HOW TO MAKE FRAME-BY-FRAME ANIMATION A VIABLE OPTION.

I’ve long loved animation and I have a weird, rich history of not ever getting to do it. Like, really do it. This from the guy who, in dot-com’s infancy, was the ONLY ART DIRECTOR IN SAN FRANCISCO WHO KNEW HOW TO MAKE AN ANIMATED GIF. True story.

When I was studying marketing at the Art Center College of Design in the super late 80’s a Hollywood production company (in an hilariously Cohen-brother-style meeting on Sunset Blvd.) invited me to be a part of a breakthrough, episodic animation project for adults that eventually became some dumb show about a guy named Homer and his weird family who lived someplace called Springfield. If you ever run into me, ask me about this experience because it’s super funny (sometimes I think I dreamt it).

The very first animation I did for Kelly’s marriage book, Hey, I Love You…. The hardest part was building the end title with the book closing. I knew it would be, so I made it so I could swap out the art and use the base animation as a template for every video after.

Once I figured out the basics, it was time to play with more layers, masking and more complicated animations.

Eventually I added unique title art to the front of each new video and kept pushing myself to do more complex scenes.

With all the booty shaking, this was the most detail I put into one of these animated shorts. And the most adventurous transition (to the dropped penny) I’d attempted.

Since the brand calls for stylish simplicity, you’d have to really be paying attention to see that the clip that begins at 00:22 is the most complex frame-by-frame animation so far. Can you guess why?

Soon after, Dick Clark Productions (another funny story) asked me to turn a comic series I’d won an award for in LA into commercial bumpers for a season of American Bandstand. I gave them an enthusiastic “YES” despite not knowing at ALL how I’d actually fucking deliver (it was the late 80’s and we didn’t even have clamshell phones yet for God’s sake!). Shit, I was still in school and only 19, for crying out loud, but I was all about it! When they said it’d be a great unpaid project on my resume, I bounced.

I’ve actually been creeping up on real animation for a bit. In 2017 I created a polished series of successful animated videos for a tech startup by supplying layered illustration files to a talented, local After Effects animator. Then I started a series of time-lapse illustrations that I made for Mr. Dave’s Best. Drawn in real-time, all one take.

But my real opportunity came when I got to promote the marriage book my wife had been contracted to write for Hachett – Hey, I Love You… To research her concept, Kelly had been interviewing all kinds of couples to learn more about all kinds of marriage experiences – the good, the bad, and, yeah, the sometimes terrible. Since I’d designed and illustrated her book to be as unisex and inclusive as possible, Kelly had a cool idea to set those candid insights to stylistic animation that would be right on brand.

Once animations were done, they were easily converted to animated gifs. Like this endless sharing of Hey, I Love You…

SImple, yes. Pain in the ass, not really. What I love about conceptual animation is that your can do a lot with little when you put a little thought into it beforehand.

Simple, yes. Pain the ass, also yes. But I do love this tedious-to-execute animated gif of the endless search for love. This was a part of the puck to fill Giphy with our cute little animations.

This concept for this animation was pretty simple so it had to get juiced up with some slightly difficult renderings of the word bubbles and the chair bounce on the refresh. Not hard, but nice thinking, I think. haha.

Frame-by-frame, onion skinning, multiple layers, Procreate, and my left hand – all in one photo. But this is what goes into every sequence on this page (and more on the Hey, I Love You… Vimeo channel.

The process wasn’t much different than the video work I did on those earlier tech-startup videos. I’d discovered the Procreate illustration app for those and it was a short leap to teach myself how to use its ridiculously simple animation assist to onion-skin myself to frame-by-frame-glory. Trying to do a whole video in one file was technically impossible anyway due to file size limitations which is fine because it would also have been an unworkable hellscape of layers to deal with. So I animated all the scenes as short clips. Once I had a scene down, I exported it as an mp4 file thatI then pulled into Adobe Premiere. There I could loop, extend, or slow, depending on how the VO timing worked out. And if I ran into trouble, I’d just zip back to the iPad to quickly animate a filler sequence or fix bugs in the scenes. Easy squeezy. 

Soon we had over 40 short animations for Hey, I Love You… And there’s more in production. It’s funny to watch my progress as I became more comfortable through experience. And the best part is that since I did all the animations as individual sequences, now we can mix and match previous work to make new narratives in just minutes. Or animated gifs of those scenes. Despite having so many options to economically repurpose the work into the future, I still prefer animating new ideas since I figured out how to do it so easily!

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Fill a Warehouse with Story.

Being a strategist, designer, marketer, and illustrator means you never know what you’ll be working on next. Which I love. So when I got a call from the local dog care experts at Skipper, I knew the universe was throwing me a creative bone I could really chew on. (See what I did there?) Their plan was genius. Skipper was already giving pets a loving, rewarding day when their owners couldn’t be there to supply it in person. Skipper’s smartphone app lets dog owners share in their pet’s experience in real time with photos at walk-time, pics of drop-off and other fun activities. But now, they wanted to create an amazing “together experience”.

The bar would be the focal point of this enormous space. And once we nailed the concept, the bar almost designed itself. A pub-like structure (faux brick below, dark green wood up top), tall and open but visually complete thanks to the hanging windows. The bar served beer for dogs, as well, so of course the bar’s logo would be a water dish with a mug handle full of suds. Customers would order on an app and be notified when to FETCH their drinks. How fun is that?

Skipper bought a giant warehouse space in a neighborhood that’s about to be chock-o-block with upscale apartments because they wanted to make it the ultimate doggy bonding destination. A couple of dog bars already exist here, but they’re smelly, unkempt, and furnished with cheap tables and plastic chairs. Skipper wanted to create a mind-blowing, immersive EXPERIENCE. In addition to a bar, the building would also house a kennel, exercise yard, and a new HQ for Skipper’s operations (a super smart way to expand your office space needs, capabilities, and profit margin). Exciting on so many levels.

Even though the building was purchased and the architects were hired, the concept itself was still in exploratory mode. They knew generally where they wanted to go, but they wanted to see what was possible, if it was viable, and most importantly, if it was affordable. And it had to happen fast. So how do you make a giant, cavernous dog bar/kennel/tech biz a destination? We understood the existing audience and their needs. We knew plenty of Instagrammable destinations existed out there, but after one or two visits, they became tired thematically. What we needed was a good story. One that could freshly serve daily customers, frequent visitors, and out-of-town sightseers. One that was fun to work at every day. Oh, and one that would fit the brand. Easy.

Meet the competition. Yes, this is a dog bar in the same town. You can almost smell the urine.

Now this. This is how you fill a space. I visited a LOT of big spaces when I was doing the advance thinking for our workshop. Lowe’s Foods not only filled their giant space, they did it with style and story and without a lot of expense. That structure to the right is in the wine section. You can pour a beer and sit in this little container fort and pretend you’re not hanging out in a grocery store.

In our brainstorming workshop I taped up a handful of “starter themes” that we could riff around. I also posted up sheets to keep up on task – areas we’d need to consider, amenities and services offered, company mission, etc. It’s funny, but we sort of sputtered and stumbled around until we got to what was originally the Dog Hotel theme (remember, it was a kennel, too, so it made sense). Once we turned it into a town, it came to life in front of our eyes. It’s was really exciting!

The whole place would be filled with gags and little surprises. I especially like how the Firehouse is siren-free. Those clouds up there? I thought it’d be nice to do some sound baffling in a way that helped the story. :-)

Remember, it’s a town built by dogs for dogs. So the entrance is the town’s Tourist Center. You just walk your dog up that ramp to check you both in (you’re his/her guest, after all).. Once you’re checked in, you’re in the town square (complete with a stature of the founding pooch). From here you have a commanding view of the town. Hungry, visit the indoor-outdoor market where you’ll find snacks for dogs and humans.

I toured the space with the CEO and listened to her describe every detail, every wish, hope, and desire regarding the vision. Then I spent a couple of days coming up with some jumping-off points that we could talk around in a brainstorming workshop. And despite it being the dead of winter, we spent a couple few hours hammering out ideas in an unheated, on-site conference room. We filled the walls with good, bad, and ugly ideas until it was clear we had a winner.

The idea was simple. Create a town, founded by dogs, built by dogs, and governed by dogs (with assistance from their human partners). The space, as I said, was huge. If it was only filled with tables and chairs, it’d be overpowered by space, echoey and lame. Scale was our enemy. So I planned to fill the space with town buildings that would serve as little “forts'' to hang out in. A firehouse. An art museum. A town Hall of Fame. Since the town was built by dogs, everything from the signage to the tiniest bit of extra credit would be misspelled hilariously in enthusiastically sincere “dogese”. The entrance where you (human) and your Master (dog) checked in was the town’s Welcome Center (and, of course, Gift Shop). There was even a dog’s Farmers Market where all kinds of treats were sold (along with a human food food truck right outside the roll up garage door). My favorite part was the bar with the pub facade. You’d order drinks (including legit dog beverages) through the app and, when ready, you’d get a text. Not to pick up your order, but to FETCH it. And all of this detail came about in that two hour workshop including all the other ideas.

Knowing your audience and your service to them is important. But the story. Ugh, the story is the difference between being another dog bar and being something on a whole different level.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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HOW TO DESIGN A BOOK TO NEVER SIT ON A SHELF.

I’ve designed and illustrated a handful of books like the silly Safe Baby Handling Tips, Mysterio’s cute picture book, and more. But this was the first book I was asked to design that was, well, an actual BOOK. Like, a book you could spend more than 5 minutes reading. It had more than 1000 words in it, for crying out loud! What made it even more special was that it was penned by my talented writer wife and partner, Kelly Sopp. Which I’m thinking might be how I was lucky enough to get this very different assignment? Maybe.

Kelly’s book is titled Hey, I Love You…and it’s beautiful, simple, and remarkably (you’ll appreciate the pun in a minute) unique. It was written to give couples practical marriage wisdom, along with an effortless way to exchange heartfelt words that need to be said, or unsaid, or aren’t said often enough. It’s different from any book in the Relationship and Marriage section of your last remaining bookstore for a lot of reasons. But the most brilliant reason is the way you use it. Any book can tell you what to say, how to act, or what 25 rules to follow to reach happily ever after. But Kelly’s book has a simple, built in system that, when applied, will literally keep dust from collecting on the book AND your marriage.

The final cover of Hey, I Love You…: Bookmark your way to a Remarkable Marriage by Kelly Sopp. We did over 30 covers for this, can you believe it? And they were all this simple and they were all in white, black, and this charming yellow. That byline on the front on white? That’s a removable sticker. The book is meant to be personal and we didn’t want people looking at marketing stuff every time they wanted to use it.

SO MANY WORDS! It was actually fun managing the typography. I hadn’t dealt with having control over this much copy for a while and it was so fun. Of course there more to this than this one spread, silly. Oh, and tabs. I was able to include finger tabs for each of the 5 chapters so you could find what you wanted to “say” really fast.

It’s so REMARKABLY easy (paying off on that earlier pun now): the bulk of the book is composed of bookmarkable sentiments that you can use to offer words of romance or encouragement to your spouse. Just find the feeling you want to share, pop in the supplied bookmark, and hide the book in a fun place for your partner to find. Under their pillow. On top of the coffee maker. In the fridge. Get creative! Every page is a love note to be left to deliver a soft, unexpected reminder to your spouse that you’re there and thinking of them.

But the book is especially helpful to any and every marriage because it accounts for reality. Everything’s not all romance, all the time. There’s a section for when you have disagreements and tough times. There’s even an array of thoughtful ways for you (or your spouse) to sincerely apologize for any discretion. In these cases, it’s less about starting a makeout session. It’s more concerned with getting you two discussing what might be out of whack in a kind, constructive way so you can get back to the makeout sessions.

Most of the book is like this. And this is how it works: “Oh, something is bookmarked for me!” (top right). “Awwwww!” (left) “AWWWW! (bottom right) Do I really need to tell you what happens next?

