To learn more about Bert and John Jacobs and the Life is good company, visitwww.lifeisgood.com.
centric circles and underneath it it said, “Open Your Mind.” So, we sold a few in the street in Cambridge, [Mass.,] and it worked pretty well.We did another that said nothing on it and had a bunch of dancing figures that all had five and six arms and legs, and it was just sort of a wild graphic in wacky colors and itwas kind of a celebration.You know, therewasn’t always that much to it, it was just kind of having fun with art and trying to connect with people. Believe it or not, that’s really what we did for five-and-a-half years.We started in 1989, and then in 1994 we were on a long
“Could we create some symbol or character that represented optimism and hope and what’s right with the world? Is it possible to sell something that doesn’t prey on negativism?”
road trip and we had a conversation about why the six o’clock news is so focused on what’s wrong—and rarely focused on what’s right—with the world. The conversation led to a ques- tion:Couldwe create some symbol or character that represented optimism and hope and what’s right with the world?We talked about how we thought that optimismwas not only a more fun way to live, but it was also empowering or sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. That when people are optimistic versus skeptical or pessimistic, their minds open and they are like more likely to cre- ate a solution. It’s not that bad things don’t happen. It’s not like we are try-
ing to paint this picture that the world is just sugar-coated and everything’s happy-land or something. It’s just that there isn’t an accurate balance given to us. The media inundates with neg- ative information and rarely feeds us positive. Bad information sells because it preys on people’s fears. So, we asked [ourselves if it was] possible to sell something that doesn’t prey on nega- tivismand fear. My brother was always a better artist and he drew the first Jake [the smiling, beret-wearing face that is part of the Life is good logo]. The idea for Jake was this hero whose power is his optimism—he’s like Superman, except instead of being really strong, he’s very optimistic.
What happened next? It was a tradition that when we got home [from our road trips] —we had a little dive apartment in Boston—we’d have all of our friends over.We’d throw a good old-fashioned keg party and we would put all of our new artwork up on the walls and try