Hugh MacLeod
Cartoons drawn on the back of business cards
I’m Hugh MacLeod. I’m a cartoonist. Occasionally I write books.
gapingvoid is interested in start-up culture, because changing business for the better is what we’re about; that’s what Social Object Factory is about. We live and breathe it; we help everyone from lone entrepreneurs, to mid-sizers, to Fortune 500’s do the same. Check out our work here.
We create art that helps companies kick ass, end of story.
We also have a daily cartoon newsletter that makes a lot of people happy.
If you just want to say ‘Hello’, feel free to email me, anytime.
If you want to talk business, then it’s probably best to please contact my business partner, gapingvoid CEO Jason Korman, here. We look forward to working with you. Thanks!
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January 10, 2013
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“Everyone should write a blog because it makes it harder to be a hypocrite. You have to decide what you believe.” Seth Godin
Everybody should start a business for that very same reason…
October 17, 2012
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[Exhibit A: My more personal side]
[Exhibit B: the gapingvoid mission]
One of the better things I ever wrote was The Sex And Cash Theory, something to explain how to realistically balance the need to pay the bills with the need to do something creative with your life. It ended up being a key idea in Ignore Everybody.
“The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the assignment covers both bases, but not often.”
“This tense duality (between these two extremes) will never be transcended.” Even if I know that to be true (Hell, I pretty much wrote an entire book on it), most days I still struggle with it.
But we all do, artist or non-artist, creative or non-creative. “This tense duality” is what one of mankind’s great books, The Bhagavad Gita is also really all about: Poor ol’ Arjuna would like nothing better than a quiet life of spiritual contemplation, but his duties as an up-and-coming warlord keep getting the way. So Heavenly Lord Krisna comes down from On High and tells Arjuna, well, get used to it, Kiddo. This tense duality is in the DNA of Creation. Hence the Dharma, hence Karma. By the end of the book, Arjuna “gets” it. Happy Ending.
My personal “tense duality” is a lot less tense than it used to be, Thank God. It used to be “silly advertising day job by day, drawing silly cartoons on the backs of business cards for fun by night”. Now the duality is more, my wee “business card doodles” on the personal side (See photo above), the external side is the “Transform Office Art” mission (See video above) that gapingvoid is on.
And I’ve grown to treasure the duality. Every time I’ve tried to permanently wear just one hat, the personal hat or the business hat, I get bored silly within a week. The work seems to need the constant dialogue between the inner and outer.
But like I said, I think we all have that. Finding that sweet spot where that never-ending dialogue can exist happily forever, is one of THE great tasks (and gifts) our brief life gives us.
I hope you’ve found yours.
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[The wee animation we did that pretty sums up the gapingvoid raison d’etre etc]
Gape Into The Void Episode 6 – Office Art & The Wedding Planner
[Click here to subscribeon iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/voidcast] [RSS Feed]
[Click here to listen to the individual episode]
It’s time for another episode of Gape Into The Void! Join us as Hugh, Jason and Jeff talk about gapingvoid’s evil plan to disrupt the “office art” industry. We also are reminded about some big events in Hugh’s world and we give you a peek behind the scenes of some of our current client projects.
[Show Notes:]
Hugh is The Wedding Planner
The gallery GapingvoidArt.com
Follow us on Twitter: @gapingvoid, @gapingvoidart
Facial Recognition – No Smiling on ID’s
Disrupting The Office Art Market
Thanks again for listening. If you are enjoying Gape Into The Void, please tell your friends and leave us a review on iTunes. If you have any questions or topics you want us to cover on the show email us at podcast at gapingvoid.com.
Thanks again for gaping into the void!
Rock on.
[Podcast produced by Jeff Sass.]
October 16, 2012
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[Thanks to Everybody for sending in all the pictures! We especially like this photo and the accompanying email that Jannecke from Oslo, Norway recently wrote us. Rock on:]
Hi Hugh,
Enclosed you will find a picture of “Hugh´s Corner” in our offices in Oslo, Norway.
Eirik and I started a small boutique consultancy within the CX space two years ago – KOBRA – and your drawings have been part of our “inspirational platform” since the start.
Last month we finally moved into our new bigger offices looking down on the Opera House in the Center of Oslo.
As soon as we had found the offices - and even before we had even moved in – we decided to create our own “Hugh´s corner”. And this week it finally became a reality!
The “Hughtrain” has been almost as a confirmation of why we started KOBRA and it is great to now finally have it on the wall.