This isn’t just a book to instigate cuddles. It’s got everything you’ll need during your decades together. Seriously. It can even help you tackle some pretty serious stuff. My article on doing the book illustration goes more into the challenges that posed to the tone of the book.

I’m not trying to sell you the book. If you’ve read any of my articles on strategy, design, marketing, and illustration, they all dive into this much background detail. Because no work can be evaluated by the work alone. That’s literally why they say, “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.”! Because the cover may not reflect the spirit of the writing. I had a brilliant creative director tell me once that the fastest way to kill a bad product is with good marketing. It’s so true.

So when I got Kelly’s final manuscript, here were my take-aways:
Upbeat. WAY out of character in the genre (in a good way). Funny where appropriate and keenly adept at bringing a sensitive positivity and kind understanding to the serious bits. It reads like lavender scented, soft wool dryer balls. Romantic if you’re in that mood, comforting if you aren’t.

The book’s content was a complicated thing (the topic of marriage) broken down into its simplest form and delivered with a kind smile. So that was my direction. Get out of the way of the words and just deliver them, gently. The font is Abrade. It’s got, like, 1M variants and its Light version fits the tone of Kelly’s writing like a wedding ring.

All this is from the initial pitch to our publisher (Running Press). Pretty similar to what was published, no? Hahaha. It’s because we presented such a detailed, thought out vision of what this book could be. But there were some changes. (Clockwise) At first we thought it’d be really nice if the hardcover was cloth covered (instead of a book jacket). But that turned out to be too expensive (and in the end it was fine ‘cause it’d probably get really dirty with use. This is a photo of the book I ‘shopped up for the pitch. The books visual language was thought out at the beginning, too. We even included a series of patterns to use and that was just for the endpapers. The HEY logo as so important that I did a ton of versions before landing on what we chose, here on that bookmark. And finally a ‘shopped image of the book where one might find a spicy sentiment waiting for them!

Alternate covers! So many covers. I mentioned we looked at over 30 subtle and not so subtle variations, but that didn’t even include versions of what shape the cover sticker was or what would be on the bookmark or what if the cover was cloth with an acetate jacket!? I don’t know if this is how much thinking goes into every published book, but it’s what goes into the ones I design.

This is where to keep this book. Everywhere. The best design aspect is the concept itself. That the couple who owns the book uses it as a fun communication device, passing it back and forth as desired or needed.

I mentioned at the beginning that this was more of a “book-like” book than I’d ever designed in the past. It’s true, but it’s “more-than-a-normal-book” because of the interactivity baked into the concept. So even the writing of it was part of it’s design and I collaborated with my author from the outset. We divided the content into bite-size, intentional bits. We made it easy to digest. And the final layout is a natural extension of that.

The bookmarkable spreads are visually sparse to give the sentiments the attention they deserve. The lead message is positioned large as a sort of headline at the top left with an accent illustration above for colorful, emotional seasoning. At the lower right are brief, carefully chosen words of support, positioned to not be blocked by the supplied bookmark. Easy squeezy, light and breezy.

One of my favorite quotes is one that I cannot for the life of me remember so I’m going to go with something similar that I found on the interwebs - ”The definition of being good is being able to make it look easy” That was from one of the great thinkers of our time, Hugh Jackman. I happily did over 30 cover designs for this thing to be sure I got it right. Yeah, the cover is important, but 30!? Published authors, did you get 30 versions to consider? I also did 250 more illustrations than was called for (or paid for in the advance). I explain in my article about the illustrations that it wasn’t because I had to because I was married to the author. It’s just the book needed it. Which didn’t make it the easiest project I’ve ever tackled but it was just as rewarding in the end. Because I LOVE going the extra mile(s) for something (and someone) I deeply believe in.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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HOW TO DRAW OVER 300 ILLUSTRATIONS FOR A 258 PAGE BOOK THAT'S NOT EVEN A PICTURE BOOK.

My wife wrote a book called, Hey, I Love You… and she asked me to design it. Then she asked me to illustrate it. It’s in the contract with our publisher. They paid me in the advance to do 50 illustrations for the book. Well, they paid Kelly to have me do the work. Hahaha. Anyhoo, you know how many illustrations I did for the book? Over 100. And that’s why I like being a strategic designer who can draw. I didn’t HAVE to overdeliver because it’s my wife’s project. I did it because it simply HAD to be done. I’ll explain.

Hey, I Love You… by Kelly Sopp. Illustrations (so many illustrations) by me, Dave Sopp. This is an early drawing I made for the Hey, I Love You… website because we didn’t have an actual copy of the book to show off. Hey, we still don’t!

Kelly’s book is beautiful. Hey, I Love You… gives couples practical marriage wisdom, and an effortless way to exchange heartfelt words that need to be said, or unsaid, or aren’t said often enough. It’s so unique. Not just because of the way you use it or how anyone who’s married can find incredible value in it. It’s unique in the space of Relationships and Marriage. Have you ever looked in that section? It’s D-E-P-R-E-S-S-I-N-G. It’s mostly for people trying to fix what’s very broke or, in the dustier lower shelves, trying to teach people how to NOT get into that situation in the first place. Kelly’s book tackles all that (and more) handily and expertly, but in such a refreshingly positive way. This is starting to sound like I’m the president of her fan club (I am, but I’m also the president of every businesses fan club on this site), but it’s important because when you illustrate a book, it’s not about your talents. It’s all about the content.

Didn’t I just say that I don’t have a sample of the book? I don’t. So I did that Illustration to use while I made my own dummy! I’m like that. Anyhoo, now you get to see what the book design looks like. Super airy and light. That yellow is so bright and happy and positive (just like the writing.). Below are some illustrations of how the book works – “it puts the bookmark in the book.” (Sorry, Silence of the Lambs joke).

I’ve collected my favorites (but not all my favorites) to share. The book is so light and bright and airy, so the illustrations really needed to just be seasoning for the words Kelly wrote. I chose a loose style using the colors we already established in designing the book together. The drawings are cute and happy, but still rough around the edges and almost sketchy, just like my marriage. Kidding! Just seeing if you’re paying attention.

I tried to keep everything as simple as possible at every level. I use three brushes: Rough Crayon, Tight Crayon (for any type), and Messy Dotted. There are only three colors: White, Yellow, and Black. Even conceptually I tried to be super simple without being lazy. I mention that the Life Preserver was an easy out, but I tried to at least make it look really interesting. And it turned out to be one of my favs.

In this case, the content is composed of two parts. The first is an introduction to the book to explain it (it’s that unique) and give you an entertaining breakdown of tried and true marriage best practices. The second part is the bulk of the book - bookmarkable spreads that convey your romantic thoughts, encouraging words, mild concerns, deepest worries, and your most sincere apologies. That’s a lot of emotional content, right? Sound kind of heavy? Well, it IT IS! And that was what made it so tricky.

The Hey, I Love You… bookmarkables are divided into five categories. The first two, Romance and Encouragement, were super easy and fun. Then it started getting challenging. I feel like such a baby even writing that because you honestly, have NO idea how much thought and research went into the writing of this book. For example, consider this spread: I’m Worried About You. / It seems like you might be having a tough time right now. Want to talk about it? While the sentiment is clear, it’s also intentionally vague. Because this bookmark may be appropriate for someone who’s going through a really hard project at work as well as someone who might be suffering from deep depression. The overall tone of the book is upbeat, but it’s not tone deaf. As a person who identifies as “married for more than 25 years”, I’ve (we’ve) experienced a lot of the experiences in this book. So what would you illustrate to represent that bookmarkable message?

For every message in the book, I had to put myself in the shoes of the bookmarker AND the recipient in both the most mild of circumstance AND the most dire. All the while I had to keep with the book’s upbeat voice and palette. For example,“I’m Worried About You.”. For this I illustrated a door outlined in white in a very dark room. Under the door there’s a bright yellow light showing from the other side. From other side comes a bright, hopeful love note that travels a playful path into the room. Fine for anyone who’s just sort of shut off emotionally from their loved one and open to interpretation by the recipient to speak to just how dark that room is that they’re holed up in. See what I mean?

Of course, not everything in the book called for something this heavy. Even in the serious parts. If you know me, you know I can’t stand an easy way out. But for a small part of this assignment, the easy way out led to more time and effort to tackle the harder stuff. “Maybe We Can Learn a Lesson in This.” = Graduation cap. “I Will Never Give Up on You.” = Life Preserver. Not lazy. Just accurate, appropriate, and efficient to tackle the harder spreads. Besides, remember what I said about the book not being about the illustrations? It’s true. They were always meant to be seasoning for the content.

At this writing, I’m still making more and more drawings. Once we sent the final files to our publisher, there was the website and all the marketing materials to produce. Right now I’m at over 300 unique illustrations for this project. This isn’t even counting the animated book trailers and animated gifs viewed by over 3 million on GIPHY. I hope there’s even more to add to this story when the book is available October 5. If you want to be in the loop, subscribe to the Hey, I Love You…Newsletter. If you preorder the book before October 5, you’ll get a cool little Sneak Preview Gift. from Kelly and I :-)

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Go Big in Iceland.

I’d never done a mural before. After my successful project teaching Icelanders how to ride a bus safely and not-insanely, I was asked to do four (FOUR!) giant murals inside Strætó’s Reykjavík headquarters. I was ecstatic and terrified, but mostly curious. Their ad agency handled the public reception room and it was nice. Typical Reykjavík skyline in modern thin lines, and stuff like that. The four murals they wanted would be in places only employees can see – the marketing/PR office, the tire shop, the dispatch office, and a very long wall in the company cafeteria. There wasn’t a creative direction other than, “what would you do?”

This is the cafeteria and, in a nutshell, the whole process of the project. My client sent me multiple photos of each wall, which I turned into panoramas (top). Then I turned those into a digital canvas and used those to make measurement guides. This wall was fairly easy with only those few vents. Wait until you see the dispatch room and tire center. I drew everything in pieces in Procreate, then put them all together in Illustrator. Then I popped the whole thing into my panoramas for client approval (bottom).

I started by doing what I always do for any project – consider the challenge I’ve been asked to solve and the what the intended audience would appreciate, then offer a range of solutions. It was seemingly simple. De-dullify some big, blank walls and lighten up the everyday lives of employees. If it was one wall, no prob. But this was four interior walls that employees would encounter multiple times a day. It really felt like it needed a theme to tie them all together. 

My wife asked me why I was stressing so much over a wall decorating project. But to me it was so much more. It was a chance to celebrate the people who worked hard at a public service job that is typically unappreciated by its benefactors. The real challenge was helping those employees feel proud of what they do, and reminding them they matter greatly to their community. I believe every marketing or creative opportunity is a chance to do so much more than asked.

From the outset I had a direction I knew I wanted to go in. Bring the bus into the only place it doesn’t go in Iceland – INSIDE THE HQ.

I started with a litmus test to plumb the tone of the project. Serious? Funny? Fantastical? After all, there were no rules. But being 3,000 miles away from Iceland, I had no way of walking around to check the atmosphere of each department. My clients were my guide, and in the end, they went with what I hoped they’d choose. As I set out to bring the bus into the HQ, I thought, why not bring along the passengers, too?

This is what I presented in the first round - four different themes. I wasn’t sure what level of whimsy they wanted to bring in so I kept the spread pretty broad. 1. This was the one they’d eventually pick to bring the buses and their riders into the building. 2. This was based on something that my client had told me when I was working up the Riding Tips. He said people leave some crazy shit on the bus. So that’s what I had represented for the cafeteria. All the stuff left on buses. Yes, even a prosthetic arm! 3. I don’t even know where this came from. I’m glad they didn’t choose this because it looks like a pediatricians waiting room. 4. This was my second favorite theme - buses running the bus company! Every wall would represent the work going on there, only by buses! Hilarious.

