PITTSFIELD, MASS. — The customer had every reason to be angry.
She’d purchased a product — a breath spray — that promised an instant Irish accent. The stylized text on the package, next to a smiling bloke in a sweater vest, clearly states it: “Radically changes the way you speak! Works instantly! Fresh on the tongue like the Cliffs of Moher!”
But after a few spritzes, there was no accent.
The staffers at Blue Q were unconcerned about the customer’s e-mail diatribe, however. They were even a bit giggly.
That’s because Blue Q produces all manner of witty nonsense disguised as useful products, some jaw-droppingly politically incorrect or sexually suggestive, others hilariously absurd. They sell temporary tattoos for babies, “I’m savin’ up for more Valium” coin banks, and magnets that attempt to pass off obscene gestures as sign language instruction.
For two decades, the Berkshires company has turned good design and bawdy humor into a multimillion-dollar business. Though the petulant breath-spray customer surely couldn’t have cared less.
“Clearly, there are some people who have too much time on their hands,” says a grinning Mitch Nash, one of the two Pittsfield brothers who started the company, “and not enough of a sense of humor.”
Blue Q makes the kind of products that populate well-curated gift shops and stationery stores. Launched in Boston 20 years ago by Mitch Nash and his brother, Seth, the company soon moved to an old player-piano factory in Pittsfield. Since unveiling their infamous Flat Cat, a feline rendered in cardboard that became a pop culture phenom, the company has expanded into soaps, gum, air fresheners, tote bags, and, yes, the offending breath spray. They’ve gone from selling in one store — Joie de Vivre in Cambridge — to 1,500 stores in the United States, and more overseas. This summer they’ll take their vision of trendy silliness further with an upscale line of home products.
“I think their success is all based around their remarkable sense of humor,” says Linda Given, owner of Joie de Vivre. She was the first to carry Flat Cat, and she still sells Blue Q’s line in her Porter Square shop. “People chew gum, but you don’t really need to spend a $1.50 for eight little pieces of gum. People buy the products because they want to laugh.”
The Nash brothers are the first to admit theirs are not products customers seek out of necessity. In the cavernous second floor of the former factory that houses their office, Mitch Nash says that without the name and packaging, Flat Cat is just a piece of cardboard.
But that’s the secret to how the company uses clever design to its advantage. Few consumers go to the store thinking, “Gee, I really need a change purse that says, ‘I’m not gay, I just really love rainbows,”‘ but some are unable to resist the company’s cheeky approach to product design.
“That’s the genius of what they do,” says Paris-based artist and Blue Q collaborator Dana Wyse. “What they’re selling is cutting-edge design and art, but they’re selling it in the form of breath spray, soap, and lip balm. The product itself is very well-made, but what hooks people in is the design.”
Katie Peterson admits that she wasn’t looking for a tin bank, but in the checkout line of Copley Flair last week, she had one of Blue Q’s “I’m savin’ up to clone my cat” banks in her hand.
“I work with a crazy cat lady,” she said, grinning as she looked down at the bank. “She’ll either love it, or she’ll kill me for buying it for her.”
It was never the Nash brothers’ intention to go into the business of selling stylish, witty bric-a-brac. Blue Q was supposed to be a lighting company. When they started in 1988, Seth and Mitch had designed a series of halogen lamps on wheels, and the Flat Cat was created by Mitch to serve as a prop in their South End office.
When people started asking about the cat more than the lamp prototypes, they decided to sell the cat, reasoning it could help finance the lamps.
After the cat came Instant Infant (which was copied on an episode of “Sex and the City”), Flat Fido, Flat Flowers … you get the idea.
The Nashes realized after the success of Flat Cat that they would need the creative juices of others to help their company evolve, so Mitch, now 48, and the taller and more artistically inclined of the pair, started building relationships with graphic designers and artists across the country.
Mitch Nash counts Barney’s creative director Simon Donnan as an influence on his sense of humor. In informal meetings, he and other employees at Blue Q toss around fun product names and then talk to designers and writers about developing packaging based around those names. That’s how Dirty Girl soap, Blue Q’s biggest success since the Flat Cat, was born 10 years ago.
At the height of its popularity, the line, which includes soap, shampoo, body lotion, and bubble bath, was earning $3 million a year alone.
“When I heard the name Dirty Girl, it seemed very Parisian to me, very retro,” says Haley Johnson, the Minneapolis-based designer who created the art and packaging for Dirty Girl and for the Wash Away Your Sins beauty lines for Blue Q. “So I created this very innocent drawing for the product. It was such a hit when it was introduced. It was something that both teenagers and grandmothers were using. It was really far-reaching.”
Since Dirty Girl, the company introduced the successful Miso Pretty beauty line four years ago, a collection of soaps and shampoos that use Asian-inspired art in the packaging.
And this summer, Blue Q will take an uncharted leap when it enters the home decor market. Mitch Nash says the company will start selling pillows, ceramics, and other more upscale products. Because they are still early in the development process, he’s hesitant to offer too many details.
“I think Jonathan Adler is a good reference point,” he says of the New York ceramist who now sells a line of furniture, pillows, and even a canister set labeled “Quaaludes,” “Prozac,” and “Dolls.”
“Our products have a sense of humor, and that will naturally extend into this new line as well,” Nash adds. “Even if we tried, I don’t think it’s possible for us to create something that’s dull. We’re always ready to laugh.”