But after that we had major difficulties choosing which prints we wanted to have on the wall…. (I´m sure I spent hours browsing through them all….!!!)
We ended up with five…
Of course, as you can see, “Dare to be different” just HAD to be on a separate wall.
If you are ever in Oslo, please pop by!! And – do continue inspire and provoke!!
All the best!!
October 12, 2012
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This made me so happy: My friend, Robert Scoble sent me a photo of the big gapingvoid print they have up on the wall in the Rackspace customer briefing room. This is just one of twelve giant 6 foot canvases that adorn the walls.
Aside from being thrilled that they used our work, what is interesting to me is that they had the choice of using lots of different kinds of art. They could have used photos of happy Rackers, customers, data centers, etc. But they chose to broadcast their beliefs by using messages that speak to their beliefs.
This particular cartoon about one of the fundamental aspects of the business: “Fanatical support In all we do”. I tried to present it in a way that I hope is both memorable and refreshingly disarming. Hopefully it touches a nerve.
As time goes by, one of the things that I realize is that having well chosen messages on offices walls is really powerful. They speak to people every day of the year, and brodacast what you stand for.
That’s what we think about more and more around our office, anyway.
September 23, 2012
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I just secured the URL, businessneedsmoreart.com.
I decided I wanted to “own” the thought, “Business Needs More Art”, apropos to the the idea I’m always riffing on.
So what’s the gapingvoid MISSION? To bring art to the business world, basically.
Which is exactly what we’ve been doing these last few years. Compare our work to what you usually see when you google “Office Art”. All the latter seems to offer is REALLY bland stuff, with only massive discounts to differentiate themselves from the next guy.
I doubt the URL will end up as a big ol’ website, though it could feasibly make a nice little landing page for something… Watch this space.
The mission of gapingvoid, as far as I’m concerned, is to bring more Art into the world of business.
And as the cartoon above demonstrates, it’s not just about decorating offices, but hopefully igniting something, helping businesses finding, knowing and expressing their “Purpose” better. Which helps the bottom line in the end. Exactly.
Business needs more art. You’re either with us or against us. Rock on.
July 24, 2012
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Just arrived: our July 4th American flag cartoon [“Lest we forget: A nation is only as good as its startup culture”] printed on canvas and framed on wooden stretchers, just like the paintings.
This is just a prototype for an idea we’re currently playing with: Something with a bit more “heft” than a print, but more affordable [and scaleable] than a painting. Designed to go in an office where real work is getting done, where stuff that matters gets done.
We’re really crankin’ on the new products front these days. Subscribe to the newsletter if you want to be kept in the loop.
[Feel free to let us know what you think or have any questions, thanks. Email: art AT gapingvoid dot com.]
July 22, 2012
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I love this: The gapingvoid Sales Motivation pop-up store. Prints to inspire your sales team etc.
Hugh has hand-picked his favorite images to awaken the inner salesperson in us all. Ready to prime your pipeline? Nail your quarterly numbers? If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s an image worth that will help turn you into a ninja closer?
We have it se up so you can buy the prints one at a time, or you can buy the whole series and get a big discount, or you can buy a subscription, which means you get one print a month for an entire year.
Like they say, nothing happens till somebody sells something.. so hell, if you or me can help make that job even 5% easier for someone, well, that’s life well-spent, right? Rock on.
July 4, 2012
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[UPDATE: We’re keeping this at the top of the homepage for a wee bit, just so people see it etc.]
[We have a REALLY special print offer on today’s cartoon. Go see. For this year’s July 4th cartoon I wanted it to say something that went a little beyond the usual Rah-Rah Patriotic platitudes out there; something to do with the real-world, day-to day life of the start-up ecosystem that gapingvoid inhabits. Below is what I said in today’s newsletter; make of it what you will:]
Though I love Europe and had a wonderful time over in London at Le Web two weeks ago, I came back home to the USA feeling very grateful.
Talking to all those wonderful young people, trying to get their European start-ups off the ground made me realize, once again, JUST how good we Americans have it, even compared to our friends across the Atlantic.
Three thoughts:
1. I pray we never lose it.
2. I also believe, truly, that if we ever forget the message in today’s cartoon, we will indeed lose it forever. We have now been warned.
3. As you get older, you realize that America isn’t just about blue jeans, shopping malls and hamburgers. It’s about something WAY DEEPER, that if the world loses, humanity is in deep trouble.
Thank you, and God Bless America. Seriously.