The idea would feature Icelanders interacting with one another while riding and eagerly waiting for the bus. It was a great way to show a slice of Icelandic life, just doing the things that Icelanders do when they use Strætó. Early conversations about the Safe Bus Riding Tips revealed that people often do bizarre things on the bus. I thought there was a fun opportunity to make the murals a sort of “Where’s Waldo” of truths and funny inside jokes for the employees. It would also be a great way to create a story that could connect the murals in each department, converging in an “in bus” experience where all the employees come together - the cafeteria.

Final - Marketing/PR Office (top) My client told me that there are these really aggressive geese that are all over the place bullying people for handouts. They even get on the buses sometimes! So of course we had to add that in. As well as other feathered sights you’d see at a bus stop. That blank spot on the bus? That’s where a whiteboard is glued to the wall. I had to work around a ton of stuff in the dispatch office.

Final - Dispatch Room (top) Oh, man. So many windows! And a giant beam that divided the wall right in the middle. But we cleverly designed worked around it all by incorporating it into the drawing.

Final - Tire Center (top) The tall skinny gray boxes are support beams we had to work around. The other two boxes? This is the best - they’re bathroom doors!!! The men’s room is on the right, where the dudes are hanging out and the women’s restroom is at the front of the bus. Hilarious.

Final - Cafeteria (top) This is my favorite wall. I mentioned hiding little bus-life details before. One of those is a nod to weird giant things people try and bring on the bus. And I love the guys going to a soccer game in the front. See those two lost in their books? Notice how similar they look? The girl’s book is titled, “How to Find Your Perfect Match”.

Afterwards I noticed that all murals are signed and I didn’t sign any of these! But in the cafeteria mural, if you look hard enough, you can spot me gazing out the window at the beautiful Icelandic countryside. I can’t wait to go and see these in person!

While the walls were super long, the actual office spaces were pretty tight. Anything colorful or too aggressive would have been way to jarring to live with every day. So we decided to go with line art in a medium gray that would fill the space, but not fry the mind. From a production standpoint it was…interesting. I’ve written about how detail crazy I am, especially about physical space. But since I couldn’t measure it myself, my client photographed each wall the best he could, and I made a measurement guide from those photos. They accounted for every vent, pipe, beam, window, and any other possible obstruction. It’s was pretty damned detailed. He kindly confirmed the measurements in my detailed guide without cursing me (as far as I know). Then I drew the elements of the murals (piece by piece) and assembled them onto templates I made from the measurements. After that, I made Photoshop mock-ups to scale of how each mural would look after installation. Oh, and no one had to paint all this! They went with printed wall wraps. Smart.

In the end it was WAY more illustrating than I had originally planned on. What will all the passengers and all, but it was so much fun. Each figure was independent of everything else in the mural, so we could move any passenger wherever we liked in order to get the best composition. I’m told the reception by employees was really, really positive. I can’t wait to hop on a Strætó bus to HQ one day, and have a look for myself.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Be Hilarious In a Language You Don't Understand.

Ahhhh…Safe Baby Handling Tips. The onesie illustrations that became the 2005 board book I co-authored with my wife, Kelly, which launched a bazillion social media posts that don’t credit us as authors or me as the illustrator. Sigh. But once in a long while, someone will use a cool, free tool called “Google” and they’ll see that these funny Tips actually came from a real person. And then they work with that person to make new, funny things! Dude! That totally happened to me!

If you have a minute, you can read how this super fun project for Iceland’s public bus network, Strætó, came about. And, how bananas successful it was (over half of Iceland’s entire population was reached organically). True story! Basically, Strætó wanted to educate their riders on bus etiquette. It wasn’t my idea (it was theirs), but I wish it was (so badly), because it’s the perfect use for the Tips format.

Of course the baby one is my favorite of the series. And thank God I’ve never seen THIS happen on the bus. The tea set one? All those dudes are my brother. And yes, he really had that amazing mustache.

My Handling Tips formula is hard to nail, even though it’s pretty straightforward. Have a simple base instruction, and a victim. I’ve expanded the Handling Tips format into non-baby topics before, and that’s what really sort of brought this formula to light. I happened to have spent 15 years riding the bus in San Francisco, and let me tell you…I’ve seen some shit. So to me, there were PLENTY of victim opportunities to exploit for some juicy Bus Riding Tips.

When I did what I did for Safe Baby Handling Tips, I roughed out scenarios, then shot some scrap to work from for final. It was 2005, so I drew all the images on paper, scanned them in, cleaned them up in Photoshop before bringing them into Illustrator for layout. But now, I’m all Procreate on a first gen iPad Pro. For the Strætó project, I drew each part of each scenario in Procreate, exported the PSD to my desktop to clean it up, imported to Illustrator, and vectorized. Each Tip became its own layered Illustrator file so it could be scaled to meet any need Strætó might have for it (social media posts, bus shelter posters, etc.).

Hi, I’m Dave! World’s worst photographer! I like to shoot my own scrap to reference for the drawings because it makes it go faster. You’d think I’d enjoy that part the most - drawing it all. But the real fun is in placing the drawings in the template. Because that’s how you find out if what you thought was funny actually is funny. And most of the time it’s not. Hahaha. I have to redraw stuff more than you’d think so that everything works together like it’s supposed to.

We had such a fun time working together so I was made an honorary Strætó bus rider with my own pass and everything! I can’t wait to go visit and use the new bus riding skills I learned. I even got my own Icelandic last name. Did you know that they use your fathers name and then add “son” or “daughter” (dóttir) to the end. Yes, my dad’s name really is Clyde.

A lot of the characters in Strætó’s riding tips are my family members. My brother and his wife were visiting from California when I was working on this, so they ended up being in a LOT of the drawings. My son was home from college and made a cameo in a few, alongside Kelly, my wife. Of course, my clients were also drawn in. Hahaha. Guðmundur, whose awesome idea this was, appears as a driver while his teammate, Camila, appears as a passenger. We handled the title translations in the end because Icelandic is Greek to me (see what I did there?). I love that no matter what language they were in, these drawings could work anywhere in the world. Because idiots on buses is so universal. 

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How To Bring Your Idea to Life.

I get a lot of junk mail. I know, everyone does. But with all the irons I have in all the fires, it’s like I get 10 times more than I should. Right now my phone says I have 12,802 unread emails. It ain’t lyin’. But I do at least scan them before I send them off to email oblivion. Which is a good thing because this fun project started with a random email I got from out of the blue, with the subject line, “Enquiry from Iceland.” Here’s the rest:

“Hello Dave and Kelly.           

My name is Gudmundur Helgason, I represent the Icelandic Public Bus Network which is called Strætó. 
I am a big fan of the Safe Baby Handling Tips book. It‘s hilarious.
We are thinking about clever ways to educate passengers on the rules and behavior around our buses. I had the idea it would be funny to make them in the same style as the Safe baby handling tips.
Here is one idea: You can bring closed coffee mugs on board the bus. But you can‘t bring your fancy glass kettle and teacup.
Is there a possibility for a collab project where you make funny artwork around bus etiquette?
Look forward hearing from you. 

Best regards from Iceland

Guðmundur Heiðar Helgason | Public Relations”

Now, if you don’t know Safe Baby Handling Tips, it’s an illustrated board book of baby do’s and don’ts that my wife and I authored for Running Press in 2005. If you’re in the having-a-baby zone of life, you’ve surely seen our tips because they’ve been scanned and shared freely online like crazy. Everyone says, “Dude, stop whining about it. It’s free advertising for your book!” It would be if the posts gave us credit, which they rarely do. In fact, there are even people on Facebook and Pinterest who claim the drawings as their own creation. Yeah. And then there are actually businesses who flat out rip off our work (more on this near the end). So when I read this email from Iceland, I was flabbergasted (in a good way). First off, it was such a great idea for the Tips format! Because how do you tell people not to be jerks on the bus without being a jerk yourself!? Genius. Second, Guðmundur’s email was so sweet and sincere. Third, it was so refreshing to have someone actually ask me to play with them. Fourth, Iceland needs me!? I couldn’t say no.

This Riding Tip was one of my client’s suggestions and one of my favorites because apparently people try to bring lawnmowers on the bus in Iceland. We did the Strætó Riding Tips in both Icelandic and English.

Guðmundur and his team wanted to use the Riding Tips on social media, so I recommended they do a good two weeks worth of Tips so the series had time to gain some momentum. I also recommended repurposing the drawings as bus shelters or window clings on the passenger windows. Why not maximize your usage, right? I threw together an estimate that included one hard-line demand on my part – a Strætó bus pass of my own. We agreed on a three-week window to get it all done, and we were off to the races.

Creating Tips (for any subject) is harder than you think. Which is why copycat tips always suck so bad. I get into the details here, but in short, your subject matter has to be really simple and there’s got to be a victim. Someone who’s either going to get hurt, get someone else hurt, or look like a complete imbecile. So I started by getting a list of bus rules from Guðmundur. Here’s some of what he sent over:

“• Passengers can have closed coffee cups on board.
• We advise people to be visible on the bus stops when the bus approaches. For example like stepping out of the bus stop and giving the driver a signal with the hand.
• Give up your seat for pregnant women or the elderly
• Don‘t disrupt the driver while he/her is driving.
• Passengers can bring bags, suitcases etc. on board if they are able to carry it by themselves. These things also should not damage the bus, endanger other passengers or disrupt their wellbeing. (Like bringing a lawn mover on board or smelly leaking garbage bags. Yes this happens :‘D)
• Pets should be kept in the back of the bus on the floor in front of you in a cage. (dogs should be on a leash.)
• Give bus driver time to see the fare or bus card.
• Bus drivers can only let people on or off the bus at official bus stops.
• Make room for other passengers if the bus is getting full during rush hours.”

Pretty standard stuff, right? I don’t know why that surprised me so much. As a Muni rider in San Francisco for 15 years, I’d seen my share of people breaking (sometimes obliterating) all these rules and more. So being super familiar with the Don’ts was really helpful from the get go. I went to work simplifying the complicated rules and started roughing out gags for each one. I also wanted to develop a way to brand each of the Riding Tips so that what happened to Safe Baby Handling Tips didn’t happen to Strætó. That meant adding a logo and their tagline to every Riding Tip, so if they went viral, you’d know where the work came from. I gave Guðmundur a few layout options for that, along with the 14 rough ideas I’d worked up. His team and I collaborated on tweaking the gags on Skype. It’s always dicey to work on funny stuff with a client, but Guðmundur and his crew were so good at it! Hahaha. It went so smoothly that I was able to go straight to tight drawings while incorporating our revisions. We worked in English and then when the final drawings were approved, Guðmundur sent me Icelandic translations to sock in. Easy Peasy. Before we knew it we were finished ahead of schedule. We were having so much fun we added three more Tips to the project. One of them I actually experienced in San Francisco – a woman clipping her toenails on the bus. Yeah. You really shouldn’t do that.

All in all there were 17 Riding Tips I created for Strætó. You can see all the illustrations I did here.

Guðmundur launched the series and it instantly went the way we’d hoped. People had so much fun commenting and playing along! The press it got was all super positive, but there was a small hiccup where some Icelanders thought Strætó was infringing on Safe Baby Handling Tips’ copyright. How’s that for irony!? An Icelandic journalist even emailed me about it. So Guðmundur and I enlisted her help to spread the word that Strætó did the right thing by collaborating with the original artist (me!), which extended the press cycle beautifully.

The series ran for 17 days and on the 18th day Guðmundur posted all the Riding Tips at once in English. Strætó’s Instagram traffic was typically 200-300 profile visits per week. During the Riding Tip run, it jumped to 3,500 per week. A Strætó post on Facebook usually reaches 10K – 20K people. The post with the Tips in English reached 165,000 people organically and is still climbing. And that’s completely bananas considering there are only 330,000 people living in Iceland.

