Matchboxes: The Original POAP
--
Author: Von Frontin (Title Inspiration: @mcdy)
Like many people, one of the first things that attracted Snitch and I to the NFT space was the art. Never before had we seen such a concentration of truly amazing and innovative art in one space. We were early fans of NFT OG’s such as Gxng Yxng (@GxngYxngNFT) and Chris Gee (@ChrisGeeNFT) and still love following their work to this day.
Our first problem: what was our art going to be?
We had already built the story of Mortimer and decided on a Roaring 20’s theme, but what art embodied that era that could be translated to an NFT? That’s when Mobee.eth started unfolding the story of how business cards, matchbooks and matchboxes were used as tickets to entry to speakeasies in the 1920s. It almost made too much sense. We loved it.
Next, if we were going to launch an NFT community, we wanted it…..we needed it to be based on some truly amazing art that people would be proud to collect just for the sake for the art (even though utility and community will obviously come with it). One problem: neither of us are artists. Sure I’ve tried my hand at Procreate, but I know my limitations here. So the next thing we had to figure out was finding an artist that met our vision.
The search was long….and sometimes painful. Between the two of us, we probably vetted over 50 artists from all walks of life and style. Each of them were amazing in their own right, but none seemed to match the feel we were wanting to create for this specific project.
Then we stumbled upon an artist named Jason Carne (www.jasoncarne.com), a lettering artist and graphic designer. Specifically it was this work of this below that immediately let us know we had found our artist:
We knew that if Jason could make physical packaging as amazing and detailed as this, then creating digital matchbox would be right up his alley. Additionally, bringing in a lettering artist to the NFT space was an intriguing idea by itself. This space is increasing crowded with projects that look remarkably similar. We needed to stand out and we needed the art to stand on its own.
Jason immediately took to the project and knew what to do. Within days of bringing him on board, he had solved for what he describes as the “design problem” of creating generative art that still keeps its aesthetic value across any combination.
From there, Jason started sketching out how to move from the design view to the final art.
As you can see, we knew we had the right person for the job. Jason’s attention to detail and ability to bring out the art deco 1920’s theme was incredible….but nothing could have prepared us for when Jason gave us our first digitized proof:
Many joyous and excited four letter words were screamed between Snitch and I that day. We simply could not believe the level of quality Jason was able to create from those initial designs and sketches. To this day, I still get excited when I look at the work he created for us.
So we had our art, and I don’t hyperbolize when I say we think it’s absolutely amazing. Now we needed to finish building out the team and starting building what we hope will be an NFT community to launch other NFT communities.
