How to Survive Being Hated Internationally.

Yes. It happened to me. I made international news. They talked about it on the Today Show. National radio talk shows hounded me for interviews. A woman wrote me (actually a lot of women wrote, but this stood out) that she hoped I’d have my arms and legs ripped off. What caused such a firestorm? A funny onesie. I’d never gotten bad press before, much less ferociously attacked. Hilariously, it had always been way the opposite. At the time, no one really knew what to do when something as extreme as this happened to them. There was no guidebook. As far as I know, there still isn’t. So I’m going to walk you through what we did when the world decided to hate us. If it ever happens to you, at least you’ll have some idea of what you can do.

Welp, this is it. This is the funny onesie that brought an international troll army to our door.

Let’s back up for a sec. In 2000, a small company called Wrybaby started the funny onesie category. Seriously, back then, the novelty onesie DIDN’T EXIST. I can say this with confidence, because my wife and I started Wrybaby when our son was born. Kelly and I agreed that, through humor, we’d reflect the new parent experience in a way that was 100% true, and 100% funny instead of kind of terrifying. What we made was irreverent, but not vile. It was unconventional, but served our mission. We made hipster baby gifts before our community labeled them as such.

We started with a few designs and suddenly, in 2001, it all went crazy. Wrybaby products were featured in Time Magazine, Newsweek, USA Today…it was bananas. And it stayed bananas for years. Hell, Neil Patrick Harris and his husband introduced their new twins to the world in People Magazine wearing our onesies. Then he showed his babies wearing our super hero onesies on Live with Regis and Kelly. NPH likes us (and we love him right back)! Hahaha.

So’s you have an idea of the kind of stuff wrybaby makes, here are some of 2015’s best-selling funny onesies. Heck, a few are STILL best-sellers. We also had some adorable plush and kid’s backpacks in addition to the world’s first Super Hero onesies.

Not to brag, but this is just a tiny sampling of the kind of press we were used to getting over the last 15 years. People who found our stuff, liked our stuff. It was that simple. That InStyle Magazine page? That’s our Wheel of Responsibility in Christina Aguilera’s kitchen. I can’t even remember how we found out about that.

In 2013, we introduced a new baby bodysuit with a graphic that said “Love Me for My Legrolls”. It sold pretty well. Because what’s the best thing about babies? Smell, cuteness, and all that plumpy goodness. At Wrybaby, we change up our funny onesie offerings every year, and in 2015 we introduced a another poke at the healthy baby’s cherubic condition – but with an ironic twist. It simply read, “I Hate My Thighs”. And, sorry if I’m treating you like an idiot, but here’s the definition of irony – Happening in the opposite way to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement because of this. My fucking company’s name is literally in the definition of irony! So it was a complete surprise when, for the first time ever, our Facebook page started getting a lot of negative comments. Then a lot of threatening comments. Everyone in our office was freaking out so I tracked down the source. It was a shitpost on Ms. Magazine’s website, authored by their senior editor, no less.

I found that Ms. had a fun little hate segment on their blog called, “We Spleen”. Get it? Don’t feel bad if you didn’t. It’s their clever flip on “I Heart”. Anyway, it’s a page where they trash things they disagree with and then encourage their readers to pile on and troll the hell out of whoever was responsible. Titled Baby Fat-Shaming, they admit right off the bat that “Yes, we know it’s supposed to be funny.” but then postulates that our funny onesie would become a “harbinger of things to come later in a child’s life”. Hilariously, the author spends some time not understanding irony by explaining that “babies’ delightfully chunky baby thighs are some of the most lovable things in the world!” Mm-hm and duh. In the end she asks her readers if she’s “taking it too seriously.” Which was interesting. Because folks who think something is bullshit (and there were many in the article’s comments) don’t waste their time telling all their friends all about it. Because, well, it’s bullshit. And, to be honest, it probably would have quietly blown over in a week if we didn’t do what we did next.

On the left, the Ms. Magazine article. Upper right, the Senior Editor’s Facebook post promoting it to her troll army. Bottom right, our response and her request to divert our donation to her magazine rather than the non-profit created by Ms. Magazine.

Put yourself in our shoes. What would you have done? We weren’t going to take the onesie down. Even if we took it off our website, we were selling to boutiques around the world and “I Hate My Thighs” was a favorite among them and customers who’d already purchased it. So the design would still exist in the world. Besides, we thought the author’s assessment, and her minions’ opinions, were not only wrong, but designed to intentionally stir up trouble. So that ruled out an apology, too. Fuck that.