Oh the press we got. If you can read Icelandic, you’ll see this is all good. And look at my client, Guðmundur, in the upper right! Handsome devil and just as clever. Below you can see the reference scrap of my wife Kelly.

I love this. One of the few press pieces in English. Fun Fact: That’s my brother and his not-nearly-as-old-as-that wife in the Helping the Elderly Tip.

Once the Tips were finished, I made it so they could be applicable in any other situation to maximize exposure with minimal extra cost.

Ugh, I wish I could end this story here, but I’ve got some advice for anyone in Guðmundur’s position. I’m a big fan of the saying, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” Guðmundur had a great idea to turn our Baby Tips into Riding Tips and rather than do a half-assed version of that idea and risk incurring the public scorn of copyright infringement, he wrote and asked if I wanted to play. People, you have nothing to lose by asking an artist to play! Yes, they might say no for whatever reason, but you’d be surprised at how many would say yes!

Guðmundur sent me the image on the left about three days after our Riding Tips series launched. A local energy drink co-opted our Tips format to do what I don’t know. I guess, say don’t drink something else? And on the right is my own country’s National Parks System doing a similarly lame rendition. Seriously, we could have done great things together for our National Parks.

Three weeks after the Riding Tips series ended I got a text from my brother saying our National Parks System was ripping off Safe Baby Handling Tips. It was one post and it was just awful. As I said before, sadly, it happens a lot. But this one made me so mad! And it was because of Guðmundur. Hahaha. A guy far away in Iceland who could have totally copied my work and I might never had known about it. And here my own country’s National Parks System goes and does exactly that. I did what I rarely do anymore (because it’s so upsetting) which is to post a comment that they were riffing on my work, could have just asked, yada, yada, yada. They took the post down eventually and I haven’t heard anything from them since. Which also made me mad. Because, like Guðmundur’s Riding Tips idea, it wasn’t a bad one. And I love our National Parks! I’d love to help them. But they’ll never know how successful their idea could have been.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How a Simple Plan Can Go So Wrong, and So Right.

Design > Product

I know I say this a lot, but making things is hard. There are lots of moving parts to get right, no matter what it is. If you’re a small business, you’re likely struggling to bring it in for a manufacturing cost you can afford, and with a retail price your customer can afford. Not to mention, I’ve had a lot of things come from the factory damaged (it happens) which is a double whammy because you have lost capital plus lost sales opportunity. Because of that, I’m always looking for a way to make things that would eliminate the likelihood of disaster, or to roll with it (like Mysterio did).

I decided on a plush project. It would be one form factor; two different sizes. It would have a flat front, a flat continuous side panel, and a flat back. It’d be made of canvas, filled with fluff and a layer of beans at the bottom so the doll would stand on its own. Easy, right? The fun part would be designing characters on this plush blank canvas. I’ve always been a big fan of art toys. Take Frank Kosik’s Labbit series or the Dunny characters, for example. So smart and simple, and endlessly fun. I’d call my art plush project, Stuf.

FINAL: This is the plush line I created called Stuf. Simple dolls with bean bases (so they stand on their own). Art toys that kids could use as playthings, puppets, or pals. Simple, clean, bright, and fun.

EARLY: I hit on the shape I wanted for all the Stuf dolls to share and here’s a little peek at some of the sketch work. I made paper models (complete with fill) to see if they had the physical presenceI wanted them to have. Yeah, I’m weird that way. I started off thinking I just wanted to make really graphic little characters, but it soon grew to all kinds o possibilities.

EARLY: OMFG. I designed the simplest thing ever so I’d avoid any production disasters. What I got was the exact opposite. Look, I’m good at specing out product for factories (US and overseas).. I was thorough with the instructions for what I wanted (lower right corner). But if it could go wrong it did. The shape, fabric, color, structure…UGH. With my detailed instructions I even included the paper doll shot from above. They assumed I wanted puffy faces sewn on. < sigh >

I didn’t have a lot of money to invest in Stuf. And this plush wasn’t even something that fit with everything else I was designing for Wrybaby. So it was a creative experiment, for sure. I had to begin by getting manufacturing costs, and then from there, work out what I could do. For example, I’d initially wanted to make every doll different. Just create a lot of fun art pieces that would live under a brand story. Once the costs came in, Kelly and I figured we’d be better off creating a handful of Stuf “families” instead. That way each family could be a story, and the likelihood of success was higher overall. Why? Because if I created, say, 20 of one-off Stuf characters, what if people LOVED three and they sold out? I’d be stuck with 17 slow sellers and no way of re-investing in the three that worked. Get it? If you group families, there’s an incentive for people to buy multiple pieces in a family they’re drawn to. I’ll come back to this later.

Anyhoo, it worked out that we’d make 4 Stuf families. Each made up of 4 small dolls and one big Stuf doll. You should see all the preliminary sketches I did (so many!). It was a blast, but I really wanted to make them all. The two deciding factors for the themes we went with were: current trends; and our instinct for what we knew would be attractive to Wrybaby’s wholesale clients. Pirate Stuf, Bird Stuf, and Robot Stuf were an easy leap for stores. We went with Developmental Stuf because it was a link to Wrybaby’s parenting wheelhouse. Think of it as a safety move. If the others didn’t work, at least there was a solid baby offering.

FINAL: A closer look at Pirate Stuf. I gave each pirate his (or her) own little character attributes for kids to build on. A parent once called me to say her son, who’s afraid of the water, found great comfort in his Shaggy Dan. Honestly, that alone made all the Stuf headaches worth it to me. Oh, and Pirate Sue really IS nothin’ but trouble! Hahaha

FINAL: Some Stuf dolls shared pattern on the back, but had extra credit on the side panels, like Circus and Robot Stuf. I especially like how the rosy=cheeked lion sits on a little performance pedestal.

FINAL: We pulled everything along with Stuf’s clean “European art toy” aesthetic through to it’s website and retail packaging. We made plaques for each Stuf family that made them look so special on retail shelving. And later we’d even build wood and canvas backdrops for each Stuf family.

FINAL: Yep! I made Stuf backpacks! The funnest part was the side water bottle pockets. The Owl’s pocket said SEEDS, and the Circus Elephant’s pocket said…wait for it…PEANUTS! Of course. :-)

We’d thought of every little thing except one. That the factory would fuck us. Oh boy, did they ever. We were working with a liason in the states who touted Gap experience and pull with a factory who was rich with Disney experience. As simple as this project was, it was a complete shock when the complete Stuf shipment arrived and only 25% of it could be sold. Yeah. While the samples they sent for approval were great, the final dolls were misprinted, sewn terribly, and…grimy. It looked like they ran the fabric over with a greasy forklift before sewing them. Not to ruin the story, but it’s important to expect the best and plan for the worst. No matter how much you try to avoid trouble, it’s inevitable in one way or another. 

But as they say, the show must go on. We had to really make sure our sellable 25% s-o-l-d. So we kept to our plan and did something you’d think we would have rethought considering the circumstances. I’ve written about how we built a snooty art brand for Stuf to live under. It was like a high-end art gallery that was only open by appointment and never answered the phone or returned calls. Hilarious and, as it turned out, hilariously effective. Stuf would soon be sold in major art museums across the country from SF MOMA to NY MOMA (you can see the complete list here).

Stuf sold through that first terrible shipment and we were able to find a new factory to make a disaster-free second round. Encouraged by Stuf’s success, we designed Stuf backpacks and we added hand-made wood and canvas backdrops for playtime with each Stuf family. OMG, the trade show booth that I designed for Stuf is still one of the best booths I’ve ever done. But that’s a whole other story.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Break Into Modern Art Museums.

Strategy > Product Development

I’d designed and manufactured all kinds of products – baby clothing, children’s hooded towels, toys, stacking blocks, board books, even pacifier cases. OMG it was all so HARD. I had always wanted to make a line of plush (normal people call them stuffed animals), but was intimidated by the potential for it to go wrong. Hahaha. I’m such a chicken, but being gun-shy DID bring me success in our Mysterio line. So, I put that kind of thinking against the plush problem.

First of all, and if you know me you already know this, it couldn’t be like any plush. I didn’t want to make furry lions, or sweet teddy bears out of recycled sweaters. It had to be different. I was super intrigued by blind box art toys. Especially the artists who were sculpting one simple form, and then re-skinning that form in different ways. It seemed so simple and yet so endless what you could do within those confines. So I started noodling forms and experimenting with what could be done with them.

Where I ended up was certainly really different. Canvas forms filled with beans at the base so they stood on their own. Easy surface to print on, simple shape to sew. Manufacturing would be easy since I’d only be held to a printing minimum rather than a per piece construction minimum. I could make a lot of different dolls without a lot of expense. But it wasn’t “fluffy expected” and it wasn’t particularly “baby”. I didn’t think it mattered. I was going for something beyond expectation.

FINAL: This is Robot Stuf. Because we were funding this line ourselves we had to do it as economically as possible. Can you guess one of our methods? Right. Limited colors on each doll (notice the ON switch on the back isn’t green). But it made it a challenge. So what do you do when you’re limited on colors? Double down and make it work to distinguish each dolls individuality and character.

FINAL: All along It was always this simple. The form on the left was Big Stuf, 12” tall. On the right, Small Stuf, 6” tall. These were the blank factory samples we approved.

FINAL: While some Stuf families had the same patterns on the back of each doll (Robot Stuf all had ON and OFF buttons, Circus Stuf all had a shared graphic pattern), Pirate Stuf all had a bit about each pirate’s personality on the back. My favorite, I think, was the orange Shaggy Dan who was “only a little afraid of the water”.

FINAL: Circus Stuf was probably my favorite family and it was an honor to have them for sale at the Ringling (as in Ringling Brothers) Museum of Art Florida. Pictured with the Circus Stuf family is the Big Top-themed wood and canvas backdrop I later added to the line.

FINAL: Bird Stuf and Developmental Stuf.

I always tell my clients that they need to design their audience before they design their product. I knew I wanted this line to appeal to art-types, and that because of it’s plush category nature, they’d likely be parents. So why not make collectible art plush for children? And that’s when I started working on themes. I went EVERYWHERE and it was SO fun. I eventually landed on five different sets – Circus, Bird, Robot, Pirate, and Developmental. Developmental Stuf was interesting because developmental research shows that babies respond positively to high contrast items. It stimulates their brains like crazy (in a good way).

Side note: No matter how simple you try to make things, it always gets complicated. We had hired a freelance production manager who’d worked for the likes of the Gap and we found a factory who’d manufactured for Disney, yet 75% of our container shipment arrived practically destroyed. Badly sewn, misprinted, stained and unsellable. The 25% we could use was exactly to specification, thank goodness. Entrepreneurs, know this: no matter how much you try to prevent this situation, it’s ALWAYS a possibility. Which ALWAYS sucks. 

I’d always planned to market Stuf in a special way. Like, exclusive special. So I developed a line presentation that would set it up to be museum quality from the beginning. Even the name, Stuf, gave a simplistic European flavor without the fancy umlauts. Each line of Stuf would be a limited series, and a percentage of proceeds would be donated to a specific charity related to each theme. Bird Stuf, for example, would donate to the American Bird Conservatory. Developmental Stuf would contribute to Plan. The idea was for stores to display each line of Stuf alongside an engraved plaque we had made with the charity information. When a customer brought a Stuf doll to the register, the shopkeep would retrieve a fresh product from the back for purchase. It was special art you could buy. And this is an important part of the strategy – perceived value. We set this up to look like each piece (with its charitable contributions and lack of back stock) would retail for $40 each. No. Each of the small dolls retailed for just $12.95. The big ones for just $24.95.

FINAL: Our online retail packaging was clean, simple and graphic, like the brand.

FINAL: Developmental Stuf in NY MOMA.

