Hugh MacLeod
I'm a cartoonist.
I sell limited-edition prints.
I wrote a book.
I'm CEO of Stormhoek USA, which markets South African wine in the States.
I also consult, speak and--> draw private commissions.
Cartoons
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Topics
- #cartoon
- #cube grenades
- how to be creative
- prints
- social object
- stormhoek
- the global microbrand
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Prints |
Opening | Current |
|---|---|---|
| NY NY |
$275 |
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February 10, 2012
Inspire, or die trying.
1 Comment
[Originally sent out in today’s newsletter etc. Buy the print here etc etc.]
Like I said on Twitter earlier today, the people who REALLY taught me “How To” do anything worthwhile, didn’t write a big ol’ list of instructions, didn’t hold my hand, they just led by example.
The great British advertising man, Dave Trott once did that for me, back in the day…
THIS is what REAL leadership means. THIS is what REAL inspiration means.
And you’d better get used to it. Because in the world we now live in, there are no more jobs. There are no more bosses. There are only clients and customers from now on.
The employees who don’t get that, are dead in the water. And so are the “bosses” who still like to be treated as “bosses”. Good riddance to them all.
So… go read Dave Trott’s stuff. Find out who he is. Go learn from a MASTER. Do it. Rock on.
1 Comment February 9, 2012
Why “Only connect” is my favorite marketing strategy.
4 Comments
Thanks to Chris for sending me this photo, via Twitter.
The gapingvoid Valentine print he ordered, just as he was opening the box. A delighted customer, so it seems. Hurrah!
I love getting stuff like this from people, and not just because “Social Proof is the new marketing” yada, yada, yada.
As artists and/or marketers and/or business people, it’s not enough to just think about the money and the ROI. We need to know that we “connected”, somehow. Deeply so, sometimes.
Or else we just become very dull, making very dull stuff for very dull people, living very dull lives.
Which except for the occasional faceless corporation, is not much of a sustainable business model.
E.M. Forster’s very famous advice to aspiring authors had a mere two words: “Only connect.”
Exactly. In both art and business.
Only connect.
Think about it.
4 Comments February 9, 2012
Greeting Cards… Now Unavailable At gapingvoid!
3 Comments
I love this. A gapingvoid greeting card, newly printed, the finest inks on on the finest card stock yada, yada, yada.
No, we’re not selling them anytime soon. We sent them out to everybody who ordered one of our “Love Prints” in time for Valentine’s Day etc etc.
How do you make something ubiquitous seem valuable to people? A nice greeting card, for example? Something that you normally can find in any shopping mall for the price of a cup of coffee?
By making it scarce. Exactly. Special. Exactly. By making it NOT available in any shopping mall, by making it NOT for sale, at any price (within reason). Exactly.
Early on, Jason (my business partner these last eight years) and I figured out that gapingvoid would probably NEVER BE big and mainstream, a-la Dilbert or Doonesbury.
So there was NO POINT doing the same marketing as Dilbert or Doonesbury. Or anybody else, for that matter.
Like ol’ Steve said, think different.
You?
3 Comments February 8, 2012
My next book… and some personal thoughts on the future of the economy.
8 Comments
[The paperback galley copies. It’ll actually be coming out in hardback and Kindle only etc.]
I already broke the news on Twitter a while back, but yeah, gapingvoid Book Number Three comes out in April [Amazon pre-order link here].
Like I said earlier:
Think of it a wee love letter to the blog. As everything and everybody gets swallowed up by Facebook, Google+ and other “Death Stars”, remember the importance of having one’s own piece of real estate to call one’s own…
It’s also very, very short. I was in Brevity Mode at the time. And I made sure to put lots of new cartoons in there, just like last time.
I also didn’t write it for the “social media pundit” yakkin’ crowd. I wrote it for your Cousin Al, something just to plant a seed in his head. Hopefully one day it’ll sprout something.
What’s really interesting to me about the book is the timing. In a year where you can’t turn on the news without some pundit asking, “Where are all the new jobs are going to come from”, this might hint at a good answer, of sorts.
Because the way the economy is evolving, the new jobs are going to come from people who are predisposed to blogging in their underwear, anyway. The people who quit their dead-end, pen-pushing jobs, got a second mortgage, turned their spare bedroom into an office and basically risked everything to pursue their dream. And started a blog to help get the word out.
The people who don’t have to wear an tie and go to endless boring meetings seven hours a day for a living.
The people who actually MAKE stuff. The people who actually create real, thriving businesses from scratch. Up and at ‘em by six a.m. Before they’ve had their first cup of coffee. In their underwear. Exactly.
And thanks to blogging social media, beginning that adventure is far less lonely and daunting a process than it used to be, THANK GOD.
Closely related, my regular Twitter buddy, Umair has a WONDERFUL little post over on the Harvard Business Review, “Create A Meanigful Life Through Meaningful Work” where he laments about how most “successful” people he meets seem to make a living these days. As usual, he pulls no punches– he suggests that maybe, just maybe our current depression is not an economic one, but a spiritual and psychological one.
I’ve been in Manhattan for the last few weeks. Hanging out in all the wrong places (read: painfully hip power hotels), I’ve had the questionable privilege of overhearing more than my fair share of Very Serious Conversations from the movers and shakers of the world.
And boy, have they been tedious: mostly, about eking out slightly sharper terms for deals for more yawn-inducing stuff (whether flicks, financial instruments, or kicks) that’s destined not to matter. So here’s a tiny hypothesis: maybe the real depression we’ve got to contend with isn’t merely one of how much economic output we’re generating — but what we’re putting out there, and why. Call it a depression of human potential, a tale of human significance being willfully squandered (on, for example, stuff like this).
Bravo, Umair! My thoughts exactly. Like the brilliant Guy Kawasaki once famously said, “Make Meaning”. That is where the action is, that is where the economy AND the future is going. For all of us, rich and poor.
Make of that what you will…
8 Comments February 7, 2012
You chose money
1 Comment
1 Comment