i wanted the box and manual to have something a little different. so i came up with a little "story" that explained where the headphones came from. it need to be something different, that differentiated it form the mass of other headphones on the market which normally have a very "gadget" aura about them.
in the end, we didn't use the story. instead we marketed the headphones as fashionable and stylish, emphasising their unique design.
personal involment:
• concept
• copywriting
[main copy for the box]
The moment you wake up it stops.
This is the biggest problem for the Sgnafuzi.
You see, the Sgnafuzi live in a parallel universe to ours, and they are completely obsessed with collection semi-translucent frogs. And like all good things, the frogs have a quirk, a peculiarity: they can only sustain themselves with Musetrank, a powerful and slightly explosive elixir. To produce this concoction, the Sgnafuzi have to distill our dreams. When humans dream, their brain goes into a “higher” state of vibration. All the electro-chemical signals of the brain harmonize, perfectly in sync with the underling vibrations that give all matter in the universe substance. And thus the brains waves are in perfect harmony with not only our universe, but all universes.
The Sgnafuzi’s unceasing and increasing obsession with the semi-translucent frogs means that there are not enough people, and thus not enough dreaming to satisfy the hunger of the frogs. But a chance discovery might provided the possibility of a solution. One day, they were trying to figure out what could induce the vibrations that create the extremely clear, creative and intuitive essence of dreams. They found the single other thing that creates these reverberations in the human mind: music.
[copy for the booklet]
The Story of how the Sgnafuzi got us to create these headphones.
"It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception." - Albert Einstein, in speaking about his theory of Relativity.
The Sgnafuzi lived in a parallel universe to ours. Well, all universes are parallel to all others, so there is nothing strange about that. What is strange is the connection they had managed to establish between our universe and their own. This connection was based on the Law of Possibility and Probability. But more on that latter on. First we need to clear up WHY they had created this connection.
They were inhabiting a planet called Philalethes when a curious creature was discovered in an unexplored region of the planet. They region was dedicated exclusively to the flora that produced the air the Sgnafuzi breathed. No one was permitted to travel or have any sort of direct contact with the enormous rain forest that gave life to the entire planet. Once a year a small team of scientist was allowed to enter the region, just to make sure everything was going ok in the ecosystem. One year, one of the scientists inadvertently carried away a small creature from the forest. The creature was a semi-translucent frog. A very cute semi-translucent frog. It had inadvertently jumped into the scientists bag. It was only when the team got back to their laboratory that they discovered the stowaway. The initial reaction was, after surprise, fear. It was severely prohibited to bring any fauna or flora out of the rain forest. But as they all sat around discussing how to deal with the unexpected and unwanted event, one of the scientists noticed something very strange about the frog. It did not seem to breath, at all. Inspection of the animal proved that it lacked lungs and apparently was even missing a stomach (don't worry, there was not dissecting or anything else that could harm the amphibian, they just looked through it, since it was semi-translucent). Instead it had strange and incomprehensible organs. They quickly realized it did not drink water or eat anything of substance. The curiosity of their scientific minds got the best of them, and an official team was created to study the frog. Big and vociferous debates ensued on whether to pursue this study. Scientific thought battled political and social thought. All the Sgnafuzi remembered that the rainforest had almost been lost in the past due to their tampering with the delicate balance of the forest, and the complete extinction of their race was very narrowly avoided. None the less, the frog was so extraordinary, and cute, that an exception to the unbreakable rule was permitted.
A scientific team ventured back into the forest, searching for the habitat of the frogs. Days and weeks went by with no success, until one day they ventured into a deep cave. Well, it was the jackpot. Hundreds and millions of the semi-translucent frogs were living in perfect serenity inside the cave. But the biggest discovery the team made was the structure of the caves. The caves were made completely out of quartz crystal. Just like on Earth, the Sgnafuzi had tapped the powers of quartz. Virtually all communication was done using the quartz crystal. Satellites, computers, radio, time... everything is run on quartz. And just like on Earth, quartz was also (conveniently) one of the most abundant materials on the planet Philalethes. But the strange and particular thing about the semi-translucent frog’s cave was the vibrations of the crystal. The entire cavern was reverberating in perfect harmony, a harmony that seemed to extend throughout the entire universe. In fact, the entire existence of matter was soon discovered as the the product of these vibrations, in every single universe, all on the same harmonic. And the frogs seemed to be living off these vibrations. It was incredible.
Anyway, years and years passed, and the study of the frogs reached the point where the Sgnafuzi understood how it all worked. A part from the incredible discovery that an organism could survive solely on vibrations, a much more profound discovery was made. You see, after figuring out HOW the frogs captured and assimilated the vibrations, in good ol’ scientific manner, the next question was: how did this arise? The evolution of an organism of this type was completely incomprehensible. No other animals on the planet were capable of this feat. So how did the frogs come about?