Finally I get to the REAL strategy part. We didn’t cop to being the creators of Stuf. We were just the DISTRIBUTERS. We never told our stores or any interested parties where Stuf came from. And this is important to building mystique. We build a whole separate website for Stuf and only offered a single Stuf email as contact info. No order forms. No list of stores that we sold to. No wholesale reps to contact to buy it. Nothing. This all lived in the background before we launched at the big NY International Gift Fair.

When Wrybaby did bring it to market, we played dumb. We found this line and we’re the distributors. It was so different from anything else in the Wrybaby booth, it was totally plausible. And we gave it wide berth to attract stores we’d never been in before. Those store were museum stores. Modern art museums. And we got their attention. Before too long Stuf was available in:

MOMA NY
MOMA SF
Contemporary Arts Center - Cinncinati
Walker Art Center - Minneapolis
The Art Gallery of new South Wales
Arkansas Arts Center
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
Delaware Art Museum
Portland Art Museum
Tacoma Art Museum
Dallas Museum of Art
Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Ringling Museum of Art Florida
The Getty Museum
The Ackland Museum NC
The Autry Museum
The Bremam Museum
Bay Area Discovery Museum

FINAL: Once the concept proved itself, Stuf got to have it’s own booth at NYIGF. So clean! I wish I had a better camera to document it. :-P

But here’s the best part. Museums liked Stuf, but we pulled the whole third-party distributorship act through to the end. Emails to the Stuf website went unanswered, or a Stuf Staffer replied vaguely. There was no phone number to call. It was like those Stuf people weren’t really interested in selling their plush dolls at all. Stuf’s website was hilariously smug. It was set up like a modern art gallery site. It only listed the products, the museums they were in (which expanded by the week), the charities it funded, and the trade shows it would be presented at. I’ll tell you, I sat on the one museums PO for months until they were calling me every day to fill our their new vendor form and ship them. Why? Sometimes the more you make people want something and the more they have to work for it, the more valuable it becomes to them. It’s the law of exclusivity. Availability works the same way.

Stuf was successful enough to warrant an INCREDIBLE trade show booth dedicated to it. Very artsy. We added cool canvas backdrops to the product line so kids could put on plays using characters from each Stuf theme. Stuf went through another reorder with another factory (much better) and we retired the line to focus on other projects. But I’ve still have the bragging rights to having my art featured in most of America’s major art museums (even if it was in the gift shops).

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How Packaging Can Set the Stage.

Design > Packaging

Mysterio’s product is super unique. And as I mentioned, things people have never seen before are hard to package. Mysterio tells you your baby’s future on a little t-shirt. There are 12 possible futures (all party safe), and each is sealed up in this bag so that it’s a surprise when you open it. Back in 2006, I didn’t think I had to explain that last part – what with blind box toys getting more and more popular each year. But trust me, the average consumer STILL needs all of this explained to them. Sigh. I’ll share some business and behavioral lessons we learned as I go.

FINAL: Mysterio’s packaging had to do SO MUCH. Tell you what it was, what it did, what the possibilities were, what the guarantee was, where it was made, who made it, and even how to open the goddam thing,

Anyhoo, that’s a lot of work for a little muslin bag! Which is why the whole front of the bag is the product description. The back? All support, no filler. Build up the experience while explaining the experience. We did this for another reason, too – the end user experience. If you haven’t been to a baby shower, here’s how it works. There’s a lot of games and chit chat and cake and such, and then everyone gathers around to watch the mom-to-be open her gifts. When she gets to Mysterio, she’ll likely read the bag out loud before opening it. Therefore, she’ll be explaining to everyone exactly what to expect while building anticipation. Show time!

And this is why, at first, we didn’t list the futures on the bag. We printed the on the wood display so that when Mysterio’s t-shirt was given, nothing would lead the giftee (or her audience) to think their surprise future would be more funny than aspirational. Good idea for the consumer, bad idea for our bottom line. Why? Because on our next reorder from the factory, we decided to freshen up the futures. But we still had a ton of displays. So that meant printing new lids for everyone who already had displays. Woof.

FINAL:And this is Mysterio’s packaging from way back in 2006. Lots of lessons learned along the way! This was when we tried to make the bag easy to open by just pulling the top string (big mistake) and relied on a lot of copy to get the story across (big mistake; no one wants to read).

The first bag was also easier to open. On the first two rounds of production, all you had to do was pull a red string to open it (like a bag of charcoal or dog food). For dramatic effect, we wanted to make the opening act (see what I did there?) was as seamless as possible. We didn’t want to interrupt the mood we’d built up by having someone run off to find scissors, leaving everyone in awkward silence until they returned. This, however was a big mistake – for retail stores. Why? Because their customers were opening all the bags, searching for the future they liked the best. What the fuck is wrong with people? One store watched Puff Daddy’s personal chef do that, but at least he paid for all the ones he opened before he left. Anyway, we got tired of paying to re-sew all the bags closed. So now, you gotta have scissors at the ready to open it.

Speaking of construction, the pinked edges of the bag were designed to give it a roughness. Sort of an economical, controlled fraying. Oh, and while we always offered the wood display, some stores decided the display wasn’t worth the nominal fee and made their own thing (which usually translates to standing them up in a basket where no one will see them). Then they complain the shirts aren’t selling (which never happens), so they finally buy a display, and then they sell through their stock. But still, we wanted to give options. That’s why we eventually added the brass grommet up top. So if stores really didn’t want or have room for the display, they could at least hang it on a peg on a wall slat, and the front of the bag can do it’s job. Options are always good. It costs more to do, but didn’t detract from the product and it enhanced its sellability.

COMPS: Two bad ideas. Megastore Buy Buy Baby wanted to try Mysterio out, but didn’t want the wood display. That’s when we had to start thinking about alternate solutions. This on the left was the quick fix to make it work with inventory we already had. Oh, and we felt like we had to dumb the paper hanger down A LOT for a mass market (which would still be true today). Workable, but I like the grommet we did later better. And on the right is a quick fix for our displays when we changed up the futures. Not a bad solution, but not an ideal long-term one.

Let’s talk about extra credit. I say, it’s for chumps. Here’s a good example. When we switched to scissor-open-bags, I wanted to add something to add some stability. It always sort of bothered me that the bag was so floppy and light. I know, it only held a tiny folded t-shirt, but still. I also didn’t want people cutting through the t-shirt while opening the bag (see, I was learning!), so I added a thick cardboard card with an outrageous guarantee. If Mysterio’s future wasn’t correct by the time the child was 70, you could return it for a full refund. Funny, but not to our lawyer. At least until I showed him the legalese attached to the guarantee:

*Claims must be submitted with original receipt and the allegedly inaccurate garment upon which Mysterio’s prediction must be legible. Substituted garments will void this offer (besides, Mysterio will know you were trying to trick him). Claims shall also include a facsimile of child’s birth certificate, complete grade school transcripts and college transcripts (if applicable). Please also include an essay by the child, in his or her own words explaining the circumstance of his or her failure to achieve the destiny predicted by Mysterio detailing any conflict of personal hopes and/or dreams. As all claims will occur in the distant future, before submitting your claim, please consult a psychic or other such mystic for information regarding Mysterio’s whereabouts. Reimbursement will consist solely of the garment’s original purchase price minus sales tax and minus any delivery fees Mysterio shall incur. If said fees exceed the refund amount, you will receive an invoice from Mysterio of the balance owed to him by you. Invoice will be payable immediately. Failure to remit payment will result in dream-state visitations to the claimant by Mysterio until the balance is settled. By reading this agreement you promise to see the futility in filing a claim and to realize that it’s perhaps easier to go ahead and just fulfill Mysterio’s prediction by doing what he said you’d do.

Fun little extra spice to add, right? Nah. It added a new vendor to production, drove up the manufacturing cost, and in the end I don’t think anyone really cares. Maybe it was just too much. Like a smart friend of mine is fond of saying, “It’s a joke on a joke”. Unnecessary. We’re heading into our 10th reorder of Mysterio shirts, so if you want one with a guarantee, you’d best order one now before they’re gone. Hahaha.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Expand a Magical World.

Design > Product

I’ve said before that your packaging is as much the product as the product is. This is another example of how true that is. If you don’t know, Mysterio makes a baby t-shirt that can predict your child’s future. Kelly and I had just published a children’s picture book about Mysterio and we were looking to expand his product line. Mysterio was always more of a gift for parents than a gift for baby. Sure, the baby got a shirt. But the parents, the baby shower guests and the gift-giver, all got a fun, memorable experience. So why not develop more experiences for them

FINAL: BEHOLD! Mysterio’s Deluxe Keepsake Chest! An expansion of the Mysterio infant t-shirts that predict your baby’s future. It was so fun to play in this sandbox from a design and illustration standpoint. Almost too fun. In the end I made way too much stuff for it. Made it a little hard to explain all the contents!

That’s where Mysterio’s Keepsake Chest came from. It was a deluxe collection of Mysterio’s baby shirt, his book, two fun games, a wooden top, and a paper craft. Over the years, customer feedback told us that people really did keep Mysterio’s shirts once their baby’s grew out of them. How fun to see if the future would eventually come true! So one of the games we developed predicted more specific events – Milestones. At the bottom of the box lies the game board and a heavy card filled with milestones. Spin the top and name a milestone. When it stops, it will point to the age at which the child will reach that milestone. Write it down on the card. Easy! The fun part is discovering that your child’s first haircut will happen at 58 years of age. Yes, all silly, good fun at a baby shower. Flip the game board over, and you’ll find that Mysterio will answer any YES or NO questions you have. Again, ask the question, spin the top, get Mysterio’s answer.

FINAL: SEE?! TOO MUCH STUFF! The tag on the outside had a list of contents (as brief as I could make it), but it still read like a novella. The game board that’s flipping up? That’s two games on one board. Of course it comes with a one of Mysterio’s signature baby t-shirts and his new picture book.

FINAL: A close up look at the Ask-O-Meter! Think of it as a flat, paper, much sassier Magic 8-Ball. I’ve got one of these in our living room and we use it all the time to make YES or NO decisions for us. I like how a lot of the answers end up being sort of confusingly ambiguous/

FINAL: The flip side to the Ask-O-Meter is a fun way to record when your baby will meet their major development milestones. What’s so funny is how horribly wrong Mysterio’s predictions get. First Tooth could be at 51 years, for example. Hilarious.

FINAL: There’s even a little papercraft Mysterio that you can pop on a shelf to keep a mystical eye out for baby. I like the extra credit (which I always say is for chumps) of printing a back to the paper Mysterio complete with all the instructions reversed as well. And here’s a shot of me tying up a box to ship out. I’d do 100 of these at a go and it KILLED my fingers. The things you do for art.

I think my favorite part of the whole thing was the clever packaging. We stuffed the box with wood excelsior so it looked all wild and exotic. We even slid the lid closed to leave some of the curly fill sticking out because it looked so cool. And just like we did on his baby shirt packaging, we let the lid be pretty simple and straightforward. We used a paper tag to really detail all the info. But even the tag was cool because, as the gift-giver, you could clip off the contents part and be left with a nice gift tag to fill out. Then, the giftee could discover the contents on their own. Also, it looked WAY not-commercial that way, too. Oh, and to keep people from getting into the box in stores (I already learned they would try), I wrapped each one with heavy rope and fastened it tight with heavy black wire. It killed my hands (yes, I wrapped them all myself), but it was totally worth it.

When baby was too big for Mysterio things, the whole kit and kaboodle could be stored away in Mysterio’s handsome wooden chest. Someday, far in the future, the child would find it, and have a good chuckle.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Turn Iffy QC into an Asset.

Strategy > Mysterio Predicts

Making things sucks. There. I said it. Kelly and I had been manufacturing goods for Wrybaby for years and whether it was done domestically or overseas, it always sucked. It’s just a lot of moving parts that can go wrong. And we weren’t even making complicated stuff! We had our share of screen printing problems in the US and we once had our inventory held for ransom in India WHILE WE WERE THERE VISITING THE FACTORY. Understandably, when it came time to think up a new product in 2005 we were feeling pretty sour. So we gave ourselves this challenge: Can we design a product that, if it arrived all messed up, would still be ok to sell, if not improved, by its defect?