That leaves defending yourself. But how, when you don’t really feel like you have to? The author herself actually gave us the way forward when she opened it up to her readers. We’d do the same thing. But not the way they’d ever expect us to. Here’s a step-by-step guide to how we fought back.

Step 1. Take a Deep Breath and Be Realistic.

C’mon. It’s the tiniest of companies selling the nichiest of products to an even nichier audience against an historic publication with a fervent audience. It was stupid to think we’d ever “win” anything. And what was winning anyway? That’s the first question you need to ask yourself. What’s in it for YOU? What would make it worth it? Can you strengthen customer loyalty? Can you make money from this? Can you get a lot of exposure? Free press? We decided on all of the above and made a plan to push the conversation in that direction.

Step 2. Turn the Tables.

Near the end of the article, the author took a small break from hating on our “I Hate My Thighs” onesie to muse about how much better it would have been if it said, “I Love My Thighs”.  If you remember, we had done that two years earlier with “Love Me for My Leg Rolls”, which is on brand, funny. So we brought it out of retirement. As much as she had conjured up an affront to women from our irony, we manufactured a challenge out of her criticism. In about three hours we implemented a popularity contest between “I Hate My Thighs” and “Love Me for My Leg Rolls” on wrybaby.com. After all, Ms. had suggested an alternative. We’d let consumers use their dollars to decide which graphic should remain, and we would donate all proceeds to the Ms. Foundation for Women. We even had the balls to call the whole thing “The Ms. Magazine Challenge”. Hahaha. And to be honest, this is why it took off internationally. We made a contest out of controversy and the press LOVED IT.

Step 3. Protect Your Core.

 At this time, Wrybaby was about 70% wholesale with boutiques all over the world. So we called every store that stocked “I Hate My Thighs” to explain what happened and what we were going to do. We told them it would probably get messy and if they wanted to avoid the drama, they could exchange their “I Hate My Thighs” onesies and we’d pay for the shipping. I don’t know what we were expecting, but it sure wasn’t 100% support. Heck, more than a few stores even put them in their front windows instead of taking them off the floor. I love our boutiques. 

Step 4. Punch Your Bully in the Throat When They Think They’ve Won.

Once the challenge was all set up on wrybaby.com and the stores were notified, we hit back. Hard. Oh, not on our socials where we’d hopefully garner some support. Like I said before, people who support you, will. And plenty did. But not as vociferously and viscerally as the people piling on the hate. Which is totally understandable, because who’s got time to throw a ton of energy into fighting a ton of crazy people for a small funny onesie company you happen to like? Our strategy was to catch the hate early and attack it at the source. So we hit back in the Ms. Magazine article’s comments. That way, we’d have a permanent record of OUR narrative to fall back on if need be. You’ll see what I mean in Step 6. I still think our response was appropriately shitty at the top and hilariously enthusiastic at the end when we flipped the script. Believe me, it was so hard to take the emotion out and leave all the spite in.

This was our giant home page graphic announcing our Ms. Magazine challenge. A lot of articles, like this quote from Redbook, claimed that this was all some kind of PR stunt that we orchestrated. Which says a lot to validate our response. Once it was on the Today Show, publications everywhere started holding their own polls to see which onesie people preferred. My favorite was on PopSugar’s website where you checked a box to vote and there was only one reply under it that said, “Where’s the box marked, “Who Cares?” My sentiment exactly.

Step 5. Stay in the Fight.

This kind of thing is both emotionally and physically exhausting. But it’s also oddly exhilarating. We kept our eyes on the article comments as well as on the response to our Ms. Magazine Challenge, while our hands were busy responding to social media comments. We were replying to EVERYTHING and EVERYONE directing them to our onesie challenge on wrybaby.com. We were posting to our followers to enlist their help. We launched carefully crafted emails to our giant list. Eventually, as the story was picked up everywhere, we had to cover all that ground, too. We threw everything at the challenge.

Step 6. Avoid Traps While Capitalizing on Mistakes.

Things quickly escalated to the point where we started getting calls from radio stations across the country. One producer wanted us to go on-air with a child psychologist. Um. No. Hahaha. Pick your battles, friends. Speaking of which, we apparently irked Ms.’ Senior Editor because she sought the last word at the end of day one with a snarky comment to her article requesting we send the challenge donations to Ms. Magazine itself instead a non-profit. How bizarre is that? Why would the Senior Editor of Ms. Magazine publicly divert donations away from the non-profit foundation they originally created? So we called her out on it in the comments. Hahahaha! She later replied at length, clearly exasperated at finding herself on the ropes in the fight she herself started.

