Just Keep On Movin’

I am often amused when someone asks our opinion on the “licensability” of their work, and then insists on arguing about the answer because it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. Not that we are the infallible oracles by any stretch, but I do think we have learned a couple of things over the years, and hey - you asked... It turns unfortunate, however, when the same person comes back again a year later, with the exact same art, asking “how about now?” Or seeing the posts, month after month, from someone hoping to break into licensing by offering the same (apparently rejected) style of designs. Sorry, but the answer from the market is still the same. Time does not force the square peg into the round hole.

I get it that people feel they are following their dream, pursuing their passion or just looking for another path, but that doesn’t mean they are always on the right one. The path will always have zigs and zags, forks and dead ends. That is just how it works. Of course that is not news to anyone, but even people who acknowledge that fact get caught up in thinking that art is exempt, that somehow the investment of time, personality and passion means the world will just need to accept it as they created it.

That’s fine for work hanging in the galleries, but in our biz… not so much.

One of the most difficult aspects of product development is learning that, when something is not going to work, it’s time to put it aside and move on. It’s a skill that all successful creatives have mastered. Every journalist has reams of rejected articles, musicians have books of bad songs, Broadway shows close quickly, movies tank, painters have stacks of half finished canvases – it happens everywhere someone creates. Economics has a concept called “sunk costs”, meaning that the investment – time, money, passion, take your pick - has been made and cannot be recovered. It’s not human nature to just walk away from those, but sometimes that’s the best way forward. Learning to accept that not everything works is a big step toward making things that do.

“Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent success.” 

 - Napoleon Hill

Escape From Chicago

Whew – just made it out of Chicago before the real slipping and sliding started. We had spent the last 3 days there attending the International Home and Housewares Show and flew out as the blizzard moved in behind us. Hugged a palm tree when we got back.

The IHHS is a mammoth once a year event held in the beautiful McCormick Place on Lake Michigan. If you have never been there, it is the largest convention center in North America with 2.6 million square feet of exhibit hall in four buildings, and this show fills three of them (North, South and Lakeside). Soaring 50 foot ceilings, sweeping curves, fountains, even decent food options – it is by far my favorite show venue. And the IHHS with over 2100 exhibitors is a pretty impressive show too.

This is a shot of one quarter of the South building from an elevated restaurant in the middle – just a fraction of the total show.

 

The Housewares Show is a little different from most others in that it’s a bit more formal – we have always said it’s a “suit” show. Literally. The place is awash with men in dark suits because that’s still largely the nature of the home and housewares business. Casual is the exception. The exhibitors cover an amazingly wide variety of categories, from the expected tabletop, cookware and kitchen accessories to appliances, cleaning products, storage, food vendors, pet products and much more. This show is also THE place to see new innovative products and beautiful industrial design. It’s everywhere, but I’m tellin’ ya nothing energizes your creativity like a walk through the High Design section, the ergonomic OXO displays, or especially the Inventor’s Corner. The show is a hotbed of smart innovation and it’s contagious – we find ourselves stopping constantly to discuss and make notes about “what if” ideas as we walk the aisles. A host of the “As Seen On TV” type companies are hawking their latest crop of “miracle” products – some of which are actually quite clever and useful. There is even an area called the “Hall of Global Innovation” displaying the IHA Innovation Award projects, some winning design student projects, a Going Green area and the Pantone Color Watch exhibit with 9 large panels of color and inspiration matched up to actual products found on the show floor.

So much great information, so little brainspace...

 Lots of candy colors in evidence, many shades of pink and green, a lot of yellow

Licensing is a big part of the home and housewares business. Most of the time the licensor/licensee matchup makes sense, but once in a while you just shake your head and wonder “who thought THAT was a good idea?”  Art, product design, celebrity, entertainment and brands all find their way into and onto products. Most artists in licensing tend to limit their thinking to the “onto” part of that equation, but it can be a lot bigger than that. There is unlimited licensing opportunity for someone who can not just make something LOOK better but can make it WORK better. A new shape, a better widget, a new twist on an old concept… artists are uniquely well suited to master these creative tasks, and you can teach and train yourself to get better at it. Work on your product development skills, beef up your creative chops, become good at seeing what others don’t and you can write your own ticket in the business.

Get A Leg To Stand On

For some time toy designers have been lamenting the dumbing down of toy design so they can be sold in the mass market stores. Mass market sellers aim for the widest customer base possible, and unfortunately they tend to do it by aiming low. No long explanations, complicated instructions or complex outcomes are allowed for their toys, and celebrity and entertainment licenses reign supreme. But while toys for big box are fading into little more than licensed product lacking any real play quality, the smart companies are realizing they are part of a gigantic “Play Industry” which includes much more than toys – video, apps, interactive electronics, 2D and 3D craft, even social. They are not looking for just 24 or 48 inches of shelf space anymore, because what used to be of primary importance has been replaced by the need to find different revenue models in a disrupted business. They now are in a fierce competition to capture some of the kid’s attention, and need to construct and operate from a bigger “platform”.

Similar changes have come to the advertising game. People have long hated wasting their precious time on commercials, so digital disruption has hit hard as DVRs allow people to skip the ads, and to make matters worse the new entertainment and social mediums don’t mesh with traditional advertising methods. Ad agencies are faced with the prospect (necessity actually) of blowing up their traditional business methods and building a new multi-faceted platform from which they can engage people in multiple ways to successfully get their attention. Scary work.

Both of these are prime examples of what our new “connection economy” is doing to industries closely related to ours, and it shouldn’t be much of a leap for you to see how it affects you as an artist. I think the concept of working from a broader “platform” can be a useful one. Look at your business as a big picture, all of your creative and marketing efforts in total – how do they relate and support each other, and more importantly how do they relate and support building connections with your customers? Try putting together a structure chart. Identify what supports your platform and consider eliminating anything that doesn’t help build it. Leave some room for experimentation, float some balloons and pay attention to what works and why, because it changes.

I believe you need to think and act like a start-up business regardless of how long you have been in the industry. History is no longer a predictor of the future and the new mantra is “he who gets there first wins”. Stay in front of it.  

It's A Good Bonkers

"The day before something is a breakthrough, it's a crazy idea. If it wasn't, it would just be an incremental improvement."

- Peter Diamandis, founder of the X-Prize Foundation

And the day AFTER the breakthrough it becomes known as a Brilliant Idea. Let's not forget that the execution of that idea may have taken weeks, months or years, but that is the nature of crazy ideas - they require focus and persistence to make them work. Art licensing is a business where the great majority of the participants (on both sides) tend to approach it from safe ground, that incremental improvement viewpoint, basically offering up slightly different designs or products that will work in already-proven formats. Worse yet is what can be called a fractional viewpoint where the intent is to peel off a fraction of the existing market to call their own by offering "me too" artwork or products that match what is already out there.

Don't get me wrong - these approaches can get you some work, and I suppose one could argue that incremental improvement is the path people may need to take - both to learn the business and to GET some business. Licensees are notorious for playing it safe. Of course there's not much buzz about the artist who paints a few more cute butterflies or bunnies, or creates yet another graphic pattern, because generally those approaches just don't leave much of a lasting impression.

But the artist with all those crazy ideas... the one enthusiastically spinning off a steady stream of concepts, some good, some off the mark, and occasionally a great one…

Everybody remembers who that is.