Giant Squid Industries | We make the internet all wet and squiggly. » Featured

Who wants a squid shirt?

Reid — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:15:02 +0000

Darcie and I are going to be printing up some new GiantSquid tshirts this weekend. There’s 2 designs, and I’ve got both mens and womens shirts. They’re American Apparel 50 50 shirts, and they run just a touch bigger than the traditional AA tshirt. My awesome squid illustration was done way back when by the infamous Neil Fasen.

I’m gonna give away 5 tshirts to random commenters on this blog post. Since this blog only has 2 readers, if you’re reading this the odds are pretty good you’ll get one. So get in there and leave me some comment lovin.

Ashton Kutcher Ends Hunger in the US by Tweeting

Reid — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:09:49 +0000

So as of late, the Squid has been working on a project for a pretty massive software company out in California. The project itself is pretty top secret, and I’m sure I’d be dead within the hour if I started talking about it specifically – but I can say that I’ve been doing a smidgen of research into viral marketing and celebrity endorsements.

During that research (aka. web browsing on my patio) I stumbled onto this video of Ashton Kutcher launching an awareness campaign, and I was taken aback at the low level of production and the freewheeling nature of his delivery. Basically, Ashton hops on this live broadcasting site – USTREAM – babbles, and twitters until he’s got a thousand people watching him. That’s it – he’s asking people to tweet the broadcast, building a LIVE audience out of nothing. That’s what makes this startling different for me. We’ve been barraged with clever ‘viral’ videos and marketing campaigns for years now, but here is someone building a live attentive audience on the fly without print ads, tv ads, or even unique website.

The video dawdles on until he gets to his point, which I think is probably fine for his audience. Upon building 1000 people watching his broadcast he goes into his pitch, which is obviously scripted but not painfully so. The campaign itself sounds interesting, utilizing user generated content to build a awarness campaign. That seems like the best approach – illicit user generated content, then use experts to craft that content into something coherent and polished. I have no doubt that it will make a great video piece, and the corporate sponsorship will certainly help hungry people. I’m not dogging the effort by the people involved here – even Ashton Kutcher is donating social capital – but we can create marketing campaigns and donate cash until there are piles of organic veggie dogs on every street corner. Until there’s a cohesive plan to battle the root causes of hunger people will still go hungry (Sorry about the soapbox rant).

What are the implications of this kind of effort for us normal folks? How do we translate these new communications venues into practical vehicles to aid and promote our own projects? More on this later, need to get some work done.

Welcome

Reid — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:24:16 +0000

“However fragmented the world, however intense the national rivalries, it is an inexorable fact that we become more interdependent every day.”
~ Jacques Yves Cousteau

It was a long time a coming, but the new site is up and running. It’s been totally rebuilt on Wordpress. I’m really excited for this next step. It’s more indicative of the kind of work that I’m doing these days. The old site was fun, and I dug the underwater floating seaweed business, but it’s time for some change. This new structure will allow me to update new projects with more views and more details. It’s also allowing me to roll my blog and writing into the same environment which is cool.

Do as I say. Not as I do

This was a strong motivation for the switchover. I really believe that the most small businesses need a product that they can access and update easily, that can grow and evolve, and that is supported by an open source community. Why should my small business be any different? I’m definitely not saying that full flash sites can’t be all those things – cutting edge flash is every bit is as flexible as any other web development technique. For me the Wordpress community, and feature rich starting point are too much to pass up. Being able to post content from my iPhone, continually add features, and quickly change visuals to accompany my Aesthetic ADD the choice was pretty simple. So here it is.

Please leave a comment, tell me what you think. If you find something busted – give me a heads up. Still working the kinks out.

Thanks
Reid

byroglyphics

Reid — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:37:43 +0000

Unfortunately not a lot of information on this site, but the art heartbreaking. Rich, warm portraits. I’m buying one of these (as soon as a little cash comes in the door). I’m really curious about how they’re made. They have a real organic feel to them, but the backgrounds look like they might be from photographs. Enjoy, I clicked on every single thumbnail. You should too. byroglyphics

Found via Milky Plastique. New find, nice blog. Seems to have covered a bunch of stuff that we’ve covered at WeAreSharks, but loaded with other goodies too.