me. It never got old.
Paul’s most-quoted pas­sage from his let­ter to the Corinthians is one of those things in the Bible, like Psalm 23, that just gets bet­ter and bet­ter, the lon­ger you live.
In Angli­can circ­les, it’s pretty much requi­red rea­ding at wed­dings. I remem­ber when they read it at my sister’s wed­ding, ten years ago, and how much hap­pi­ness and depth it added to the occa­sion.
Anyone who has ever had it read out at their own wed­ding will know– it’s power­ful stuff. Which is what ins­pi­red me to make a dra­wing out of it.
When we asked peo­ple for feed­back on the next gaping­void print, “We Need To Talk” came out the win­ner. It’s now in pro­duc­tion and the pre-orders are now sold out.
That being said, there was a lot of backchan­nel inte­rest with “Corinthians”, as well. It was by no means a dis­tant second. Not to men­tion, it was a damn fine design and the mes­sage is time­less.
So what they heck, we deci­ded to make Corinthians avai­la­ble as a limi­ted edi­tion, as well.
Here are the details:

1. It’s going to be a sma­ller edi­tion. Ins­tead of an edi­tion of 85 like with “Blue­train” and “WNTT” We’re doing an edi­tion of 50. [UPDATE: BEca­sue demand for this print far excee­ded our expec­ta­tions, we made it an edi­tion of 75 in the end.]
2. Once its prin­ted, it’ll retail for $450 [plus ship­ping & hand­ling]. Like last time, you can pre-order the first 30 in the edi­tion at a dis­count, i.e. $250 [plus ship­ping and hand­ling]. To secure your order, please use the Pay­Pal but­ton above and make a $100 depo­sit. The Pay­Pal form will ask you for all your details [inc­lu­ding your pre­fe­rred ship­ping address], which of course we’ll have for our records. Why are we asking for a depo­sit? To weed out the spam­mers, fla­kes and trolls out there [This is the Inter­net, after all], lea­ving only com­mit­ted buyers in the mix. No other rea­son. This shall be our stan­dard prac­tice from now on.
3. The print will be ready to ship in 4 – 6 weeks. We’ll send you another Pay­Pal for the outs­tan­ding invoice once the prints are pac­ked and ready to be ship­ped.
4. The print will be the same size as the others [i.e. large, approx 21“x32”], hand-signed by me, and it goes without saying, the same high-quality inks and papers will be used.
5. If you have any ques­tions, please feel free to drop me an email at gapingvoidprints@gmail.com, and either Laura or Me will ans­wer them.

I’m exci­ted about this one. This Bibli­cal pas­sage has always meant a great deal to me, and as I’ve been deligh­ted to find out via blog com­ments and emails, it turns out it means a great deal to a lot of other gaping­void rea­ders, as well. So it’s loo­king like it’s going to be a great little pro­ject.
Once Again, thank you for your love and sup­port. Rock on.
[PS: To keep up-to-date with the prints’ goings-on, please subsc­ribe to my “Crazy, Deran­ged Fools” News­let­ter, Thanks.]

print update: only four left!

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[UPDATE: I’m happy to report that the “We Need To Talk” pre-sales are all already sold out. The design goes to print some­time in the next week or so, and the plan is to get the edi­tions sent out to their buyers toward the end of the month. Thanks Again!]