In a way that is impossible to explain in the human language, the Sgnafuzi discovered the Law of Possibility and Probability. In essence it’s quite simple. It stipulates that the more something is possible, the more it is probable for it to happen. For example, it’s very possible for a brick to crash through your window, but a lot less possible for a pink dragon to crash through your window. Using this law, a sort of machinery was created that tweaked the probability of possible things happening. The Sgnafuzi could induce improbable, but possible, things to happen. This is what had brought about the existence of the semi-translucent frog; pure possibility. It had just happened. Just like that. Out of no where, they had appeared.
Naturally, the frogs were seen as the greatest thing to possibly happen to the planet. The Sgnafuzi had essentially managed to rediscover magic. I say rediscover because, like all sentient and conscious creatures in the universes, they began with the knowledge of magic, but slowly lost this knowledge to logic, and ultimately: technology. It’s perfectly natural, and all organism that evolve to a certain point go through this. Inevitably, the magic is lost, but never completely forgotten. But at a certain point, the limits of logic are reached, and the only way to evolve even more is to rediscover that which is lost. And thus, the frogs where hailed as heros.
The Sgnafuzi quickly became obsessed with the semi-translucent amphibians. Every Sgnafuzo had a “pet” frog, with many people having dozens, or even hundreds of them. The feat of providing nourishment for all the critters came from the very discovery they had induced. The Sgnafuzi managed to create a machine that captured the vibrations needed by the frogs, distill these vibrations into an elixir they called Musetrank, and then feed this directly to the frogs. Initially, the machine was syphoning the vibrations from the quartz crystals present on Philalethes. But the quantity of distilled stuff quickly became insufficient for the growing needs of the collectors. A bigger and better source was needed. They began by creating a scanning machine. This scanned their entire universe for the vibrations. These too where all harvested. But the insatiable desire for more frogs meant that not event the vibrations of their entire universe were sufficient. Thus, the machine was upgraded to begin scanning parallel universes. Initially, the search was quite standard. They would find an abundant source, harvest, and then need more.
One day though, the scanning machine hit upon a source so abundant, so clear and so powerful that it blew the machine into 4.593.849.038.434.675 pieces. A new and more robust scanner was quickly produced and set to look at the original destination of so pure a source of the vibrations: Earth.
What was perplexing for the Sgnafuzi was the actual source of the vibrations. Everywhere else they had looked, the vibrations had come from quartz crystals. Sure, Earth had a lot of quartz, it was the second most abundant mineral. But there was not enough to produce such a vast quantity of perfectly harmonic vibrations. Further inspection produced an astonishing revelation. It was not the crystals that were producing the vibrations, but one of the organisms inhabiting the planet. Humans. When the humans slept, their brains went into harmony with the crystals in the planets crust. The intensity of the vibrations created by their brains were in the order of magnitudes compared to the crystals. It was the goldmine of harmonic vibration. It seemed that the Sgnafuzi were set for life.
Well, everything that is good is also dangerous. This is an inherent truth that the Sgnafuzi soon realized. The abundant source from planet Earth meant that more and more frogs could be fed. Which meant that each Sgnafuzo could have as many frogs as he wished. And like all obsessive collecting, it soon went out of control. And very soon, even the seeming infinite source from human dreams were insufficient. More had to be found. The solution came, once more, from Earth. One of the Sgnafuzi scientists speculated that if the humans were capable of creating the harmonic vibrations when dreaming, then surly they should be able to do it also when awake. What could be so special about dreams? It soon became clear that intuition and creativity were at the base pure thought. The humans seemed only to enter this state of pure thought when in Morpheus’ realm. A few exceptions soon became apparent. Musicians, painters and creative type people in general, when in the state of creating their art would fall into sort of trance. And when in this state, lo-and-behold, their brains entered into harmony with the essential vibrations of the universe. But there weren’t enough artists on the planet to satisfy the growing demand of Musetrank. The first idea was to change the human DNA, so that everyone was an artist. This proposal was quickly abandoned because of the inevitable breakup of organized civilization that would follow. But what about when people listened to music?
It was discovered that if a human properly LISTENED to music, and I mean actual listening, not hearing, they would quickly enter into the state of harmony. The solution was thus, simple: the humans needed to devise audio equipment that completely enclosed the listener. The equipment needed to be clear and authentic. Good headphones were what was evidently required.
Exploiting the Law of Possibility and Probability, the Sgnafuzi quickly devised a plan.
One day, a bunch of human of designers, engineers, marketing animals, and a few other random people all had a flash. In the very exact same instant, everyone knew exactly what and how they need to produce. It was the classic moment of eureka.
