cmyplay

For those of you who didn’t catch it on Twitter, I have met with suppliers and I am happy to announce that production of the long-awaited PacMat is ramping up. This week should see the proofing of a set of the coasters to the quality of the prototypes. Following this, Production will start on 50 sets of the power-pill popping goodness.

The cmyplayStore is down for maintenance this week. It should be back up by next week in time to take some pre-order from those of you who are still interested in picking up a set. Check back soon for more developments.

I’ve just completed my 2009 showreel and uploaded it to my Portfolio page. For the music, I made use of a piece of the Munchausen By Proxy track Yes Man.

Desmond & The Tutus is a band that continues to set themselves apart as different. A group of four haling from Pretoria, everything about the band speaks of their peculiar, hip approach. Their latest EP has launched and it succeeds in maintaining their idiosyncratic image. The EP itself comes in an unassuming, black cardboard cover wrapped in a cellophane sleeve.

The oblique, white, serif typeface loudly displays a celebrity inspired naming convention that has become popular over the past few years. Seemingly each of these copies is branded slightly differently, however, upon opening the wrapping, the front image is revealed to be a 12cm x 12cm sticker. Behind this is the actual cover with the title _ & The _“across the top third.

The 4 tracks on the EP are exactly what a fan would expect from the group, littered with Shane Durrant’s distinctive vocals that apologise for pointing out the striking resemblance someone’s girlfriend has to Country musician Willie Nelson. On the visual side of things, the minimalist branding carries across to other below the line items: 10.5cm x 7cm stickers; badges; and online spaces.

Albeit done by other musicians (Harry and the Potters, Molly & the Ringwalds, Atilla and the Honeys), the naming convention of splitting a public figure’s first and last names with the inclusion of & The is something I personally identify with Desmond & The Tutus. Through this campaign, Desmond & The Tutus has effectively laid claim to the convention and undermined all others who use it by opening their identity up to the myriad of other possible band names.

South African public personalities sit alongside other well-known pop-culture figures and include Lance & The Klusners, Zola & The Budds and Barney & The Simons. My personal favourite among all being Steve & The Jobs.

With the design for the PacMat finalised, I’ve started experimenting with the packaging. I think that the simplest solution is going to be the best. Especially since I don’t see it adding any value further than keeping the set complete and protected until a purchase is made.

The logo came about rather easily and it didn’t require a 27-page document to justify it’s relevance. The packaging is as simple as it looks, a folded paper box with a die-cut window revealing the eyes of the pre-eminent, maze-lurking spectres

In the third update to cmyplay in as many weeks, the cmyplayStore is set to go live soon. While this is not strictly an update to this site as such, it is expanding on the cmyplay online footprint.

After struggling along with a locally hosted ecommerce installation, my PHP skills (which are entirely self taught) finally gave way to the pressures of effective branding and convenient management. The Store makes use of the BigCartel framework. I came across this fantastic service through Nicholas Felton’s ecommerce site.

Because I’m using BigCartel’s system, the products will unfortunately be listed in Dollar amounts. Payments will be made through the ever-useful PayPal system, which I feel is an ideal solution for making internet payments and keeping track of one’s different credit card accounts. Unfortunately, as far as I know, transferring money is not yet available for South African members.

As you can tell from the images above, the first product to be launched in the cmyplayStore is the Transparent version of the PacMat drinks coaster. I’m currently working out the kinks with the packaging. I’ll be posting more about that later this week.