In regards to Step 6, I’m sure the author never thought she’d be defending herself to her own shitpost comments section. Hahaha

Step 7. Record Everything and Promote Your Vindication.

Eventually we stopped getting calls from local radio shows and started showing up on the Today Show, the Chicago Tribune, E online, MSN Lifestyle, UK’s Daily Mail, Comedy Central, Redbook, Cosmo… so many places! We promoted the exposure that was in our favor while directing everything to the onesie challenge. Hell, we were only an office of three people, so it was all we could do to manage this shitshow AND run our business. Despite the chaos, I recorded, snapshotted, and saved as much as I could. I felt like, when it was all said and done, it’d be helpful to have some proof that what happened, actually happened (I get to that at the end).

Step 8. Follow Through.

Look, enough is enough and we had a business to run. A week after all this started we announced the results of the Ms. Magazine challenge. Again, in the original article’s comment section. We recapped our narrative of the incident before declaring “Love Me For My Leg Rolls” the winner with 71% of the sales. And, true to our word, we retired not the offending onesie, but the ironic onesie – “I Hate My Thighs”. (Truth be told, we actually sold out of them). Then we followed through with our insistence on donating to the Ms. Foundation and reminded the senior editor and her readers what their mission was before thanking them all for the opportunity to engage with them. See? That’s how to be shitty and classy at the same time.

Our last word on the subject was somehow both positive and full of bile. The senior editor later responded with a seething checklist of “facts” about how we misrepresented her shitty article but by that time no one was really paying attention anymore.

So what happened in the end? Well, it didn’t wrap up as tidily as our onesie challenge. Even when the story eventually died out, wrybaby kept getting hassled by crazy people on Facebook for about a year and a half. Way longer than we thought. And then, some misguided social justice warrior was triggered by our Super Snapsuits, of all things. Two onesies with capes. One read “I’m Super” on the front, the other read, “Super Cute”. He posted a photo of our Super Snapsuits on display in the NYU Bookstore and falsely claimed that the blue one was marked for “boys” while the other was marked for “girls”. And then he said something like “isn’t it a tragedy that girls have to be just “Super Cute”? First of all, we don’t mark gender on anything. And secondly, doesn’t he know that Super Girl wears blue and red? Ugh. Whatever. By this time, we were honestly too tired to fight it. Besides, it was a single jerk, not an actual publication. We couldn’t forge a monetary or PR reason to fight, so we let it go and endured crazy people’s death threats for another 6 months. It was actually more sad and irritating than disruptive.

Today you can still find dusty old archival posts about our Ms. Magazine experience from publications all over the world. But what’s most interesting is how the original article was preserved at the source. It now boldly declares victory at the top – “UPDATE: Wry Baby has taken its “I Hate My Thighs” snapsuit off its website in response to the uproar caused by the following Ms. Blog post!” All the comments are wiped clean, including those from the folks who supported us and our good fight back. There’s a link now at the end of the article directing you to buy feminist onesies in their own Ms. store. Which is why you need to record this stuff as it’s happening. You may want to use it someday.

And what happened to Wrybaby? Believe it or not, that whole Ms. Magazine shitshow actually didn’t do THAT much in sales despite the crazy exposure. Which is something to consider if you think (or your client thinks) the road to riches could be paved in hate mail. It isn’t. Would I do it again? Hell yes. But in the long run, it’s always best to run your business for the folks who get it and appreciate it. Those good people are your people. They’ll support you longer and recommend you more wholeheartedly than any flighty trend hunter or thrill seeker ever will. So keep those guys happy! That’s what we’re still doing at Wrybaby. And between you and me, I heard they might bring back “I Hate My Thighs” soon. ;-)

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 All In.

Advertising > Social Media

I’m not a big social media guy. I get it. And I understand that a lot of people are very all about it. I just don’t have time for it, personally. I think it’s because when I do something, I like to go all in. And the danger of that is that it’ll take a lot of my time and thinking. It’s too maintenance heavy. For example, the time I brought Mysterio to Instagram. Mysterio is a creation of mine – an infant mentalist who predicts your baby’s future on a t-shirt. Mysterio had been a best-seller for Wrybaby for years, and Kelly and I were about to take our boy on a trip to Cambodia and Vietnam. We were visiting some amazing places that would probably be pretty mundane in Mysterio’s world. So I decided to have some fun and not just make Mysterio real, but also make him his own Instagram account. He was going to have an ADVENTURE!