Dear Crazy, Deran­ged Fools,
I’m happy to report that the orders for my latest edi­tion, “We Need To Talk” have gone very well. So much so that, besi­des what I’m kee­ping for myself, we only have four of them left! If you’re inte­res­ted in acqui­ring one, please send me an email to gaping­void­prints, Thanks. All the usual details– price, ship­ping etc can be found here etc etc.
So I’ve been in the fine art print busi­ness thing for about two months. Here are my notes:
1. I sup­pose the first thing I’ll say about it is, yes, I am UTTERLY AMAZED about how well it’s going so far. Sure, I never star­ted this ven­ture with any inten­tion of fai­ling, but still, the res­ponse has been off the scale. I have honestly never seen anything like it. I’m kinda shell-shocked, to be honest, but in a good way…
2. I am truly gra­te­ful for everything; it would be insane not to be. Still, in the back of my mind, I am won­de­ring to myself, is this just Beginner’s Luck? How long will it last? Could it all come crashing down tomo­rrow? I’ve seen that hap­pen before, and it’s not pretty. Oh well, make hay while the sun shi­nes, I sup­pose; that’s all you can really do.
3. I’m VERY glad I made the deci­sion, early on in the game, to not to spare any expen­ses in the pro­duc­tion depart­ment. The finest inks, the finest papers, the finest prin­ters etc etc. When the Blue­train prints arri­ved last week for me to sign, I remem­ber ope­ning the box and just being INSTANTLY STUNNED by how well they tur­ned out, how plea­sing both to the eye and to the touch. It was a truly happy, satisf­ying moment for me.
4. Choo­sing which design to turn into a print is actually pretty nerve-wracking. Pro­du­cing an edi­tion costs seve­ral thou­sand dollars, and no mat­ter how good you think your gut ins­tinct or mar­ket research is, YOU SIMPLY DON’T KNOW what peo­ple are going to do [ver­sus what peo­ple SAY they’re going to do] until your money’s already been spent; until it’s too late to change you mind. “We Need To Talk”, is actually a pretty good exam­ple of “nerve-wracking”. It was a risky– it’s not exactly a mes­sage you’d want to give your wife for her birth­day, nor a mes­sage you’d want to hang in your office in order to moti­vate the troops. That being said, it has a cer­tain edge to it, which some peo­ple really relate to on a vis­ce­ral level. Besi­des that, I had some strong, per­so­nal rea­sons for wan­ting it made into a print, so I made the call. I’m just glad it all ended well.
5. I fully expect these prints to one day be worth MANY TIMES what they’re selling for now. Which is why I hold onto a few of each edi­tion– I’d be crazy not to. Art can be a very risky invest­ment, of course, but when it pays off, it pays off EXTREMELY well. Loo­king at it from a bru­tally objec­tive stand­point– do the math: My equity as an artist is worth a LOT more today than it was, say, five or ten years ago. I see no rea­son why that trend won’t con­ti­nue, at least for the fore­seea­ble future. What stocks in your port­fo­lio can you say the same about? Just askin’…
6. All the expe­rience I got set­ting up English Cut in 2005 – 2006 is sud­denly paying off. We have a lot in com­mon: a small, high-end, niche mar­ket, a blog to keep up, with a LOT Of emails to deal with. But this time, I’m not behol­den to some­body else’s pro­duct. This stuff is all mine, now. I’m quite exci­ted, frankly.
7. Pro­bably the most salient piece of advice I came away with from Le Web in Decem­ber came from Gary Vay­nerchuk: “If you have a great pro­duct, and you love your cus­to­mers, you WILL suc­ceed, end of story”. I totally get that. That being said, I believe the lat­ter is much har­der than the for­mer, on an exe­cu­tio­nal level. Love is great, but Love is hard. Make of that what you will.
Thanks Again, As Always, for Your Love & Sup­port.
Yours In Crazy, Deran­ged Foo­lish­ness,
Hugh MacLeod

February 24, 2009

signing the bluetrain prints…

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[Me sig­ning the “Blue­train” prints ear­lier this eve­ning…]
Dear Crazy, Deran­ged Fools,
Ok, so that’s the Blue­train edi­tion sig­ned. Tomo­rrow I take them to the art packer’s, in order for them to be pac­ked flat and ship­ped via UPS to their new owners.
From here in Alpine, Texas, to Lon­don, Hong Kong, Bos­ton, Paris, New York, Aus­tin, Seattle… all 100% ena­bled by our little, evil friend, The Inter­net. This is EXACTLY what I meant when I tal­ked about The Glo­bal Mic­ro­brand, back in 2005. All hap­pe­ning for me now etc.
For those of you who have orde­red one, please expect to receive an embed­ded Pay­Pal but­ton in an email from me, during the next cou­ple of days. We were first wai­ting to see much an actual print weighs when fully pac­ked, so we’d know how much to charge y’all for ship­ping. Thanks.
Yes, it has its com­pli­ca­ted moments, but it’s all very exci­ting… I hope y’all feel like­wise.
Thanks Again for Your Love And Sup­port,
Yours in Crazy, Deran­ged Foo­lish­ness,
Hugh Mac­Leod
[PS: Check out the latest limi­ted edi­tion coming out: “We Need To Talk”.]
[PPS: Sign up for The “Crazy, Deran­ged Fools” News­let­ter here…]