What you have enclosed in this box is the culmination of all the work to get headphones that will transport you into the realm of music. The realm of the creative. The essence of everything.
The moment you wake up it stops.
This is the biggest problem for the Sgnafuzi.
You see, the Sgnafuzi live in a parallel universe to ours, and they are completely obsessed with collection semi-translucent frogs. And like all good things, the frogs have a quirk, a peculiarity: they can only sustain themselves with Musetrank, a powerful and slightly explosive elixir. To produce this concoction, the Sgnafuzi have to distill our dreams. When humans dream, their brain goes into a “higher” state of vibration. All the electro-chemical signals of the brain harmonize, perfectly in sync with the underling vibrations that give all matter in the universe substance. And thus the brains waves are in perfect harmony with not only our universe, but all universes.
The Sgnafuzi’s unceasing and increasing obsession with the semi-translucent frogs means that there are not enough people, and thus not enough dreaming to satisfy the hunger of the frogs. But a chance discovery might provided the possibility of a solution. One day, they were trying to figure out what could induce the vibrations that create the extremely clear, creative and intuitive essence of dreams. They found the single other thing that creates these reverberations in the human mind: music.
[copy for the booklet]
The Story of how the Sgnafuzi got us to create these headphones.
"It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception." - Albert Einstein, in speaking about his theory of Relativity.
The Sgnafuzi lived in a parallel universe to ours. Well, all universes are parallel to all others, so there is nothing strange about that. What is strange is the connection they had managed to establish between our universe and their own. This connection was based on the Law of Possibility and Probability. But more on that latter on. First we need to clear up WHY they had created this connection.
They were inhabiting a planet called Philalethes when a curious creature was discovered in an unexplored region of the planet. They region was dedicated exclusively to the flora that produced the air the Sgnafuzi breathed. No one was permitted to travel or have any sort of direct contact with the enormous rain forest that gave life to the entire planet. Once a year a small team of scientist was allowed to enter the region, just to make sure everything was going ok in the ecosystem. One year, one of the scientists inadvertently carried away a small creature from the forest. The creature was a semi-translucent frog. A very cute semi-translucent frog. It had inadvertently jumped into the scientists bag. It was only when the team got back to their laboratory that they discovered the stowaway. The initial reaction was, after surprise, fear. It was severely prohibited to bring any fauna or flora out of the rain forest. But as they all sat around discussing how to deal with the unexpected and unwanted event, one of the scientists noticed something very strange about the frog. It did not seem to breath, at all. Inspection of the animal proved that it lacked lungs and apparently was even missing a stomach (don't worry, there was not dissecting or anything else that could harm the amphibian, they just looked through it, since it was semi-translucent). Instead it had strange and incomprehensible organs. They quickly realized it did not drink water or eat anything of substance. The curiosity of their scientific minds got the best of them, and an official team was created to study the frog. Big and vociferous debates ensued on whether to pursue this study. Scientific thought battled political and social thought. All the Sgnafuzi remembered that the rainforest had almost been lost in the past due to their tampering with the delicate balance of the forest, and the complete extinction of their race was very narrowly avoided. None the less, the frog was so extraordinary, and cute, that an exception to the unbreakable rule was permitted.
A scientific team ventured back into the forest, searching for the habitat of the frogs. Days and weeks went by with no success, until one day they ventured into a deep cave. Well, it was the jackpot. Hundreds and millions of the semi-translucent frogs were living in perfect serenity inside the cave. But the biggest discovery the team made was the structure of the caves. The caves were made completely out of quartz crystal. Just like on Earth, the Sgnafuzi had tapped the powers of quartz. Virtually all communication was done using the quartz crystal. Satellites, computers, radio, time... everything is run on quartz. And just like on Earth, quartz was also (conveniently) one of the most abundant materials on the planet Philalethes. But the strange and particular thing about the semi-translucent frog’s cave was the vibrations of the crystal. The entire cavern was reverberating in perfect harmony, a harmony that seemed to extend throughout the entire universe. In fact, the entire existence of matter was soon discovered as the the product of these vibrations, in every single universe, all on the same harmonic. And the frogs seemed to be living off these vibrations. It was incredible.
Anyway, years and years passed, and the study of the frogs reached the point where the Sgnafuzi understood how it all worked. A part from the incredible discovery that an organism could survive solely on vibrations, a much more profound discovery was made. You see, after figuring out HOW the frogs captured and assimilated the vibrations, in good ol’ scientific manner, the next question was: how did this arise? The evolution of an organism of this type was completely incomprehensible. No other animals on the planet were capable of this feat. So how did the frogs come about?