FINAL: This is how consumers meet Mysterio for the first time. Curb appeal for days and all the result of outsmarting a quality control problem. I specified using rough-sawn wood for the crate box knowing it wouldn’t print very well on the front. That way I’d never be disappointed with how badly AND it sets the stage so well for the product.

That’s when Mysterio was born. Honestly. As exotic and fun and popular as Mysterio’s baby tees are, it’s totally one of those really disappointing “How I met my spouse” stories, like, “Oh, we were drunk in Vancouver and hooked up and got pregnant, so...”. Mysterio was a child of past failure. See, maybe you know this, but manufacturing overseas sucks for small orders. The sewing, for example, can be kinda janky even if it’s something the factory specializes in. Like onesies. You’ve got QC, but still some crap sewing sneaks through. Sometimes a lot. The printing is even more iffy: It’s off center, faded or too dark; or smudged because it’s done across town with someone your factory contracted with. Get it? Good luck getting anyone to take responsibility for anything when you see it come back all messed up. And again, that’s on stuff they all specialize in.

So given our challenge, we went rustic. We went old world. Exotic. Mystic. We started with the aesthetic. What could you make that, if it arrived messed up, looked like that was intentional to reflect being handmade, or primitive, or of exotic origins? And how would that product relate to a new baby (which Wrybaby specialized in)? 

At this point in our own parenting adventure, we were past the “how will we keep it alive” phase and entering the “what will it be someday” phase. So, I don’t know, it became sort of a no-brainer to make the connection. What if we created a garment that told the baby’s future? It could come in a printed bag that was sealed, so you didn’t know the future until your opened it? What if we built it up to make people think the futures would be amazing and then they weren’t? What if they were kind of hilariously odd? Like, how you can wonder sometimes how anyone grows up to find their passion as a Shrimp Boat Captain? Or a Romance Novelist?

FINAL: The current product packaging, front and back. We’d added the grommet to give our stores more display opportunities. You can see how the printing on the front is a bit off-center (a bit too far to the left). If it was on an envelope or a box, I’d be pissed. But because we used a sewn bag, you totally forgive it.

FINAL: Clip the bag open and VOILA! Your baby’s future. Boom.

It all unfolded from there. We didn’t even test it. We just went all in. We developed a wood crate display for stores with tons of curb appeal. It’s made by a US company who is AMAZING, but still, their shipper dropped our palette and half of the crates splintered, cracked or flat out broke. DIDN’T MATTER! In fact it made them better. They looked like they were just thrown off a boat from Cambodia.

The product itself is a little complicated to explain, being so unique. It makes a bit of heavy lifting for the little muslin packaging, but here it is: Mysterio predicts your child’s future on a t-shirt. There are 12 possible futures (which, btw, we change up every year) and each future is sealed in a muslin bag. Clip open the bag to reveal your baby’s future. 

In 2005 people weren’t very trusting that the futures wouldn’t be something stupid, dirty or terrible. So, we listed all 12 futures on the lid of the display crate so customers knew what they were in for. Eventually, we put the futures on the back of the bag (for reasons I mention in another article.) We succeeded in creating an amazing baby shower gift that was memorable because of great suspense and theater it created at parties. And talk about having a keepsake for that child to discover decades later when they really achieve their career goals! Creative moms-to-be have even used Mysterio Tees to let their husbands know they’re pregnant. Boutiques around the world found that Mysterio customers became steady customers, as Mysterio became the proven go-to baby gift. One boutique told us that Puff Daddy sent his personal chef (why the chef we’ll never know) to open all the Mysterio’s in the shop until he found Criminal Mastermind. He paid for everything he opened and left with his prize.

FINAL: Mysterio’s money-back guarantee along with some product extensions. His deluxe Keepsake Chest, his picture book, and even little freebie goodies like a papercraft Mysterio you can consult in times of indecision.

Over the years we’ve tinkered with Mysterio here and there. In the beginning all you had to do was pull the string to open it, but too many people just opened them in stores until they found one they liked. So now you have to cut it open. We added a silly guarantee the your future will be accurate by the time they’re 70 (and even still there’s a ton of impossible legal stipulations). We even released a limited keepsake box full of games, an inspirational book about Mysterio, his t-shirt and even a paper craft doll Mysterio doll to guard your child’s aura. Mysterio continues to delight, and I’ll be sure to update this post soon. He’s got some new, amazing products in the works as I write.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Make Fun of the Helpless.

Illustration > Safe Baby Handling Tips

Fun fact about my book, Safe Baby Handling Tips: That’s me and Kelly in all those drawings! We were living in SF and I was doing a rockabilly thing with vintage red tab Levis and no handlebar mustache. You can see Kelly go through a couple of hair styles between Safe Baby Handling Tips and its prequel follow-up, Safe Pregnancy Handling Tips. I’ve written about how we came up with the idea, but the intention of the drawings was to mimic instructions for power tools. Not airline emergency instructions. Not IKEA assembly instructions. There’s actually an important distinction here.

FINAL: The first edition of the book in question – Safe Baby Handling Tips circa 2005. Look at that handsome rockabilly devil, will ya?

FINAL: Like painters in all the cartoons who paint live models, illustrators use photos for reference.. We call it “scrap”. Before computers, I knew illustrators who had rooms full of file cabinets packed with torn out magazine pages, photos, all kinds of scrap (see!?) paper with stuff they could reference in their work. I like this photo because of the baby laying on the ground behind me. Looks like I totally missed!

FINAL: A couple of my favorite panels. It takes people a while to see what’s so wrong about Shopping with Baby, which is fun to watch. Drying Baby is so moronic and mean it never fails to crack me up. Same with the Lifting Baby detail (what a grip!). Oh, and a little something from Nursing Baby to keep you up at night. Yep, that’s me. I’ll spare you the scrap I shot for it.

FINAL: Another true life adventure in scrap shooting (courtesy of Bonding with Baby). And two of my favorite Kelly panels. She cut her hair short in the middle of the project and I kept it accurate. So when you read through the book you can tell what was done first and what was done later. Don’t ask me why all our furniture was labeled.

My dad and my granddad always taught me that you have to respect your tools. You understand their power and never forget that you need to be mindful when using them. Let your mind wander, and bad things can happen. That’s what I thought about when we had our baby. As long as you stay mindful and not be a moron, no one will get hurt. It’s a weird twist, but you follow me, right?

If you read about the strategy behind Safe Baby Handling Tips, you know I didn’t have a lot of time to mess around drawing these. They’re simple, but they had to be realistic enough to need scrap for me to work from. Because what I’d do if I had time is take photos of people recreating the actions and then draw from that. I did that, but then traced the images in a stylistic way so I could scan them, clean them up in Photoshop, turn into vectors in Illustrator, and then pop them into frames fast. The stuff I couldn’t shoot, I just drew freehand which turned out to be pretty efficient.

COMPS: of course there were a lot of ideas that didn’t make the book for one reason of another. When we did the 10th Anniversary update/expansion we had to nix some panels because technology made them obsolete. They just don’t make TVs like that anymore and we didn’t feel like a flat panel would be as funny. And somethings our editor at Running Press nixed to save us from ourselves. Co-Sleeping is too scary and real a problem, for example. And even though we have a booze related panel (Calming Baby) it was not recommended where this one we flipped it to be the YES. Bad. And I added some that were just shitty for fun. That’s a string of firecrackers I’m lighting over there for the unpublished, Teaching Baby to Crawl.

FINAL: New directions for Safe Baby Handling Tips. Clockwise from top left: 1. If dogs are the new children, a Safe Dog Handling Tip series seemed appropriate. 2. We played with the idea of offering our Handling Tips on adult apparel, canvas totes, and even pillowcases, so we made some useful usage tips for those fine products. 3. I picked something at random to see if the formula would hold up. HI-YA! It did. 4. This was the big NO on how to use a SBHT coffee mug.

I later tried my hand at expanding the Handling Tips concept to other things to see if the idea had legs. Karate, Dog Ownership, that kind of stuff. I think the baby is the best foil just because of the original power tool reference. For some gross reason it’s funniest when the person who could get so seriously hurt is the small helpless person who least deserves it.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Not Destroy a Baby.

Strategy > Safe Baby Handling Tips

Are you a parent? Let me tell you, it’s terrifying. Scary at the least. If you are one, you know what I’m talking about. You’re so nervous and excited and, well, clueless. Because if it’s your first, you have no real idea what you’ve gotten yourselves into. And that’s a fact that becomes more and more clear as you careen toward your due date. When Kelly and I were expecting, I was just scared. She was terrified.

FINAL: The cover of the expanded version of Safe Baby Handling Tips. On the cover is a miniature, simplified version of another product I designed for Wrybaby – The Wheel of Responsibility.

When I was 14, my parents decided they missed being parents (of really small, helpless people). So, they had my brother Josh. Then my sister, Lindsey, three years later. So being in middle school through high school with a couple of babies in the house would prove really helpful to me as a soon-to-be-dad. I knew how to feed and burp a baby, change diapers, and all that jazz. Meh, just like ridin’ a bike. I was in no way emotionally prepared (and who is the first time) for the shock of full time responsibility, but at least I had some exposure in the field. Kelly had none.

We did all the things you do as expecting parents. We read scary articles online, we bought books that were thick and boring, or thick and scary. We were the first of our hipster advertising friends to have a baby, so they were, hilariously, no help at all. We went to baby care classes, and to the requisite Lamaz classes. And finally, our hands about all wrung out, Kelly went into labor and everything changed. 

 Sorry, changed for the better, I mean. Kelly and I soon discovered a few important truths.

1. Across the span of human history, all new new parents feel the same

2. Caring for a baby is difficult, but it’s manageable and only gets easier with time

3. You’ve got to be a fucking moron to really mess this up

REVIEWS: Our Amazon reviews are hilariously amazeballs.

TRUE: The only foreign translation of Safe Baby Handling Tips – German. Take a look at that title on the cover! Hahahaha. Do I have to tell you I had nothing to do with the layout? So bad!

That last point, especially. That’s where Safe Baby Handling Tips came from. Look, as long as your intentions are good, and you’re a somewhat stable person, you really aren’t going to mess this up. At least not in the beginning. Oh, you’ve got all the time in the world to unintentionally destroy your child emotionally. But in the first year? Nah. You good.

We’d conceived (see what I did there) the concept of these “handling tips” about a week after bringing our new son home. Each illustrated tip was printed on a newborn item: a onesie (Playing with Baby); a hooded towel (Drying Baby); a diaper cover (Checking Baby’s Diaper); you get the idea. It’s very simple. Each scenario shows you a common parenting activity and what kind an absolute idiot you’d have to be to mess it up. Sort of gives you some perspective, no?

Anyhoo, we were in Wrybaby’s booth at the New York International Trade Fair when a couple of reps from Running Press strolled in. They asked me if I had any more of these tips to fill a book. “Of course!”, I said. I didn’t. But I sure did a week later when we sent them the packet of illustrations that would eventually become Safe Baby Handling Tips.

To date, Safe Baby Handling Tips has sold over 120,000 copies. It is also well reviewed on Amazon. The book has been translated into German because if anyone knows anything about comedy, it’s the Germans. And the illustrations have become an stubbornly enduring meme on the internets much to our pleasure and dismay.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Draw in the Future.

Illustration > Mr. Dave’s Best

I sure like to draw. But I don’t really have a set style. At least, I don’t think I do. I guess I just never really found a niche interesting enough to gnash on. I’ve spent my career using my drawings to help get concepts across to creatives and clients, and to decorate the products I’ve made myself. So being really versatile was great for that. Heck, for a while I was getting freelance jobs in San Francisco just to draw other peoples ideas for them. This page of weird drawings was part of a personal project I started to get my head out of a really busy time and to stretch my illustrative muscles a bit and let loose.