print update: “we need to talk” to be the next limited edition

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Dear Crazy, Deran­ged Fools,
After recei­ving a lot of feed­back from y’all about the three choi­ces, we deci­ded to go with “We Need To Talk” as the next gaping­void limi­ted edi­tion print.
Here are the basics:

1. The print will retail for $400 [plus ship­ping & hand­ling], once it goes to print. You can pre-order it for $250 [plus ship­ping & hand­ling], BUT ONLY if you’re already sig­ned up to the “Crazy Deran­ged Fools” News­let­ter [Sign up here if you haven’t already]. This pre-order offer only extends to the first 45 prints in the edi­tion.
2. The print will be a sig­ned, limi­ted edi­tion of 85, same as “Blue­train” Dimen­sion will be the same as “Blue­train” as well.
3. If you’re inte­res­ted, please email me at gapingvoidprints@gmail.com with your name, ship­ping address and a phone num­ber for the UPS deli­very guy.
4. The prints will be ship­ped flat, pac­ked by a pro­fes­sio­nal; not simply rolled up in a tube etc.
5. For more details, either e-mail me or go to yesterday’s blog post, Thanks.

This has been a pretty exci­ting 24 hours. Already a quar­ter of the edi­tion has been pre-ordered, even though “Blue­train” hasn’t even ship­ped yet.
Some­body emai­led me this mor­ning:

I believe the only via­ble future for artists (or most anyone else) is DIY, colla­bo­ra­tion and coo­pe­ra­tion. the exis­ting sys­tems, struc­tu­res, para­digms and rules don’t work (never have actually, except for a cho­sen few, who wor­ked hard to create the illu­sion that these things applied equally for ever­yone, lying bastards).

I wrote back:

Thanks. Yeah, the trick here is me trying to bypass as many esta­blished art-world sys­tems as pos­si­ble, in order to make [A] a point and [B] pro­fit.
I have a lot of artists watching me at the moment, won­de­ring if I can actually pull it off. It’ll be good for us all if I can.

We live in inte­res­ting times…
Thanks SO MUCH for your love and sup­port,
Yours in Crazy, Deran­ged Foo­lish­ness,
Hugh MacLeod

February 23, 2009

second gapingvoid print in the works, or, why i’m not going down the gallery route

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[“We Need To Talk”]
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[“1 Corinthians 13″]
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[“SMS Impor­tant Thoughts”]

[UPDATE: Please e-mail me at gapingvoidprints@gmail.com if you want to pre-order, Thanks.]

Well, the plan is to start sen­ding out the Blue­train prints this week. It took a while to get the right fine art prin­ter in place, and get the silk screens just right. For those who are unfa­mi­liar with the pro­cess, we chose the somewhat labor-intensive pro­cess of silk scree­ning, so I had to proof the edi­tion and make sure each image was per­fect. Any­way, they are being flat pac­ked (ship­ping tubes could damage the print if peo­ple wan­ted to store them long-term) and hope­fully ship­ped late this week
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[“Blue­train”]
Here are some notes on the next Edi­tion:

