Gapingvoid3
An example of Hugh MacLeod's work at Gapingvoid here and below.
BY CHABELI HERRERA
When cartoonist Hugh MacLeod arrived in New York City in 1997, he checked into the YMCA with two suitcases, a couple of boxes and a copywriting job at an advertising firm. His only canvases were a handful of blank business cards in his pocket.
His business-card doodles, made during long nights in local bars, sought to capture “the intensity, the fleeting nature, the everlasting song of New York.”
Ten thousand cards later, his doodles have morphed into the colorful messages of inspiration that built Gapingvoid, the Miami office art business that has decorated the walls at Intel, Microsoft, The LAB Miami and the University of Miami. This year, it’s slated to rake in $7 million in revenues.
“It’s a great juxtaposition of using a cartoon and modern art to say all these powerful statements that are very universal,” said Maria Tomaino, UM Toppel Career Center’s associate director of events and marketing who worked to bring Gapingvoid to the center. “It’s like saying a lot without saying too much.”
Some of MacLeod’s art features abstract doodles, intricate scrawls of lines and circles, or his signature caricature monsters. All include a thought-provoking line about business, success, passion, hard work and culture:
“I love what I do because I’m good at what I do because I love what I do.”
“Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?”
“Only talented people fret about mediocrity.”
Today, Gapingvoid art can be found in large and small corporations around the globe. But in 2001, it was just a blog.