Last Night a Design Saved My Life

This ish be Thisish

Thisish sampler (streaming audio)
(Purchase here

It's been a while, since I've just blahgged, so here's a quick shot about the au courant isht.

A couple weeks ago, an LP-sized box with a familiar tank logo found its way into my mailbox. Enclosed was, simply, a CD (I know, lots of space to breathe) in a baroquely adorned digi-pack design. I took a moment to consider the matching magenta-yellow camo-style designs on both the box and CD before popping the CD in and reading the press release. Hey, they got me.

The folks at Thisish, at the risk of redundancy by quoting myself, can be described as a "lifestyle company." They deal in fields tied together through entertainment, especially (but not exclusive to) design, apparel, music, and special events. In other words, they're probably like (a lot of) you and I: they "wear many hats"/"multi-task"/do a lot of shit.

I suppose most of my peers are in this situation out of necessity. After all, not-for-profit lives up to its namesake by being a thoroughly unpaid field -- of course, there are always exceptions to the rule -- that encourages many to, uh, explore other job options.

I would hardly call the situation sour grapes, though. Just as the record industry merged into the present day Big Five, product and service companies across the globe are finding collaboration/mergers and cross-marketing to be quite lucrative. Therefore, a broader skill/experience set opens opportunities in the current job market.

So, don't call it grinding for grinding's sake: Thisish has pulled together a cohesive, marketable package. On the macro level, they want to expand into the music market. On the nuts and bolts micro level, they spruced up a comp with unknown producers to get the word out.

Which, I know, belated newsflash: is the industry's new thing. To review:

• Consistent (tank) and current (baroque) design for branding purposes? Check.
• Limited edition bells and whistles (collectible box) to maintain post-shelf-life buzz and create collector's appeal? Check.
• Established artist co-sign and hosting of compilation (Large Professor) to boost credibility? Check.

Looks like Thisish is about to set up shop and drop its next degree.

I'll be back tomorrow with some semi-soft cheese and semi-formed thoughts. Gotta get the most out of Black History Month 2007's waning hours...