1. Above are the three con­ten­ders for the next limi­ted edi­tion– “We Need To Talk”, “1 Corinthians 13″, and “SMS Impor­tant Thoughts”. The one that rings the most bells win, so let’s hear your com­ments below, Thanks.
2. Like last time, it’ll be a sig­ned, Limi­ted Edi­tion of eighty-five, plus some artist proofs. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.
3. This edi­tion will retail for $400 apiece. Like last time, we’ll be offe­ring a dis­count to those peo­ple who pre-order before the actual prin­ting– $150 off– so $250 each [Plus ship­ping & hand­ling]. Except this time there’s an added sti­pu­la­tion– only peo­ple who have sig­ned up to my Crazy Deran­ged Fools News­let­ter will be able to pre-order. So if you’re a CDF mem­ber, please be watching your email inbo­xes in the next few days, or feel free to sign up now, Thanks.
4. The print will be silk scree­ned on pH neu­tral, French-made, archi­val paper– just as The Blue­train was. Dimen­sions will be pro­por­tio­nal to the ima­ges above with the rec­tan­gu­lar ones being about 25“x36”.
5. If you have any spe­ci­fic ques­tions or issues about the edi­tion, I have set up a new email address to handle all the print-related busi­ness: gapingvoidprints@gmail.com. Please address all que­ries and/or issues there, Thanks.
6. WHY THESE PRINTS RETAIL FOR ONLY $400.00 When the Blue­train went up for sale, a num­ber of peo­ple men­tio­ned that they thought it was too cheap. Lots of peo­ple think that ‘good’ art needs to be expen­sive. That used to be true. We are all used to the idea that the web can make things more effi­cient and cost effec­tive, but there are few pro­ducts where this is more true than with art. Here’s why:
The art mar­ket is set up where there are ‘artists’, ‘publishers’ and ‘galle­ries’. As expec­ted, ever­yone along the way needs to make a mar­gin. The artist gets paid for his image, the publisher finan­ces and con­tracts for the prin­ting, and then mar­kets the prints to galle­ries. It is a ‘char­ming’ 19th Cen­tury sys­tem. Unfor­tu­na­tely, everything gets very expen­sive. Quickly.
We’ve cho­sen to self-publish, and sell through the blog, even though I have been approached by many galle­ries over the years. I just don’t think that peo­ple who want to collect my work should have to pay for publishers mar­gins, high real estate pri­ces in trendy neigh­borhoods, gallery emplo­yee pay­rolls, free wine for the hangers-on, mar­kups on the fra­ming etc. All of these things jack the pri­ces up.
Next thing you know, ins­tead of paying $400 for a print, you’re paying $1500-$2000. Go hang in Chel­sea [Manhat­tan] if you don’t believe me. Sure, fine art is tra­di­tio­nally expen­sive– it’s a luxury item after all, an indi­ca­tor of sur­plus wealth etc– but with the Inter­net now so evol­ved, does it have to be this way? I’m not just tal­king about the old– fashio­ned, “We pas­sed the savings onto you” angle. It’s more like, since you’ve inves­ted in my work, I owe it to you guys to do my dam­ne­dest to see that your invest­ment pays off over the long-term. And that’s more likely to hap­pen at $400, than at $2000; do the math. Even if you’re never going to sell it, even if you got it at a steal, kno­wing that it’s worth far more than you paid for it makes you feel far bet­ter than the alter­na­tive. Of course it does.
Is self publishing risky? Sure it is. Am I plan­ning to sell my work for far more than $400 in the long run? Of course. But, I do know that [A] there is nothing like a good deal and [B] the folks who sup­port me early on will, in the full­ness of time, be very happy that they did.
7. Yes, I will admit, taking the plunge into the art busi­ness is a nerve-wracking expe­rience. Crazy, Deran­ged and Foo­lish, I know. I don’t care, frankly. I’ve wor­ked damn hard for many years to get to this point. Fuck ‘em if they don’t like it.

As Always, thank you for your love and sup­port. Rock on.
[PLEASE LEAVE YOUR VOTE IN THE COMMENTS BELOW. THANKS.]

January 23, 2009

“bluetrain” print almost ready to ship


Like I said in my pre­vious post, last week I sig­ned off on the first “Blue­train” prints. Loren Feld­man was in Alpine at the time and fil­med it. He wri­tes about it and posts the video here. Thanks again to Loren for the kind words.
Since then, I am happy to report, all the prints have been pro­du­ced. Now it’s just a ques­tion of get­ting them down from the printer’s shop in New York City down here in Alpine, Texas for me to sign. Then ship­ping them off to the peo­ple who orde­red one.
We’re also get­ting the Pay­Pal thing set up as we speak. It’s all going accor­ding to plan.
I am com­ple­tely exhaus­ted and jet-lagged from my trip to Bra­zil. I had a whale of a time. This wee­kend I plan to do little else other than sleep and vege­tate, then get back on the ball, early Mon­day mor­ning.
Thanks Again for all the sup­port y’all have given me over the last cou­ple of months. This new phase in my life has been intense and exci­ting. I have no idea where it’s going. I just know it’s currently run­ning on all eight cylin­ders. Hope I can keep up the momen­tum. rock on. 