FINAL: Mr. Dave’s Best Stickers really let me go to town in whatever direction I felt like. And Procreate let me choose the best digital tool for each topic. For example, I liked the rough charcoal feel for these poor chickens.

I’m a terrible painter. Watercolor, acrylic, oil...oh, I suck so bad at that. I came up in the world drawing with markers. Especially the bullet point Design Markers (my blood is 80% xylene). I’d eventually do all my drawings on paper, scan them on a big HP flatbed I had, and then color and manipulate them on my desktop. I illustrated Safe Baby Handling Tips that way. In the end I’m glad I have all the original drawings on paper as a tactile keepsake, but what a pain it was. I’d had a small Wacom tablet, but it was always too awkward to draw while looking at your screen and not your hand. Kinda like rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time. Then I really invested in one of those Wacom tablets that mirror your desktop. Better, but all the giant cords and transformers…still not ideal. Procreate on the iPad? Oh yeah, that’s the ticket. So convenient. So powerful. So easy. It made me want to draw again.

FINAL: A little mishmash of Unicorn Poop and People Not Getting Well Soon.

FINAL: I produced a few Mr. Dave’s Best Posters. This one I made for an elementary school silent auction. I made another poster at the same time that would have been…inappropriate.

Everything here was done digitally over a span of about a month and a half, and it was the most fun I’ve ever had drawing. It didn’t hurt that I did a lot of it in the quiet moments during a long trip through Amsterdam, Prague, Budapest, and Austria. Imagine sitting on a wood bench in the shade alongside a canal in Amsterdam, drinking a cold beer, pantsless, drawing away on your iPad. That was totally me. Except with pants. I added that last part to see if you were paying attention. But seriously, that’s what’s so great about being an illustrator who lives in the future – you have a complete art studio that fits flat in your daypack. All in all, I did over 150 drawings on various topics that would eventually become sheets of stickers sold under the banner, Mr. Dave’s Best.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to See If People Like What You Make, Then Be OK If They Don’t.

Design > Product

This is really weird. But it was supposed to be, so I achieved what I set out to do. I’d been working on a lot of really fun but intense projects that all sort of ended at the same time, so I felt I needed to stretch my legs a little and do something for me. So I decided that thing was to make some fun stickers. The thought was that I’d make sheets of bizarrely themed stickers and then turn the best ones into postcard sets, and then canvas bags, and then...you get the idea. I’d take everything I knew about what gift stores are buying today and illustrate my own odd little brand to offer folks.

FINAL: The idea behind Mr. Dave’s Best Stickers in three photos. A sheet of weirdly themed stickers. Which you could peel off and put to equally weird uses to delight your family, friends and co-workers. A genius product that was way before it’s time.

FINAL: I was especially pleased with how the back turned out. Yes. I wrote the copy all by myself.

FINAL: Oh, there were all kinds of topics. I could go on forever. But fate had different plans!

Kids! Hahaha...I love kids. My friends’ kids all call me Mr. Dave (I live in the South, you know) and I think it’s hilarious so that’s what I called my line. I went for a retro look to offset the not-retro-at-all themes. Sort of a brand subterfuge to make people think they’re about to see something really sweet and wholesome and then it turns out to be stickers of cats pooping.

I put a challenge to myself to do, like, 30 full sheets to prove that the idea had legs. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t get bored halfway or feel like I was running out of ideas. That ended up being over 150 individual drawings! So I took 5 sheets that best represented the line and them printed in China on the cheap. I thought I’d test out the concept on Etsy while running them past a bunch of gift boutiques. I quickly found that, um, people don’t come to Etsy to buy stickers, much less stickers of run-over animals (see Roadkill). Great for the unique, bad for strange. Gift stores didn’t know what to think. Hahaha. It was a mess. I don’t know what I was expecting, but no one wanted any part of that shit. They didn’t get the topics or anything. And these are people who’ve known my sense of humor for years. One store asked why it was so old fashioned. What? So I got my stickers into a big box store. Well, one big box store. Cost Plus World Market. The one closest to my house.

FINAL: Actually, there was a sort of categorical plan. Knowing what I know about the gift and greeting card industry, I was able to focus on weird themes in distinct categories: Animals, Fashion & Culture, Food & Drink, Home & Garden, and Health & Fitness.

FINAL: Oh, I also made postcards and posters. You can see more high-brow designs in the illustration category.

Here’s what I did. I went in one day, found some items that were $6.95 (Mr. Dave’s MSRP) and took pictures of their price tags. I went home and printed out the tags and stuck them on the backs of 5 Unicorn Poop sticker sheets and 5 Dead and Dying Succulents sticker sheets. It was just days before Christmas, and World Market had a special little section for unicorn stuff (plush, notebooks, junk like that) and a special little collection nearby of potted succulents. Perfect places to surreptitiously drop my sticker packs and make a hasty retreat.

I returned the next day and found they were not only still hanging there, undiscovered by World Market Employees, but one of the Dead and Dying Succulent sticker sheets had sold! So I kept going back whenever I was in the neighborhood or needing more Hoi Son Sauce, and the selling proved to be slow going. After a few months they took down those special little displays. I thought that was the end of my experiment, but I found my stickers had simply been moved to another part of the store. I kept checking back periodically and was sorry to see that the savvy World Market shopper was really not interested in Unicorn Poop stickers. I hadn’t sold any. But there were only 2 left of the succulents. Yay? What’s weird is the stickers never made it to the Clearance shelves. I’d have been so sad if they had, but they just continued to be repositioned around the store. At month seven, I couldn’t find them anywhere and thought, “Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted.” But the next day my wife sent me a picture showing they’d been moved up to the checkout impulse racks – just three Unicorn Poop sheets hanging below the gluten-free gum and salted licorice from Norway.

FINAL: The great World Market experiment. On the left is where I left my Dead and Dying Succulents stickers and on the right the sad aftermath months and months later. Just a couple Unicorn Poop stickers left!

I’m so sorry, I don’t think I have a point here. Hahaha. I guess it’s that when something doesn’t work, try and learn what you can from it and move on. Or make a quasi-illegal game out of it to keep yourself amused while you go on to the next adventure.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Make an Efficient, Effective First Impression.

Design > Website

Web design is a discipline that I can’t say is a focus of mine. BUT! And this is, as the kids say, a big but – I can do it, and do it pretty well. Case in point, the project I did to rebrand American Greeting Properties (AGP). They had confidence problems and we “re-skinned” them to fix it. The backbone of that effort was their website. Look, a website is all about organization and the hierarchy of information. For AGP they needed their homepage to be a gateway to a world of creativity. Their objective wasn’t to collect leads, sell product, or even a service. It just had to inform and make a desired impression. Not to downplay this, there was a LOT of impression to change, in the process. The website also had to tie together a lot of disparate assets and present them under a unified umbrella. So, not easy.

FINAL: The home page for American Greetings Properties.

FINAL: Clicking an area of the map (or in the legend) would bring a pop-up of everything you needed to know about each property.

FINAL: I’d designed and illustrated all the infographics for each properties detail page. This was a ton of work, but also a ton of fun.

FINAL: Here’s what clicking ABOUT US would bring you.

FINAL: How mobile would work along with a little secondary navigation idea that didn’t make it. Once the island drawing was finalized, I made a topographical rendering of it complete with a handy chart of who lived at what elevations. Hahaha.

I worked with an internal team who included a developer, so whatever I designed was sure to be actually possible to create. I’m a realist and won’t work under any other circumstances. Who wants to do a bunch of work and have it be impossible to implement? So we all decided on a simple structure. A home page base would present the entire site map (see what I did there?). Clicking a character would bring up a light box panel of information that would deliver everything (plus infographics) they needed to know. We created a format where a LOT of information could be conveyed in the most condensed form possible, without making anyone want to kill themselves. Easy.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Achieve Good, Fast and Cheap.

Advertising > Video

They say it’s impossible. That you can only pick two. Want it fast and cheap? Well, it’s not going to be good. You get it. I do, too, and agreed with it until I figured out how to get all three at once.

VersaMe’s Starling was an amazing little piece of technology. If you haven’t read the strategy bit behind this, then take a few minutes and go for it. You’ll get the big picture. This part’s all about the YouTube videos we launched in support of a giant AdWords buy worth tens of thousands of dollars. And I only had two weeks to concept and produce video for it.

When pitching the Starling, there’s a lot to get across. We had to describe a wearable technology for early-learning that no one had ever seen before, and then explain the problem it solved to people who didn’t know the problem existed. Before I got involved, VersaMe had signed onto an expensive Google AdWords plan where Google would assign you a personal rep who’d not only set you up with their best practices for production on every front, but also do Google-y things in the background to maximize your kill count. First, I dove into the secret sauce they gave us on video production. What you see here follows EVERY one of Google’s recommendations to the letter.

They say if you don’t have anything to say, sing it. Well, if you have too much to say, sing it and add pyrotechnics, a chorus line, and maybe a donkey. That was the idea behind these spots. The Starling’s whole existence involved explaining some pretty dry early-education research. And, as I note in the strategy part, you couldn’t really prove any kind of results, because, well, the results would be intangible. Oh, it worked, or would work, based on decades of research, but not like a vacuum that could pick up a bowling ball. You couldn’t immediately see X affect Y. And remember, even though we were spending a lot of money on placement, production had to be done on a shoestring.

This is the fun part for me. No time and no money – so what can I bring to this party to help solve the problem, be on brand, and come in on no budget? It’s such a challenge! Hahaha. Oh, also, the spots had to really make a big impact. 

FINAL: One of my illustrations in the Brain Hacking spot. They go by so fast! See more of my illustrations for these spots here.

WORK: My professional storyboard style and OH! Hey, look! It’s me at VersaMe actually drawing the brain hacked baby! Yes, that tie does go with that shirt.

Luckily, I’s cans draws. In various styles, too. So I put together a kinetic, breathless campaign for the Starling that a talented After Effects editor I knew (Peter Baker with sound assistance from his partner Anthony Proctor) could hopefully put together quick. I boarded out the spots, then illustrated or scrounged up all the elements and laid them out in a super-detailed, layered Photoshop Tiff. The “animation” I illustrated frame by frame, and I included them as layers for Peter, too. My copywriting wife had the perfect voice for this, so we recorded her VO in a sound studio in Charlotte (Hi, Ground Crew!). Peter would get the VO and Tiff file and apply his After Effects wizardry. Then we’d make some adjustments, and send it off to Anthony for SFX additions and final mixing. In the end, each of these spots cost about $1,250 to produce.

Between following Google’s best practices, the frenetic pacing and the fun visuals, the view-through rates for this campaign were off the charts. After so many years in the business I’ve become more than a little cynical regarding praise from people who you’re paying tens of thousands to. Right? But our Google rep was legit blown away to the point where I didn’t think she thought these would do well at all! Of course we didn’t stop there. We started running these spots on every other platform, too. We also tried some tamer material too, but later on. It was more traditional tech/baby stuff that was soft and fuzzy and important sounding. The analytics on that weren’t as amazeballs in comparison to the fun stuff, which kind of surprised me. Oh, why don’t I also show you the stuff we did with social influencer and legit funny guy, DudeDad. He made some of his own videos, and you can see how someone else explains the Starling to parents.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Make the Complicated Simple.

Design > Brochures

Every client is different, and every marketing problem is different. But sometimes (although rarely) you don’t have to reinvent the wheel all over again. If something works, heck, keep it! I already had a brochure-making system that worked and I already made a bookshure (I really need a better name) for VersaMe’s Starling Partners program. It was a cool idea that worked great, so we kept all the physical formatting (same size, dimensions, heavy cover and nice page weight) for the next project. Besides, if you have to do multiple brochures for a company, you might as well build a library that looks uniform and tight when they’re all together.

