OurStory

Wade Gugino: Owner & CEO

In another life, I played basketball in Europe for 15 years. In the old world they use cartoons for a lot more than gags in the newspaper, they use visual metaphor to ask hard questions and teach each other through stories. I like that paradigm. I see it playing a bigger and bigger role in online education

and mobile communication as the world continues to get connected. In 2007 I stopped playing basketball and moved back to America to start the first business solely dedicated to communicating with cartoons. I’ve been experimenting with the best formats and applications for cartoons ever since. By 2020, I expect Googenius to be a household name.

Eva Marie Gugino: Creative Development & Administration

In another life, I was a model in New York and Europe for 12 years. Now I critique projects, edit, and keep things moving around here. The interesting thing about cartoons is that they can be visual representations of anything...which

allows me to still get in touch with my fashion interest. The creativity that goes in to some graphic stories out there is mind-blowing. And they can be so beautiful and expressive. I never would have thought this growing up, but I believe cartoons have the potential to change the way we interact with ideas and communicate with one another. And that’s exciting.

Abram Siegel: Tech & Musical Development

In another life, I was a teacher and musical director for 10 years. Then I got a master’s degree in Education Media Design and Technology. I can create just about any kind of media or effect you can think of, but around here I compose music and lay out/edit video. My work in education

and my experience here watching Googenius over the last year and a half has convinced me that using cartoons to reach people is the way of the future. Of course they have to be done right, but when they are, they get into people’s minds and stay there in ways I rarely saw any other media do in my 10 years teaching. This is a great place to be, and at the right time to be here.

Our Goals:

1. Do things with comics and graphic novels that people have never seen before.

2. Create tools that help people mix images and

text in stories for better idea sharing.

3. Find ways to enhance every form of communication with cartoons techniques.

4. Promote right and left brained integration through reading and creating graphic stories.

5. Get people in touch with beautiful illustrated

art and stories from all over the world.

6. Develop new ways to market and apply

cartoons to consumer interests.

Googenius is a limited liability company established in 2007 in Holland, MI. We’ve done work for National Heritage Academies, The Ottawa Area Intermediate School District, The Community Foundation of Holland & Zeeland, The West Michigan Character Council, Memphis Public Schools, Crown Motors, TEDx, Hope College and sub-contract work for PBS, Johnson and Johnson, and the University of Michigan.

format that your brain already understands from experience.

Certainly, GOO can be applied poorly. And it is subjective. But there are rules that work, and the world is learning more of them every day. Our goal is to develop a sliding GOO scale to help you optimize various types of messages to specific audiences. Whether you’re communicating with adolescents, adults or children; right or left brained learners; business, education or entertainment audiences; at home or abroad, cartoons can help you do a better job of it. Contact us if you’d like help adding a little GOO to your most important communication needs.

GOO-genius. What is GOO?

Graphic Optimum Overlay

Okay, this is not an exact science. Yet. That’s why we like the term “GOO”. But we believe GOO is quantifiable and can be used to make everyone’s communication better. GOO is genius.

Graphic Optimum Overlay, in a nutshell, is:

•Choosing the best ratio of text to graphics.

•Choosing the best ways of combining text and graphics to get

your ideas across to people quickly and intuitively.

GOO uses research insights into your brain’s most prevalent sensory processing center (vision) to tailor messages that reach directly into your audience’s psyche. There are lots of technologies that you can GOO with, but traditional cartoons are simple, inexpensive and available to everyone.

A simply drawn character or scene not only describes a situation, it helps you feel the situation by tapping in to the brain centers that you make judgements with. It’s communication your mind doesn’t have to assign new meaning to because it’s given in a