January 5, 2009

the final print: putting it up on ebay…

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[“Blue­train”- the new gaping­void print. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
So yeah, the Blue­train print sold out, two weeks before it even goes to press. No, I never saw that coming. Wow.
Since I announ­ced that it was sold out, I’ve got­ten a lot of emails from peo­ple asking me please, please, please, if a spare one turns up, could they buy it from me?
Well, like I said before, I kept a small num­ber aside for myself, but I really want to hang on to them. At the same time, I don’t like peo­ple being disap­poin­ted.
So I deci­ded I’d sell ONE MORE from my pri­vate stash. But who to give it to? The guy who asked first? The guy who knew me the lon­gest?
Not being able to make up my mind one way or the other about who to give it to, I just deci­ded I’ll put it on eBay, and let peo­ple bid for it. I’ve already done well enough from this won­der­fully insane adven­ture, so to keep the good karma coming, wha­te­ver it sells for, high or low, I’ll give the pro­ceeds to cha­rity.
I’ll let y’all know when it’s up. Thanks Again. Seriously.
[UPDATE:] As for the peo­ple who have already orde­red a print; we’re going to press hope­fully in the next few days. I’m really behind in my e-mail [I blame the Holi­day Sea­son, mostly], so I should be con­tac­ting y’all shortly. Thanks for your patience AND your sup­port. Rock on.

December 29, 2008

print update: bluetrain almost sold out


[Update: Video of me sig­ning the first artist’s proof.]
bluetrainJPEG.jpg
[“Blue­train”- the new gaping­void print. Click on image to enlarge etc.]

[Update: Blue­train is already sold out. Thanks, Everybody!]

The print is an edi­tion of eighty-five. So far seventy-five are accoun­ted for, inc­lu­ding the few I’m kee­ping for myself. Sales were pretty brisk right up until everything clo­sed down for Christ­mas. I’m still a bit stun­ned about how well this wee adven­ture has gone, frankly.
So now I have ten left for sale. Full details are here.

For the last ten, the price is $250 each, which far less than I think we’ll be selling the next edi­tion for. Hope that’s OK with y’all.
Again, THANK YOU ALL for sup­por­ting this ran­dom act of insa­nity on my part. Rock on.
[UPDATE:] By the time I had finished wri­ting this very short post, the num­ber left was down to eight prints. 15 minu­tes later, that num­ber was down to seven. Wow. [UPDATE:] One hour later– only five left. w00t. [UPDATE:] Fif­teen minu­tes later– only four left. Eek! [UPDATE:] Five minu­tes later– only three left. Ummm… [UPDATE:] Next Mor­ning– SOLD OUT!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

December 23, 2008

print update: “bluetrain”


[Update: Video of me sig­ning the first artist’s proof.]
bluetrainJPEG.jpg
[“Blue­train”- the new gaping­void print. Click on image to enlarge etc.]

[UPDATE: 30th Decem­ber. “Blue­train” is now sold out. Thanks, Everybody!]