What I didn’t want to do was to be Mysterio on my trip. I’d have to get into the tux and turban whenever Mysterio wanted to post a selfie and that sounded...inconvenient. Also I couldn’t be very spontaneous. So instead, I decided to never show Mysterio. Or, at least his face. I got some pretty silk fabric and had Kelly make me a jacket sleeve with a white shirt sleeve inside it. Just one sleeve with elastic up at the top and a cuff at the bottom. Then I bought some fancy white formal gloves and voila – an instant, travelable Mysterio costume! I kept the sleeve and gloves in my bag so that whenever I had an idea, I could slip them on, take my photo, and post away. 

We invented the story before we left – Mysterio was coming to visit Wrybaby and then head out on a dangerous, exotic buying trip. What would happen along the way, Kelly and I just made up as we traveled. Mysterio ended up having all kinds of problems on his journey. He was lost, drugged, kidnapped, oh I’ll just let you follow his story. The photos at the beginning show Mysterio shaking hands with folks at Wrybaby. The Mysterio hand shaking mine is actually Kelly’s. Hahaha. From the outset I think the boutiques who stocked Mysterio thought our Instagram feed was going to be some lame sales thing (they didn’t know we were traveling to Asia), so imaging their surprise when he started posting so many exotic locales! Like I said before, when I decide to do something, I’m all in. I’m glad it was a limited series!

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 Give the People What They Want.

Illustration > Mysterio Predicts

I’m not Mysterio. Well, sometimes I had to be at trade shows. But I originally drew Mysterio with no thought of him being me. Some people also go to Zoltar, the mechanical mystic from the movie, Big. Nope. It’s funny that our collective image of exotic mentalists are all kinda the same guy. I’ve got that big, beautiful Taschen book of Magic and when you look through the history of magician-types, those guys are all doing the same look! For the branding work I did for Continuum (a communications company), I talk about avoiding cliches. But, honestly, sometimes you have to give the people what they expect if you want them to understand something. Oh, sorry, if you don’t know, Mysterio is a mystic who predicts your baby’s future on a little t-shirt. See? Totally appropriate and no way around it. I toyed with using a top hat instead of a turban, but he looked too Fred Astaire. Like he’d take your baby tap dancing.

FINAL: Mysterio…such a jerk. But being serious makes him believable. I didn’t really have a lot of reason to draw him outside his logo, but once in a while I needed him to have a body. You may say “lazy” but I thought it was funny to keep his logo head exactly the same in any scenario. He’s so INTENSE! hahahah.

SKETCHES: In 2006 I started trying to figure out what Mysterio was going to look like. I distinctly remembering being bored in a trade show booth in San Francisco, so that’s why the three stacked sketches are so shitty. But that last one really seemed to be the one, no? I remember I didn’t do that many before heading in that direction. The strip of heads up top was me working my way toward finish (far right). I’d never done shading like Mysterio seemed to demand (the etching style). It’s hard! Anyhoo, once I got to a finish I did there little extras for the packaging. In the beginning I softened Mysterio by saying he also sewed all the shirts himself.

EXTRAS: Once I got comfortable drawing in the Mysterio style, I started doing little extras here and there for customers. Here’s an early version of Mysterio’s origin story that I did as a free comic download. To the right are the Spirit Animals from Mysterio’s free downloadable Cootie Catcher.

SKETCHES: Some early rough pencil sketches for Mysterio’s children’s book, A Future Just for You!

FINAL: Illustrated spreads from Mysterio’s picture book, A Future Just for You.

As the Joker once said, “Why so serious?” After all, it’s for a BABY. Exactly. I wanted Mysterio to look intense to add some gravitas to the thing. Look, imagine if he was some happy winking cartoon dude, it’d ruin the whole thing. The way he’s STARING, part of you has to wonder...will this prediction really come true? Also, this was made to be a baby shower gift. So it’s all theater when it’s opened in front of a party. Looks serious, ends up being ridiculous. Get it?

Still I had ideas on how to soften him up a bit. I had a whole backstory planned for him, like how he sewed the shirts himself and somehow imprinted the shirts with a blast from his eyes, but I never played it up. I once made a comic book about his origin story. It was an extra credit free download for a while at wrybaby.com. And, of course, I illustrated a children’s picture book about Mysterio’s powers. That really softened him up. I even brought him to life on Instagram for a while! Hahaha. In the end, I think I prefer him looking like his tagline description: Uncanny! Almost Scary!

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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