Spoofing the Advertising Industry from the Inside
Huge art directors Jae Who and John Spinnenweber bill their new project as a “shotgun blast to society.”
A woman with immaculately polished fingernails devouring a sushi roll wrapped in hundred-dollar bills. A frying pan arrayed with all the staples of a good breakfast: a couple runny eggs, a few pieces of sizzling bacon, and some plump, glistening diamond earrings. A shapely nude posterior carrying an iPhone in a denim pocket that has been sewn directly onto the skin. And my favorite: a resplendently bearded construction worker with a dildo stuck to the front of his hard hat.
These are just some of the vivid images on display in GPA 6.9, the anticonsumerist side brand of Huge art directors Jae Who and John Spinnenweber. Rendered in the desaturated ROYGBIV and high-contrast photographic style of vintage magazine advertisements, GPA 6.9 is all about skewering the pop-culture experience, using the same design language that has been used to sell products for decades.
“We think of GPA 6.9 like a shotgun blast to society,” says Spinnenweber, who, alongside Who at Huge, has worked for clients such as Wells Fargo, Aveda, Il Makiage, and Zelle. “What we’re trying to do is open up a dialogue about how full of oxymorons contemporary life can be.”
GPA 6.9 started off as an illustrated series of Instagram memes, all of which look like designs you might see at a Worst T-Shirt party: a green alien with the words “I Believe In Humans” circling his head, for example, or a rendition of the peach emoji blasting out a gaseous fart. But soon, the project morphed into something more as Who and Spinnenweber began to integrate into the project their shared fascination with vintage fashion photography.
“We started incorporating that style of photography, because it was so fake and unattainable that it seemed perfect for Instagram, which is all so overly edited and artificial,” Who says. “It just feels like there’s this real parallel between the way people portray themselves on social media and the imagery of the male-controlled advertising world of the ’60s, where everyone is grinning through pained smiles and look like on the inside they are falling apart.”
According to Who, GPA 6.9 is also a a deviation from the demands of more conventional client-focused design work. “Huge is awesome about supporting us in our side hustles, but there’s a little bit to this where it’s like your parents tell you not to do something, so then you have no choice but to do it,” Who says. “For me and John, GPA 6.9 is all about releasing some of the tension that gets built up working in mainstream marketing by exploring our inner rebellion.” Prints of their work can be bought on the GPA 6.9 site.
Spinnenweber agrees. “Not many clients would let us explore the territory GPA 6.9 is in,” he says. “In advertising, you try to sell an idea and really spell it out clearly, but with GPA 6.9, we’re leaving the interpretation up to our audience.”
Magenta is a publication of Huge.