On Decem­ber 4th, I announ­ced I was going into the fine art print busi­ness, pretty much full-time, if all goes well.
Like I said ear­lier, the first edi­tion will be coming out in mid-January.
I also said that the first twenty peo­ple who sent me an e-mail could buy the print at $175– once the print is made, the price will be around the $250-$300 mark.
To be honest, at the time I thought twenty wasn’t a very con­ser­va­tive num­ber– I was thin­king if ten or twelve took me up on the offer by Christ­mas, that would be pretty ama­zing.
As soon as I pos­ted the offer up on the blog, I went out for din­ner. By the time I came back two hours later, 24 peo­ple had already taken me up on it. Within 24 hours, the num­ber was clo­ser to 40.
Not bad for a limi­ted edi­tion of only 85, don’t you think? We’re tal­king about peo­ple buying something “Sight Unseen”- something that RARELY hap­pens in the art busi­ness.
As for the kind peo­ple who e-mailed early, but not early enough to make it on the “First Twenty” list, I thought it would be unfair on the “First Twenty” to give them the same dis­count. But at the same time, it would be a shame not to do something to reward them for being early adap­tors. Hmmmm… You can see my dilemma. So in the end, I told them they could have one for $200– it’s still a pretty good dis­count. They see­med happy enough with that, so all well and good.
The second thing I did was to let the First Twenty vote on which image they wan­ted to see prin­ted up. I gave them a choice of three designs, the image above, “Blue­train”, won the majo­rity vote, so that’s the one we’re going with.
About the piece in ques­tion: It’s called “Blue­train”, because yes, it’s lar­gely colo­red blue, and also because it’s a re-working of the head car­toon in my busi­ness mani­festo, The Hugh­train, which of course, was in turn named after one of my favo­rite books, The Clue­train. “Blue Trane” is also the name of one of my favo­rite jazz albums. So it all fits together, somehow.
It’ll be a fairly stan­dard pos­ter size, approx 18x24”. They’ll all be per­so­nally sig­ned and num­be­red in pen­cil, by myself. We’re also using a spe­cia­list fine art print­ma­ker in New York City for the job, not a gene­ral com­mer­cial prin­ter.
I deci­ded to use color simply because I didn’t want to just blow up the ori­gi­nal, black & white, bizcard-sized car­toon to poster-sized. I wan­ted to make it look totally new and dif­fe­rent, yet totally the same and fami­liar. As for the “Pop” sen­si­bilty, well, I am a car­too­nist, so go figure…
Since that first big splash of inte­rest from the First Twenty, we’ve had a steady stream of peo­ple sig­ning up. There’s only about 20 left unsold in this edi­tion, so if you’re still inte­res­ted in having one of them, please send me an email as soon as you can [Thanks!]: gapingvoid@gmail.com
I hope y’all are as exci­ted by this new ven­ture of mine as I am. As always, thanks for your sup­port, none of this would be pos­si­ble without you. Merry Christ­mas and Happy Holi­days!

[UPDATE:] ONLY THREE PRINTS LEFT! Price IS $250 for the last ten.

December 19, 2008

litho update: sneak peak

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[Click on image to enlarge etc.…]
This is a close-up sec­tion of one of the new litho’s I’ve desig­ned. This sec­tion covers maybe 20 – 25% of the entire area of the piece. Just giving y’all a tea­ser etc.
Been spen­ding a lot of time lear­ning about prin­ting, and the prin­ting busi­ness over the last cou­ple of weeks…

December 4, 2008

hugh’s new secret evil plan: fine art prints

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1. Some­time in the next few weeks I shall be relea­sing my first big, pro­per edi­tion of sig­ned, fine-art litho­graphs.
2. These will not be spon­so­red “social objects” from Stormhoek, Mic­ro­soft or wha­te­ver. These will be for sale. Cash. Moo­lah. Via this blog. No galle­ries.
3. They will be high qua­lity. Very high qua­lity.
4. I plan on using color for the first one, maybe black and white in the future– though I haven’t really thought that far ahead yet.
5. It’ll be an edi­tion of 85 prints. I’m not plan­ning on selling them all. I want to hold on to some of them, for posterity’s sake.
6. They’ll all be sig­ned and num­be­red by hand, by me.
7. I plan to be blog­ging a lot about the whole pro­cess in the next few weeks. As with any new adven­ture, a lot of stuff still needs to be figu­red out long-term– I hope by tal­king about it with every­body, it’ll help me make bet­ter artis­tic deci­sions.
8. Though my work covers a lot of dif­fe­rent the­mes and emo­tio­nal sta­tes, for this first one I’ll be focu­sing more on the business-culture, Hugh­train sen­si­bi­lity. I want the print to be the kind of thing you’d want to hang up in your office.
9. This is not some groovy little side pro­ject for me. This enter­prise is going to be a major part of my life over the next few years. Just let­ting you know.
10. We’ll be prin­ting them up in mid-January. If you want to get in early, I’m going to make 20 prints avai­la­ble; you can pre-order one before the prin­ting date for $175. Just ping me an e-mail. After they are prin­ted the price goes up, to around the $250 – 300 range.
11. Thanks Again.
[Update:] Just got back from din­ner. Tired. So far I have 24 requests for the 20 pre-orders. Looks like I may have to disap­point 4 peo­ple. Long day. Going to bed. Will talk in the mor­ning. Thanks, Everybody!

