Don’t be Mad about NFTs: Introducing our 1st NFT Collection

May 16, 2022
Davies Meyer NFT Seals on comic style wave background

Today, if you’re a part of the digital world, you’ve got to have an opinion about NFTs. Love ‘em, hate ‘em, they’re bound to make you feel some kind of way, because they are popping up everywhere. Admittedly, here in Germany the blockchain waves roll in a little slower. And that is exactly the reason why we’ve decided to get ahead of it and launch our own tidal wave with a whole NFT collection.

After all: Who could possibly deny the glorious splendor of 1001 chunky seals riding a wave into the sunrise of the open sea? But let’s not try and saddle the seal from the rear (as a famous German saying goes). So, to properly introduce you to our own NFT collection we want to talk about the following points:

1. What are NFTs? A brief explanation
2. How to purchase an NFT?
3. Presenting our own Davies Meyer NFT collection
4. Meet the Mad Family!

NFTs Explained

Let’s get started, shall we? The first question we want to answer today is: What is an NFT?

The shortcut “NFT” stands for “Non-Fungible Token”. The word “fungible” itself means that something, for example physical money or cryptocurrency, can be traded or exchanged for one another, since they are equal in value. So, one dollar is one dollar, and one bitcoin is one bitcoin.

But NFTs are different in that way. Every single NFT has its own digital signature and therefore is a single and unique piece. That makes it impossible for NFTs to get exchanged for one another, hence they are “non-fungible”.

An infographic that explains (non-)fungibility of digital and physical objects

What do the Mona Lisa, Nyan Cat, a Porsche and Bitcoin have in common? Right, they are all on this infographic! Source: https://www.oridoc.com/what-is-nft-non-fungible-token/

Now that we cleared up what the shortcut stands for, we want to elaborate on what an NFT is. An NFT is a digital asset that represents real world-objects. For example, art, music, in-game items, and videos. The only way to purchase them is online and is the only way to sell them again as well.

What many people don’t know is that NFTs have been around since 2014, but only gained a huge boost in popularity mostly since 2021. And popularity doesn’t just mean that people post about them on TikTok or Twitter. In 2021 NFT sales have reached 25 billion US dollars.

As mentioned before, each NFT is one of a kind and has a unique identifying code. But everyone on the internet can still view those individual images for free. So why are people even willing to spend so much money, millions even, on something they could easily screenshot or download?

The answer: A simple screenshot or download does not give you any ownership and rights to use it in any way. An NFT allows the buyer to own the original item they purchased. Furthermore, it contains built-in authentication, which serves as proof of ownership. So, if somebody just downloaded and re-posted the NFT, chances are that they’ll get into legal trouble for it.

How To Purchase An NFT from our collection?

The good news: It has become a lot easier over the years. Marketplaces like opensea.io offer a huge amount and variety of NFTs and you will surely find something you like. There are however a few steps left until you own your NFT of choice.

1. You must open an account on the specific marketplace you want to purchase an NFT from like for example opensea.

2. You also need a crypto wallet (opensea suggests MetaMask for desktop use and Coinbase for mobile use) and some amount of cryptocurrency that is accepted by the respective marketplace you want to purchase from. The whole process of opening your wallet and purchasing crypto can be a bit complex, but Wired has put out a good guide to lead your first steps.

3. As soon as your crypto wallet is set up, connected to the marketplace and you’ve got all the crypto you need, just make your purchase.

One personal piece of advice from us: Shop responsibly and set yourself a budget before you start. 😉Also, if you delve into the topic a bit of your own, all the big numbers floating around might tempt you to start “investing”. But allow yourself to start slowly, buy NFTs you enjoy regardless of their value or from creators you want to support.

Davies Meyer Presents Its Own NFT Collection

2021 was the breakout year for NFTs. It also was the year in which we decided to no longer stand on the sidelines, but to fully dive into the world of NFTs and make a splash. So, we stopped talking about the thing and started doing it instead.

There are a lot of exciting developments happening in tech right now – especially with the web3. And we expect these developments to grow from isolated trends into a rich, integrated experience. Leveraging the potential of digital experiences for leading brands is what we do best. NFTs, and with them the web3, will become part of what we do best.

All this talk obviously doesn’t get us a seal of approval from anyone. Which is why we needed our own and promptly decided to create the Davies Meyer NFT collection. It was a chance for us to be creative in a completely new way, designing and naming each individual NFT out of 1001.

And now, after a couple weeks of hard work and a lot of fun, we are proud to present our very own NFT collection. We want to offer it to all our clients, team members and partners as an easy way to explore the world of NFTs and make real firsthand experiences.

There is only one important question left: How do the Davies Meyer NFTs look? We already dropped a few (sometimes quite seally) hints, so you’ve probably already sealved the riddle.

Meet the Mad about Seals Family!

The first thought we had was to feature a caricature of a tiger and work out the rest of the NFTs from there, since 2022 is the year of the tiger according to the Chinese zodiac. But that idea was quickly overshadowed by the following: The headquarters of Davies Meyer are in Hamburg, Germany, and we wanted to pick something more local. Something that is true to the spirit of the city and therefore to our company.

That was when we came up with making the seal the main face of our NFT collection. The seal can be seen as an unofficial mascot of the port city Hamburg. After that crucial decision-making, we hired a freelancer, specializing in 3D-Art, who created our very first NFT, the seal Fred.

Fred is the firstborn and consequently the head of the Mad Family. Considering that he is the oldest of the bunch, it is evident that he will be the most old-fashioned and for that reason doesn’t see the point of putting on clothes. He is a very nature-friendly creature and has the strong opinion that he, as a seal, should stay in his natural form – naked.

fred-seal-nft-daviesmeyer

His younger family members don’t quite share his opinion as you can see. They made it a family tradition to wear four accessories each. No more, no less. Those can vary from clothes, such as shirts and sweaters, to jewelry and headwear.

davies meyer nft seal collection opensea screenshot

The fact that no one in his family shares his opinion makes Fred very grumpy, which led his relatives to imitate his grumpy expression in their own photo shots that were created into NFTs and therefore created the NFT collection “Mad about Seals”.

Now that you have a good idea of what an NFT is, how to purchase them and have been introduced to our Davies Meyer NFT collection “Mad about Seals” we invite you to take a closer look at the seal family on Opensea.io.

PS: You can also follow Fred and family as we introduce them one by one on their very own Instagram account!

Sources:
Forbes
SeekingAlpha