In a way that is impossible to explain in the human language, the Sgnafuzi discovered the Law of Possibility and Probability. In essence it’s quite simple. It stipulates that the more something is possible, the more it is probable for it to happen. For example, it’s very possible for a brick to crash through your window, but a lot less possible for a pink dragon to crash through your window. Using this law, a sort of machinery was created that tweaked the probability of possible things happening. The Sgnafuzi could induce improbable, but possible, things to happen. This is what had brought about the existence of the semi-translucent frog; pure possibility. It had just happened. Just like that. Out of no where, they had appeared.
Naturally, the frogs were seen as the greatest thing to possibly happen to the planet. The Sgnafuzi had essentially managed to rediscover magic. I say rediscover because, like all sentient and conscious creatures in the universes, they began with the knowledge of magic, but slowly lost this knowledge to logic, and ultimately: technology. It’s perfectly natural, and all organism that evolve to a certain point go through this. Inevitably, the magic is lost, but never completely forgotten. But at a certain point, the limits of logic are reached, and the only way to evolve even more is to rediscover that which is lost. And thus, the frogs where hailed as heros.
The Sgnafuzi quickly became obsessed with the semi-translucent amphibians. Every Sgnafuzo had a “pet” frog, with many people having dozens, or even hundreds of them. The feat of providing nourishment for all the critters came from the very discovery they had induced. The Sgnafuzi managed to create a machine that captured the vibrations needed by the frogs, distill these vibrations into an elixir they called Musetrank, and then feed this directly to the frogs. Initially, the machine was syphoning the vibrations from the quartz crystals present on Philalethes. But the quantity of distilled stuff quickly became insufficient for the growing needs of the collectors. A bigger and better source was needed. They began by creating a scanning machine. This scanned their entire universe for the vibrations. These too where all harvested. But the insatiable desire for more frogs meant that not event the vibrations of their entire universe were sufficient. Thus, the machine was upgraded to begin scanning parallel universes. Initially, the search was quite standard. They would find an abundant source, harvest, and then need more.
One day though, the scanning machine hit upon a source so abundant, so clear and so powerful that it blew the machine into 4.593.849.038.434.675 pieces. A new and more robust scanner was quickly produced and set to look at the original destination of so pure a source of the vibrations: Earth.
What was perplexing for the Sgnafuzi was the actual source of the vibrations. Everywhere else they had looked, the vibrations had come from quartz crystals. Sure, Earth had a lot of quartz, it was the second most abundant mineral. But there was not enough to produce such a vast quantity of perfectly harmonic vibrations. Further inspection produced an astonishing revelation. It was not the crystals that were producing the vibrations, but one of the organisms inhabiting the planet. Humans. When the humans slept, their brains went into harmony with the crystals in the planets crust. The intensity of the vibrations created by their brains were in the order of magnitudes compared to the crystals. It was the goldmine of harmonic vibration. It seemed that the Sgnafuzi were set for life.
Well, everything that is good is also dangerous. This is an inherent truth that the Sgnafuzi soon realized. The abundant source from planet Earth meant that more and more frogs could be fed. Which meant that each Sgnafuzo could have as many frogs as he wished. And like all obsessive collecting, it soon went out of control. And very soon, even the seeming infinite source from human dreams were insufficient. More had to be found. The solution came, once more, from Earth. One of the Sgnafuzi scientists speculated that if the humans were capable of creating the harmonic vibrations when dreaming, then surly they should be able to do it also when awake. What could be so special about dreams? It soon became clear that intuition and creativity were at the base pure thought. The humans seemed only to enter this state of pure thought when in Morpheus’ realm. A few exceptions soon became apparent. Musicians, painters and creative type people in general, when in the state of creating their art would fall into sort of trance. And when in this state, lo-and-behold, their brains entered into harmony with the essential vibrations of the universe. But there weren’t enough artists on the planet to satisfy the growing demand of Musetrank. The first idea was to change the human DNA, so that everyone was an artist. This proposal was quickly abandoned because of the inevitable breakup of organized civilization that would follow. But what about when people listened to music?
It was discovered that if a human properly LISTENED to music, and I mean actual listening, not hearing, they would quickly enter into the state of harmony. The solution was thus, simple: the humans needed to devise audio equipment that completely enclosed the listener. The equipment needed to be clear and authentic. Good headphones were what was evidently required.
Exploiting the Law of Possibility and Probability, the Sgnafuzi quickly devised a plan.
One day, a bunch of human of designers, engineers, marketing animals, and a few other random people all had a flash. In the very exact same instant, everyone knew exactly what and how they need to produce. It was the classic moment of eureka.
What you have enclosed in this box is the culmination of all the work to get headphones that will transport you into the realm of music. The realm of the creative. The essence of everything.
