Instagram got hella boring to me. It's all paid post merchants out-influencing each other (or not influencing enough) and has been for quite some time. It's fucking dry. Bone dry. I barely even check it any more because I'm not trying to learn a new challenge. Life is challenging enough.
Last summer, the genius homie Griffin O'Rourke and I were hiding out in the Berkshires, turning a 12 room estate into our office. We set up a projector screen for soccer matches and had our edibles shipped from Colorado and made weed seltzer runs to see the homies at Farnsworth Fine Cannabis.
After becoming highly frustrated with what such an incredible visual platform had to offer, and seeing it used in such a boring ass, stale and copycat manner, we wanted to raise the bar on what it could be.
Personally, I felt that by using the grid as a living art gallery that evolves over time, we'd at least offer something different than the mundane, call to action driven, run of the mill dog shit it became.
Here are some sections of the illest ones. Most have never been seen before in this manner, all together, telling a story about the culture every time.
In order to launch a new brand, you've gotta craft a community, a tribe, and a world view. This was the mission, and to rally the troops around the ethos and idea that "Knowledge was always the sacred currency." It became an obsessive labor of love to properly lay the ground work for what FIVE's game changing tech allowed for possibilities. It was a "if you never had a tribe- you have one now." exercise.
By modernizing a direct play out of the OG Apple playbook, it actually became one giant nod to one of free thinking culture's heroes, Steve Jobs.
It was never about "selling a product" at this stage - it was about rallying a mindset around "Never follow rules, break rules & follow dreams." That one sentence allowed us to call out our target user, herald our mutual heroes of thought leadership who broke rules fearlessly on the path to crafting a better tomorrow, and created community for what was to come.
Well before they even knew what the product was, the "purchase" was done, as it became emotionally connective.
www.five.me for more.
ECOM GRID 1: (Insert shit about the failings of CTA driven ecom here)
This was the place of birth for the "Gram Galleries." It wasn't about selling a product the traditional way, it was about narrative art, storytelling via visuals that sold the soul of the kicks (not a dad joke), shirts, truckers and jewelry.
We told the stories behind the product, pulling the audience into our world. In turn, it made the world of difference, and everyone from Hypebeast, to Nike to Revolve and Farfetch copied this punchy sky cloud aesthetic for summer 21. The receipts were saved.
It went from being an obscure aesthetic we attempted to the go to look for the season in streetwear culture.
FIOR: "Let Me Go" Desert Grid
Fior is immensely talented. I wouldn't take on a project unless that box was ticked. After a month of breathing life into who Fior was, is and will be- we met in Manhattan for a long weekend of non stop shoots styled by the incredible duo of Bruce Estevez and my favorite Aussie- Georgina Bellingham.
What came of this was telling the story leading up to the first single release on all international platforms & the music video, directed by the killer visionary Embryo.
With everything, I wanted to tell the story of the record, or the story behind he story if you will. Here it was.