Hugh MacLeod
July 4th, 2012
July 3, 2012
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[Buy the print etc.]“Fail cheap, fail fast, fail often” is damn good advice. Especially for someone who wants to be successful. So it’d make a good something — perhaps a reminder to hang on your wall… Voila!I also love Esther Dyson’s great line, “Always make new mistakes” (she’s the well-known futurist and venture capitalist). In fact, I liked it so much that in 2008 I went ahead and made a drawing and gave it to her. Good times.It’s all about the same stuff: That our ability to succeed and to thrive is in direct proportion to our ability to make mistakes and learn from them.It ain’t rocket science, but it’s easily forgotten by some. Myself included. Ouch…[Originally sent out earlier today in the newsletter etc.]
July 1, 2012
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“All evolutions of marketing are evolutions of language.”
I got so sick of repeating that to people, one day I decided to turn it into a print. Hanging there on the wall, maybe the message will sink in that way…
May 29, 2012
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Today’s newsletter cartoon, “Bacon”, is a about something I see A LOT in the business world:
Where people are soooooooo fixated on the desired RESULT, that they have lost all genuine, intellectual interest in the actual STEPS that will actually get them there.
Even if it’s precisely BECAUSE you’re interested in the steps, in the PROCESS, is what allows you to get any kind of result in the first place.
These people are hard to work with. Because they can’t see anything but the mythological result they’re chasing. Even if, yes, the result doesn’t actually exist yet.
[Some Examples:] The Wall Street ex-fratboy who moves West to Silicon Valley, not because he gives a damn about tech or innovation, but because he can smell the gravy. The painter who doesn’t have a single interesting idea in his pea-size brain, but just knows he wants a big show in a famous New York Gallery ASAP. The small-town knucklehead who moves to Los Angeles “to become famous”. The guy who signs his life away to a large company because he imagines it must be fun to have a big office in a tall building.
They say they are result-focused, when in reality, all they are is reward-focused.
They have no interest in tinkering with something, eight bours a day, day-in-day-out for decades, pursuing an idea, acheiving mastery. They just want the magic wand. They just want the “bacon”.
Most people like this fail, Thank Christ.
Which is why I’ve been saying for years, “Seek out exceptional minds.”
[Thus endeth the rant…]
April 29, 2012
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Thought experiment: It’s easier to be successful when you think of your business as a dialogue, rather than property.
I’ve been saying this for years: That all evolutions in marketing are evolutions of language.
In Cluetrain parlance, “Markets Are Conversations”. People talking to each other, metaphorically or otherwise.
When markets change, the conversation changes. People who change the market, change the way the market speaks to people.
Ergo, language changes. Language evolves, and so does the market.
People who want to change the market they’re in (in their favor) should think about this… how does your product “talk” to the market, how is the “voice” different from your competition?
Exactly.
[Originally sent out in the newsletter etc.]
March 27, 2012
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This made me so happy: Some of the cartoons I did for Babson College, now hanging proudly in their library [Thanks to John Capecelatro for sending in the photo!].
As I’ve said many times before, my work doesn’t belong in galleries, it belongs in offices. But hey, a campus library is similar enough. Rock on.
March 19, 2012
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[This went out in the newsletter at the weekend, written by my business partner, gapingvoid CEO Jason Korman.]
To those who don’t know us well, gapingvoid just appears to be in the business of selling Hugh’s cool illustrations. Over the years, Hugh and I have gone through the often-tortuous self examination required in the journey of finding our true purpose. Nearly every day asking ourselves: “What can one do with a cartoon?”
Thanks to our friend, Mark Earls, we think a lot about the notion of Purpose Idea, and spend a lot of time helping clients wrestle with the beast as well.
So, we have come up with our purpose, and much of it is around the idea of inspiring others.
Here is an excerpt of what we consider our Purpose – note that it is a work in progress, and always subject to change as we grow, morph and reinvent ourselves.
*We live in incredible times.
*Every single person on this earth has the capacity to make a difference… the ability to lead, and leave their mark.
*Every business is driven by forces far more powerful and profound than money.
*We help businesses discover and articulate their purpose
*We help people make a difference,
*We help leaders lead
*We help businesses kick butt.
*We create social objects that transform organizations, start conversations, and spread ideas at lightning speed.
*We live in incredible times, and as long as there is one person on this earth who does not agree, there is still work to be done.
Amen.
–Jason Korman
February 28, 2012
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[Sent out earlier today in the newsletter etc.]
I’ve always had an obsessive quality, especially about my work.
I guess you need that, if you’re going to draw as many drawings as I have.
