Dumpling Dynasty

Welcome glorious, beautiful and esteemed web visitor, may your stay at the home of Wu and Wu be full of double happiness and splendid astonishment.

This is the greeting you see first on the Dumpling Dynasty website – a remarkable voyage into one woman's self-proclaimed dream to be the Queen of Asian Kitsch. And boy, does she succeed!

I have to mention that (once again) Rachel Elizabeth Baron and Alison Bond brought this line of products to my attention, having purchased the astounding travel bag you see above. Made of cheesy but durable industrial plastic, the New Jersey roadtrippers purchased this marvel at Pearl River in NYC's Chinatown.

Note the darling, wide-eyed Asian sailor girl on the bag. The equally wide-eyed fawn. The mysterious lantern with its smiling face (which appears as a striding radish on the reverse side of the tote). These are continuing characters in the stock company created by “super-talented Brit illustrator Fiona Hewitt” and her husband, Andy Tainton. Certainly, the products are made in China but created, illustrated and joyously promoted from East Sussex, UK.

Dumpling Dynasty's “petite delights” are a world all their own – a retro range that's as quirky and charming (and oddly functional) as anything I've seen in a year. It's very sophisticated, possibly the kind of visual humor that takes a sense of humor born and bred in the land of the Monty Pythons.

The illustrations are flawless, one of those excellent adventures in cultural referencing that can be so wryly evocative...like the Chairman Meow work of Kevin McCormick.

Go the the Dumpling Dynasty product page, check out the Bunny Kit as a worthy example: This is a brilliant, brilliant kit with everything you need in it (including the stuffing) to make your own bunny. Plus, to prove we are totally in tune with the needs of the world's greatest creative minds, we have included a beautiful 'the adventures of my bunny' notepad and pencil set.

I suppose marketing a product line like this is classic word-of-mouth, a leading-edge-cool thing that attentive kitsch shoppers like Baron and Bond pick up on without conscious thought. Review the products and purchase them for yourself. Become the first one on your block to visit the “Wu and Wu Wonderland!”

Chairman Meow! Combines Quirky Attraction, Chinese Propaganda Artform.

Last September, I was struck by an image that I stumbled over by accident: Chairman Meow, “Great Leader.” Among other visualizations, it’s the invention of designer Kevin McCormick. Since I’m a fan of Soviet-era art and design it is quirkily attractive. Not to mention, the Chairman has an immense range of friends, from Whippets of Mass Destruction (dogs) to Lolruses (marine mammals)…all available on ObeythePureBreed.com.

This is McCormick’s site on Cafepress.com and I thought it would give me a chance to explore a booming etail operation.

This is all down to the “T-shirt economy,” so called by Clive Thompson of Wired because creative people can turn their ideas into businesses by developing clothing and other decorated apparel. On Cafepress, according to reported figures, all this was worth more than $100 million in 2007, with an average 20% in profit.

I think McCormick’s designs deliver imagination and parody at the same time. He himself says, “I started combining propaganda art with heroic portraits of dogs. The designs also allowed me to make social and political commentary.”

His emails filled in some blanks for me, first about his visuals: The designs do resonate with buyers. People are really passionate about their pets, and they think that their breed is the best. My style isn’t original, but I think the concept is. It flips the idea of obedience in relation to pets, and I think seeing a Chihuahua as a dictator definitely is seen as surprising and amusing.
How is Cafepress working out? As far as marketing, a lot of that is trial and error. I have to sometimes be creative, as selling t-shirts through Cafepress is convenient and great, but not high profit margins. To make advertising worthwhile, I really have to make sure I’m reaching the right niches.
Is Cafepress a viable sales mechanism? One thing that I’ve done lately is a sticker campaign, where I distribute free Chairman Meow stickers from the site for people to put in public. People have responded well, and I've sent them all over the world. Not sure if that will translate to sales, but it’s fun knowing that the stickers are on almost every continent! (And new 2009 stickers are now available, BTW.)

I’ve highlighted other examples of this sort of design, like the art of Laura Smith, here. There’s just something about Chairman Meow that tickles me big-time – perhaps because it feels right. At the same time, McCormick is following, even expanding on, the etailer’s creed (according to Thompson): Let your content roam freely online, so it generates as large an audience as possible.
Content wants to be free. But remember that it is fans that drive sales so don’t lock your fans out. This is hard to do for business-to-business marketers unless you get real lucky.

Something else going on right now: Soviet-era art continues to have an impact on the street...none more recently that the Shepard Fairey-designed Obama Inauguration Poster. Designer McCormick says he admires street artist Fairey. But I’ll take McCormick’s lighthearted approach over heavy propaganda every time. Support world domination. Obey the kitty!

Thanks to Kevin McCormick and Obeythepurebreed.com for the excellent material.