Monkey Love for Our Own ChetArt

An Etsy purchase transforms into an "Automagical" experience.
by Chet Philips of ChetArt

Back in late December I was greeted by a super sized order of 20 prints from my Etsy shop - all monkey-related images. I noticed the buyer was Ben Chestnut, co-founder of email marketing company, MailChimp. I was proud to learn that he planned to pass them out as Christmas presents to his company's employees. Monkey like!


A few weeks passed and it became apparent that the collection of ChetArt Etsy prints lounging in cubicles and on walls around the offices of MailChimp were starting to work some subtle monkey magic.

In January, MailChimp's video impresario extraordinaire, Joshua Rosenbaum, contacted me with details of a project they thought would be just right for me. And how! The job was for a long mural banner to be used for MailChimp's presence at the annual South by Southwest conference in Austin. It would serve as a large announcement to the world of a variety of "Automagic" features the company offers. Read my blog post about the mural.


Their art direction was very straightforward: Invent a whimsical environment with a Rube Goldberg sprinkling of silly devices, add in some monkeys, Steampunk flavor to taste and… a unicorn. The resulting composition was greeted with happy Chimp screams from the entire crew. Read Ben Chestnut's blog post about the mural.

The folks at MailChimp were a total pleasure to work with and the job was satisfying fun. A job, I have to say, would not have happened without Etsy bringing Ben and me together in the first place!