December 2, 2008

make art and drink beer

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[The Techc­runch Party print from 2007.]
I’ve been spen­ding a lot of time this week, researching and tal­king to fine art print shops. Like I said a few weeks ago, I’m plan­ning to spend more time in the print busi­ness.
This deve­lop­ment has been a long time coming. In the last twenty years, I’ve drawn thou­sands of car­toons and sha­red them with tens of thou­sands of peo­ple, which has slowly built up what I believe to be a reasonably-sized com­mer­cial mar­ket for my work.
Besi­des that, I’ve been living in the West Texas desert for over nine months, and I’m fin­ding dra­wing car­toons is far more alig­ned to that way of life, than being an “inter­net mar­ke­ting guy” or wha­te­ver. Like a pain­ter friend of mine told me the other week, “There’s not much to do out here, except make art and drink beer.”
Being a full-time car­too­nist is still not something I ever plan on doing, but life has been pulling me more and more in that direc­tion for a while, almost against my will. Maybe one day I’ll get tired of resis­ting it, who knows?
Wish me luck, anyway…

November 24, 2008

the gary vee litho

garyveeJEFF001small.jpg
My friend, Gary Vay­nerchuk of Wine Library TV fame and I have been tal­king on and off for the last while about me doing a litho­graph for his wine busi­ness, in a simi­lar spi­rit to all those Stormhoek lithos I did back in Lon­don.
Finally, yes­ter­day, I stop­ped my dilly-dallying and just cran­ked it out. Voila!
Like I said a few weeks back, I’m get­ting more into the fine art print busi­ness. Social Objects at their finest. Rock on.
I hope Gary likes the design…

October 28, 2008

gapingvoid getting serious about the lithograph business

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[Me wor­king on “Desert­Manhat­tan”. Photo cour­tesy of Debo­rah Smail.]
After a cou­ple of years of thin­king about it, I’m finally moving for­ward in the litho­graph depart­ment. Here are some ini­tial thoughts:
1. Yes, I’ve done litho­graphs before e.g for Techc­runch, Stormhoek and Mic­ro­soft. Those were pro­du­ced digi­tally, for high-numbered edi­tions [one thou­sand or so]. This new effort will be much more high-end and exc­lu­sive. We’re tal­king very small edi­tions [say, 25 or so], done not via digi­tal, but by old-fashioned etchings on metal pla­tes.
2. We’ll be using the highest-quality paper and inks we can find, bar none. We won’t be spa­ring any expense.
3. The pie­ces will all be fra­med by hand, using highest-quality woods and mats. No indus­trial factory-framing for these babies etc.
4. As of today, I have no idea how much I’ll charge for them. My plan is to put the first few ones onto Ebay, let peo­ple bid for them openly, and see what hap­pens. I rec­kon this will esta­blish a solid, rela­ti­vely trans­pa­rent mar­ket price, a lot bet­ter than mere guess­work ever could.
5. The size will be roughly the same as my recent large works on paper i.e. approx. 23x29 inches etc.
6. I haven’t deci­ded what image, or what style of image I want to use for the first run. Do I go with my fami­liar car­toon for­mat say, something like this, or do I go with something a bit more “arty” say, something like “Fred 44″? This is a con­ver­sa­tion I hope to be having with y’all over the next few weeks, so please feel free to leave a com­ment below, Thanks.
7. Yes. I am SERIOUSLY exci­ted about this pro­ject. Rock on.