Or if you’re going to build a great business or long-term project or whatever.
I like the idea of this print, hanging up in someone’s office, reminding him or her about why they work differently than everybody else.
Why they get to see and do the stuff everybody else does not.
And why, deep down inside, it’ll pay off one day.
Hell, yeah…
February 6, 2012
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[Sent out recently in the gapingvoid newsletter. Sign up here etc..]
December 16, 2011
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[Sent out earlier in today’s newsletter…]
I am fortunate to have lived in Britain. It taught me JUST HOW DIRE some office parties can be. They have Christmas-office-party direness down to an art form. So I wanted to make a Xmas cartoon that paid tribute to that. With a great deal of affection, I might add…
December 15, 2011
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The sentiment of this cartoon is so self-evident, I don’t think there’s much need to paraphrase it. Suffice to say, I am reminded of an old Kung Fu maxim:
“Everybody wants to be like Sifu (i.e. teacher). And what does Sifu do? That’s right. She teaches.”
Make of that what you will…
December 14, 2011
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SO WHAT COMES AFTER ADVERTISING?
The Golden Age of advertising– the “Mad Men” era– started about 50 years ago, with people like David Ogilvy, George Lois, Bill Bernbach leading the way, and shops like Weiden & Kennedy, BBH, Fallon, BMP, GGT, CDP and Goodby following in their wake.
This golden age came to an abrupt end, when our friend the Internet came along, with a lot of people on Madison Avenue suddenly starting to fear for their jobs.
So if traditional advertising is “dead”, what comes after it? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for the last ten years, ever since I launched gapingvoid back in 2001.
Though I wasn’t paying too much attention at the time, the answer kinda-sorta came to me back in 2004, in a line I wrote in The Hughtrain:
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[Sent out on the gapingvoid newsletter:]
We are living in a world that gets weirder all the time, especially this time of year.
So much of people’s day to day satisfaction comes from consumption, that it’s becoming harder and harder to remain objective about what matters.
We love our gadgets, we love our cars. We love our stuff. Where does this all lead?
One thing you can do around products though, is to use them as a vehicle for creating community.
Whether we like it or not, ALL community has love baked in there somewhere, even if you can’t always taste it. Maybe that is the upside here?
Even in the non-romantic usage, “Love” is a highly loaded word. Dynamite. Nitroglycerin. It’ll burn your eyes and then your skull.
But we wouldn’t have it any other way.
August 28, 2011
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[“Creativity With Purpose”: One of my recent canvases etc.]
I get asked all the time: “Why don’t you show in art galleries?”
And I always answer the same: “Because my work doesn’t belong in art galleries, it belongs in office cubicles.”
Even if you go back to the 1990’s, back when I was starting out, it was the same story. I always liked making art SPECIFICALLY for the workplace. I always liked making work that pushed that aspect of human existence further in the right direction.
After family, the time you spend in your place of work is the most important arena of your existence. That is where you go to find out, over time, who your true self really is.
And your true self needs art around it, your true self needs constant reminding that your true self ACTUALLY exists.
Your true self needs TOTEMS around that INSPIRE it on a daily basis.
That’s what I hope the cartoons help articulate, help bring to the surface. Unlike most of the knucklehead art you see around the gallery scene…
Besides, it’s a niche most other artists don’t really think about– they’re too busy trying to conquer other worlds. Which is fine, even if those other worlds are already too crowded; already SATURATED with the froth of other knuckleheads.
“My work doesn’t belong in art galleries, it belongs in office cubicles.”
It’s not a bad life, I suppose…
July 28, 2011
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I first drew this in 2004. A wee doodle that I thought very little about at the time. Yet over time, the simplicity of the message seems to have resonated with a lot of people.
Any fool can be a burnout or a calcified dinosaur. Reinvention is much harder. And to keep doing it, again and again? MUCH, MUCH harder.
But that’s what makes it so worth doing…
June 13, 2011
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Here are some pictures Rob La Gesse sent me- people at Rackspace who downloaded my cartoons off the web, printed them out and hung them on their walls.
“Crap jobs are created by other people, dream jobs you make yourself” and “Life is short, Make it amazing”.
No “Reason Why” to buy the Rackspace product. No top-down mission statement.
Nope. Instead I tried to talk about stuff that ACTUALLY MATTER to people inside and outside the company.
Like I said in my last post, ALIGNMENT is where the action is.
“A brand’s first job is to be interesting”. Aligned brands are far more interesting than brands that just want somebody else’s money.
