Making Connections
I have always been captivated by the culture and community of Craigslist. I am glad to announce a new ongoing project of mine, which takes advantage of the infamous “missed connections” section on the popular classifieds website.
For those of you uninitiated to the splendor that is “Missed Connections,” it is a section of the personal ads that is dedicated to the little connections we make with strangers on the street everyday. Say you see an attractive person everyday on your commute to work, or buy coffee from some hottie at your local cafe, but don’t have the nerve to say something. Missed Connections is a place where you can post these interests, in the hopes that the person you are talking about somehow finds your posting, feels the same way, and gets in contact with you: a romantic shot in the dark, an amorous hail-mary. I have decided to try my best to drastically increase the chances that these people actually get connected with each other by extending the message from a mere online posting in a niche section of Craigslist to a series of small, targeted print campaigns.
This project is appealing to me on a couple levels: a. I have an excuse to put the missed connections feed right into my RSS reader b. I get to create editorial-esque illustrations for each of these postings c. I am forced to explore new parts of Baltimore because of the specific location of some connections and d. I may actually have a chance to really bring people together with design, in an authentic way. There is almost nothing that would make me more happy than if I could play an instrumental role in bringing two lovers together. It’s a long shot, I know, but even if I fail to get a couple hitched, I can hopefully at least put smiles on some people’s faces.
Most of the time, the most effective thing I can do with the flyers I am creating is hang them in the location where the target of the missed connection is most likely to see it. However, when the poster is more specific with their description, I can focus my efforts more intently. With this missed connection, targeted at an employee at a specific Urban Outfitters location, I was able to give my flyers to an employee and ask her to seek out the curly-haired man with a moustache specifically:
I will keep the project updated on this blog, but depending on how it grows, I may investigate other forms of documentation.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
8 Comments
Baltimore
Craigslist
Design
Illustration
Making Connections
News
Posters
Social Design
Oh my gosh this is brilliant. Truly.
Love it.
I happen to live with the curly haired and mustached man. Just thought you you be delighted to know that the man and his misconnection did manage to get together; however it was not a long-lived romance.
Great project.
@Max – It is funny/interesting how many people I have heard from already because of this project. Thanks for the heads up!
@Claudia & Colin – Thanks!
Agreed, brilliant!
i love these!! are you still doing this?
@Nicole – Thanks! I have designed a few more, but I never got around to hanging and documenting them unfortunately :/
Great idea. It’d be interesting if someone located their ‘missed connection’ with the help of your signs and posted a ‘missed connection’ to find who put the signs up.