For anyone who doesn’t know me, I’m Chringo. I’m a designer by day and a musician for the rest! My real name is Christian… A friend who loved the Beatles called me Ringo about ten years ago (I am a drummer). Combine Christian and Ringo, and you get Chringo. It stuck!

Culture and creativity have always been huge drivers for me. It all started in 1998 when I was nine. A friend put on a new CD that he had been given. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that album wholeheartedly changed my life. It was The Offspring’s Americana. I had also just discovered skateboarding. Throw that in with punk rock, and I was set! That blend of DIY attitude and skateboard culture, thriving on community, stuck with me. I think that is why I felt such a strong connection with web3.

I got into the space in late 2021, and it was the first time I’d been on Twitter in about a decade. I discovered a world full of cartoon JPEGs (that people actually owned!) and people building cool things! I wanted to be a part of that, so I got started, learning the ropes and soaking up everything I could find on how blockchains and crypto worked. Very quickly, I was hooked. Now I wanted to make something myself, and this is how CANS! started.

CANS! is really a way for me to explore, learn, and put all my favourite findings into one place. Inspired by projects that really resonated with me, from collections like CryptoPunks and mfers, to cultural projects like the 6529 Museum, which blew my mind when I first found it! You will see elements of all of these in CANS! From the classic traits to the tone of voice and focus on community.

Generative art has also fascinated me for a long time. I find the idea that you can take visual choice away, within a set of rules, very freeing as a designer. That, and you can create infinitely unique outputs, with code. An NFT collection ticked all the boxes!

I’d been in the space long enough, however, to know one thing I didn’t want to do, and that was make lots of grand promises and talk a big talk. It’s just me running the show, so I didn’t want to be in over my head. CANS! is a simple project with a simple goal: make cool things, try to build a community of good people, and see where it can go. For that reason, it was a free mint and all images are CC0. I hope people get creative!

Now that the collection has minted out, I am exploring new ways to push CANS! further, including a new website, merch, an emoji pack, new 1-of-1 editions, ways to incorporate storytelling, and who knows what else… but all under the following mantra:

No story.
No plan.
No reason.
Just CANS!

To quote Sartoshi — “You can state a roadmap that says where it will go, but you can also plant seeds and see where they grow.”

Until next time…

— Chringo.