Just because you work for a big company doesn’t mean you don’t have to think about REAL human values. In fact, it’s more important than ever.
Think about it.
[More Rackspace cartoons here.] [More corporate cartoon commissions here.]
May 21, 2011
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Ken Kaplan brought this to my attention: One of my little blue critters hanging on a wall inside Intel Corp.
Ken called it a “Sign of Super Intelligence and Creativity Inside Intel”. Thanks, Ken!
A cartoon all by itself changes nothing. A “Social Object”, however, can move mountains.
As I’m fond of saying, if your marketing fails to create Social Objects, your marketing will fail.
Think about it some more then get back to me…
May 4, 2011
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My @gapingvoid print now takes pride of place above the desk in my office… a daily reminder!
A daily reminder. Exactly. That’s the whole point of the “cube grenades” etc.
[PS You can buy that same print here…]
April 26, 2011
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Mike Natalizio, CEO of HNI Insurance sent me this photo. A framed cartoon I did a year or two ago for his company. Thanks, Mike!
He’s got a few of these gapingvoid cartoons in his office. “Social Objects” designed to start conversations when people come to visit etc etc.
This is what I meant when Paul Barron asked me, what’s next for gapingvoid, in that terrific video interview he did earlier this year [Towards the end, about 19’15″ into it].
Art, not as pretty decoration, nor as an existential howl from Tortured Artist Genius Dude, nor the smart-ass, sychophantic, postmodern shit from New York and London.
But Art to articulate real meaning. Art that helps move businesses forward. And hopefully helps move REAL people forward along with it. Right here. Right now.
Not advertising. Not telling people to buy.
That’s what the Cube Grenade idea is all about. Creating work that articulates the stuff that ACTUALLY MATTERS to people. Work that articulates Purpose-Idea. Right here. Right now.
But hey, most people reading this are also trying to do the exact same thing with their stuff, so at least I’m good company. Heh.
December 28, 2009
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[Rough banner ad ideas I wrote earlier today etc.]
Things here at gapingvoid Central have been busy. In order to spread the word on our fine art prints, we’re talking to a few people about some possible advertising and affiliate marketing deals.
It’s fairly virgin territory for gapingvoid, certainly, but I’m finding it an interesting experiment so far…
So the first thing on the list was to design some new banner ads. Earlier today I messed around with a few rough ideas, pictured above.
It’s not a bad start. I’ve written a couple of dozen already, and I can see running a lot of them in all sorts of websites out there. I’m so far having a lot of fun writing them, that’s for sure. The headlines above are kinda punchy, in-your-face, quite unlike most fine art advertising you see these days, which IMHO is a good thing. Art marketing is traditionally a pretty staid affair; I’d like to ratchet it up a bit… of course I would!
So naturally I’m thinking, what else could I do to make this more interesting, both for me and the Internet-munching public?
Suddenly I get the idea, hey, wouldn’t it be cool if other folk designed and wrote some of these ads as well? A “gapingvoid-community-open-source” kinda thing. How cool would that be?!!
So I’ll tell you what. Feel free to send in any ideas you may have via my usual email below. You can use words, graphics, whatever suits you. Or if you just have an idea off the top of your head, feel free to leave a comment below.
Don’t feel you have to imitate my format or shtick above– if you have another angle, I’d love to see it. If we end up using any of them, we’ll send you a free gapingvoid “cube grenade” print of your choice and also give you a mention & some linklove on this blog. Just remember they’ll be used in conventional sized banner ad format (at least for now), so please don’t stray to far from that for the time being.
This could be A LOT of fun. I’m looking forward to seeing what y’all will come up with. Thanks! Very cool…
[UPDATE:] The very first idea to be submitted came from Melle in the comments: “gapingvoid– Classier than a velvet Elvis.” HA! Thanks, Melle!
[UPDATE:] Within an hour or two of posting this, about 20 people have mailed in ideas, plus there’s all the comments below. Wow. Thanks, Guys! Now I’ve got to figure out how to sort through it all… Heh.
[About Hugh. Cartoon Archive. “Daily Cartoon” Newsletter.]
August 19, 2009
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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.]
May 13, 2009
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[Update: Essential Reading– “Work With Hugh: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About “Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
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.
This, I believe, is where my cartoons work the best– “Cube Grenades”- small objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage– to start a conversation, to spread an idea etc.
[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.
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.
[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.]
Since I posted this “Cube Grenades” idea yesterday, I’ve been giving it A LOT of thought. Here are some notes:
[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.
[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.
[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.]
10. 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.
11. 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.
