SWINGERATORS

Here's what we know - 

Office workers sit too much. Startups are intense. Movement increases brain function.  Brain function is to startups as oxygen is to breathing. Sitting stagnates. As a dear friend of mine says, “sitting is the new smoking…just plain bad for you”.

As kids, swings were the draw. On swings we flew. We were daring. Testing the limits of the chain and structure, at peak height we soared into the air landing with a thud in the sand. We were free. Flying. The world was ours.

As teens, swings took on new purpose, as a place to gather. Sway and talk. Connect with our bffs. Gush about our latest crush. Dreaming about what was to come. 

We designed the Swingerators for Ivy Softworks with that lens to the past, knowing that freedom of thought and creativity come with motion. 

The Swingerators are idea generators.  When work is intense, blocks occur, and stress overwhelms, the Swingerators free your mind. Creativity through motion. The pure joy of flying through indoor space, on top of the world, nature seen through the storybook windows. 

The Swingerators are built from salvaged bleacher board from Shoreline High School.  Determined to use every bit of material, many of the furnishings throughout Ivy Softworks have accents of these bleacher boards. The boards tell stories through ABC (already been chewed) gum stuck to their bottoms, visions of football, track, baseball, crowds gathering in community, victory, defeat.  A collective. 

Salvaged bleacher boards in the raw from local Seattle high school.

And boy can you fly! 

Ivy Softworks front entry.  Pioneer Square, Seattle.

Trusting Spirit.

It begins with a scribble. A doodle.  An idea surfaces on a sticky note, sketchbook, and in this case, a cocktail napkin. For the Geekwire Gala, a celebration of the years top ten Seattle Startups,  Koru commissioned us to design a 6x6 ft cocktail napkin reflecting their pioneering vision for the company.

The process is organic. It begins with a hit. A flash. It can appear on the side of the bus, a billboard, the colors on a rusted out dumpster or graffitied on shipping containers and brick walls. When they hit, I pay attention. Nothing is accidental. Everything is on purpose. I see. I listen. I sketch. Spirit drives the vehicle from there. And when I hit roadblocks, I trust that the spinout will take form in a whole new, unexpected spectacular way. 

The inspiration for Koru’s Cocktail Napkin came from Roy Lichtenstein's Masterpiece series, the wailing woman, reflected the unemployed millennial and Brad, the employer.  The characters' expressions of dashed hopes and disappointment are buoyed by sticky notes illustrating Koru's solution of leveling the playing field for young job seekers and bringing great employees to employers. From there the canvas came to life.

Art is about the process. The journey. The finish result is never finished. Visions spin around in crazed sleep, in my dreams, and in my waking hours. I circle back and forth erasing, sketching, evolving. The deadline calls it closed. I take a breath. Hand it over to Spirit. Walk away. 

~The wolf