FINAL: The name and logo I created for VersaMe’s platform came directly from how it worked. Also, Spoke’s not a bad name for a company that’s all about verbal communication, right?

The Starling was VersaMe’s early-education wearable. You can read all the deets here, but in short, The Starling was based on a super advanced platform that VersaMe created called Spoke ( I named it that based on the eventual infographics). The Starling logged data about an infant’s early-developmental progress and sent it to Spoke. Spoke would process that data and send it (along with recommended action items) to the parent and any parent-approved care givers. For consumers, the data usually just went to parents, grandparents or a nanny. But if parents wanted, they might also include their pediatrician. If an infant is a little short on direct verbal communication, their parents and the pediatrician would recognize that and, at the regular visit, they could figure out ways to improve that outcome together. Think of it like an educational thermometer that parents could share with their pediatrician.

Anyway, that’s it’s simplest version of how VersaMe’s Spoke platform works. Spoke was developed to sustain the maximum amount of early development team building. Unlike so many of today’s algorithms, this one wasn’t built to exploit user data to deliver relevant advertising. Spoke was built to deliver relevant, actionable educational opportunities to a team of caregivers in the development network the parents created, in order to meet their child’s specific needs. Cool, right? And that’s what this brochure had to explain to an audience that wouldn’t want to get into the coding weeds about exactly how that was even possible. Investors, partners, etc. just wanted to know the basics of how Spoke worked and what its potential was. 

And I made up everything you just read. Sort of. Mostly. Look, although Spoke’s functionality was clear for the founders and developers (so they could build it), no one ever really defined it in a way regular people would understand. Even though I’d made a name for myself making complex stuff simple, I was lucky to have the capable help of VersaMe’s Product Manager, Susan Tahir. Together we defined, named, branded, iconically mapped, invented creative uses for, and I can safely say, improved the complicated process that made this Spoke so valuable.

So for the brochure (and this didn’t have to be a brochook): same company; different audience; different product; slightly different look. This had to convey all the existing brand attributes, but send a different message – we were confident, smart, sophisticated, and had created a (truly) amazing platform.

INFOGRAPHICS: I really enjoyed designing the graphics showing how Spoke worked for different users. It’s was crazy complicated and I got it boiled down to an easy-to-follow, step by step guide.

I kept with my favorite system of solving one problem per spread, but this was so targeted, that I didn’t need to go overboard on the eye-candy and repetition. Here’s how this one broke down:

Cover: Sexy and High-Tech.

Spread 1: What we’re doing is a big fucking deal

Spread 2: Look, here’s why it’s amazing for everyone...

Spread 3: ...and here’s how it changes everything

Spread 4: Here’s exactly how it could be used to do this...

Spread 5: ...and this

Spread 6: You’re already behind in this emerging, proven technology

And we’re out. If you’ve seen the other VersaMe stuffs I did (the Partner Brochure, or the videos, or even the packaging) this a similar example of taking existing materials and jerking the message into new territory without having to recreate everything.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Market a Product No One’s Seen Before That Solves a Problem No One Knows About.

Strategy > Branding

OMG the world needs this early-development technology. I’m dead serious. But even though this revolutionary wearable looks simple, how it works is actually pretty complicated. And did I mention the results aren’t immediate? (Just wait, I’ll get there). But one thing is absolutely clear – the result of using this technology means your child will get a substantial educational head-start over his or her peers. That head-start begins in infancy, and keeps distancing your child ahead of others for life.

PRODUCT: This is the Starling. So tiny, so cute, so powerful.

FINAL: One of the first things I made at Versame – a 6”x9” two-sided handout for parents touting the Starling’s benefits.

The great advantage of doing what I do at this point in my career is being able to choose the projects I work on, and the people I work with. I really liked the people at VersaMe before I even knew about the product. Chris and Jon, two of the company’s founders, contacted Kelly and I out of the blue. They had left Silicon Valley like we did, and now lived just a couple of towns down the I77, in Huntersville. They explained that they were fans of our parenting board book, Safe Baby Handling Tips. In fact, the bit about Playing with Baby was one of the early slides in their investor pitch for a startup they were launching with a third partner, Nicki “The Money” Boyd (the nickname I gave her). Nicki controlled the finances and managed the development team back in Redwood City, while the rest of the team worked out here in NC.

BEFORE AND AFTER: The original packaging on the left didn’t communicate the product or it’s value. My redesign on the right led with the value proposition and steadily unfolded the whole story in easy-to-digest snippets.

Kelly and I met Jon and Chris for coffee and they explained what they were making. They had a passion for early education and learning (it ran in their family). They knew that the education system was not only broken, but historically broken and getting worse. From studying years of scientific research they concluded the only way to nip the problem was, literally, in the bud. They sought to jump-start the learning process as early (and as correctly) as possible. This was the problem they worked on at Stanford and they already went through a successful round of funding. The hardware and development infrastructure was built, and they were about to launch on Kickstarter. The three had a lot of the planning done (and it was good) but they asked us on to help them out with tightening up the branding and early messaging. That’s when we learned all about the Starling.

The Starling was a beautifully designed, high-tech wearable for children 0-4 years old. When you clipped it to your child’s clothes, the Starling would count every word spoken to your baby throughout the day. It did this in virtual real-time, without recording, and sent the data to your phone with beautiful graphics telling you how many words your child heard that hour, that day, that month, that year. It let you set word count goals to challenge you every day. Anticipating how hard it can be to carry on a one-sided conversation (Chris and Jon were also parents), the app gave you fun daily prompts to help you keep talking to your baby at every occasion - in the car, during your afternoon run with the jog stroller, at bedtime, etc. Feeling competitive? There was even a leader board that you could use to see how much quality engagement you gave your child compared to other Starling parents. Amazing, right?

I bet I can guess what you’re thinking right now. “Why?”

Why all this technology to talk to a newborn? It’s not like I’m NOT going to say anything to my baby, so why all the extreme fuss? You’re not wrong to think that. But here’s a big fact – the more words you say to a child from 0-4 years old, the more likely they are to reach their full potential. And the “to” is super important. You can’t just talk “at” your child, like over your shoulder while you’re doing the dishes. No, doing that doesn’t work the same way. Think reading, with the child on your lap. Or telling a story while making lots of eye contact. There you go, that’s the right stuff. It’s about engagement. Feed a child’s brain enough words like this and soon you’ll find yourself with an early talker. Then while other babies are still learning to talk, yours is busy learning to read. Get it? And while other people’s kids are learning to read picture books, yours is reading chapter books. This goes on for their whole life!

FINAL: For professionals who already understood the importance of verbal communication, I created this “bookshure” to introduce them to a powerful new tool – the Starling.

But understand this – doing all this talking with engagement doesn’t mean every child can grow up to be Einstein. It’s all about maximizing your child’s genetic (not economic) potential. If it’s only within a child’s genetic capacity to be average smart, they’ll get there faster and stay there for life. This can make a huge difference to a child’s quality of life, considering where they could end up without the benefit of this help. And I can’t stress this enough – I’m talking about  ALL children. Not just poor children. Or special needs children. ALL CHILDREN. (If you’re a parent reading this, please note your feelings right now. I’ll get to them later). 

Finally, dear reader, here lies the rub. Look how long it took me to explain the Starling to you and the problem it solves. My expertise in working with clients in San Francisco was taking really complicated concepts and making them dead simple for a consumer (best example here). I worked on the Starling for two years and what you read above is the shortest I think I’ve ever gotten the complete pitch. So as a marketer, here are your options:

1. Explain how The Starling works, and then explain why it solves an early-education problem you didn’t know existed

2. Explain how you need to talk to your baby as much as possible from 0-4 years old, and then explain what the Starling is and how it could help you do that

You can’t do one (explain the Starling) without the other (how early development works). 

The three founders had become early-childhood experts, for real. And their research scientist, librarian, pediatrician, speech language pathologist, mentors and partners were all in touch on the regular, keeping tabs on the Starling’s progress and correcting messaging when necessary so that everything stayed absolutely factual. We needed to look like experts, but not scientists. The messaging had to be intriguing, inviting and fun – but not misleading or fantastical.

FINAL: A one-sheet for interested schools to get a little more detail on how the Starling can help their mission.

The Kickstarter launch was a success in that it did what we needed – raise as much awareness as cash. (As I said, VersaMe was already funded by an investment group). Our mailing list blossomed. Sales started coming in. But that’s when the real work began.

I’ve worked on big tech in San Francisco. A lot. Sun Microsystems, Borland, Sybase, Veritas, Dell, Adobe, blah blah blah. That’s not including all the dot coms. I was there for the first big boom, and the first big bust, working freelance for almost every agency in the City. Startups are different. It’s EXACTLY like in the show “Silicon Valley” (the first season, anyway). It’s crazy and confusing and exciting and hilarious and scary and frustrating and fun as hell. You’ll NEVER pack more work into a shorter span of time than when you work for a startup. Because even though we were focused on who we were, and which audience we were talking to, we were saying it all - in every conceivable way. And we had practically no budget to do it with. Even though there was $10M in seed money, you gotta watch like a hawk how you spend it (right, Nicki?). Because it’s only going to last so long. So we were begging, borrowing, and stealing while testing the messaging multiple time a day, every day, everywhere. And once we saw progress in any direction we’d run after it full speed.

There’s no way I can ever tell you everything we did. It was so much! But one of the first things  was to use everything that inspired the creation of the Starling to build a giant online resource center for new parents, filled with published studies that prove the benefits of direct, verbal communication. Then we published articles and how-to’s on our blog everyday giving tips on how (and why) to maximize your baby-talking skills. Our newsletters were going out weekly to new parents, filled with communication tips and info on developmental milestones. I found out that the founders had invested in a HUGE AdWords ad buy that included a lot of YouTube videos. I had two weeks to deliver finished product and there was nothing in the works. We set up tents in shopping malls and Nicki and I did the ABC show in Vegas (to have a meeting with Barnes & Noble, who said no, then inexplicably sent us a huge order two weeks later). We got into a hipster tech showroom in Silicon Valley. I totally redesigned the packaging. I made an online school for new parents. We developed a custom Reading App that you could use with the Starling. We hired influencers on social media. We created a mobile app game based on the Starling. We brought on a respected social media agency to give it a go. We. Tried. Everything.

WORK: And lots of it! This is probably about 2% of the things we did to position, explain, and sell the Starling. Clockwise from top left: Dumbing it down, we created multitudes of info-loaded landing online campaigns and landing pages, we created and ran an online school, we sent the founders to present at indie book stores, parenting groups, schools and libraries. I made a Starling Honors program for little students, we made an educational mobile game, we tried multitudes of simple online campaigns and landing pages, we gave away free information (so much free information), we changed the whole website, we started marketing the platform the Starling was built on, and we developed ridiculously complex email newsletters and campaigns.

Nothing worked. At least, not on the level we wanted it to. It was just too much for people to wrap their heads around. Most thought it was a great product...for terrible parents. And of course, THEY were all excellent parents. There’s actually a study that exists which found 90% of parents thought they were parenting in the 5th percentile of awesome parents. Which, of course, is mathematically impossible. So we pivoted to focus on Starling Partners – schools (public and private), libraries, speech pathologists, pediatrician clinics, non-profit organizations. Frankly, any group that already understood the importance of early learning. Most ended up being too outright dysfunctional, painfully slow to act, or too strapped for funds to make a difference to our bottom line. Our biggest success came from developing a program for libraries to loan Starlings out to patrons. We got ourselves into a lot of libraries but not enough, and not fast enough. In the end we had to stop. There was nothing left to try. This amazing technology is now in the hands of the scientific researchers who inspired it. They’re using it to further understand how we can make our children better, smarter, happier people. I’m 100,000% sure that someday you’ll see this product (or something like it) make a huge consumer splash in the future. Sometimes a good idea doesn’t make it simply because of something that no one can foresee or control  – timing.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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