About Clunq - ClunQ Factory

What, When and Where

If you happen to have visited Vancouver's Granville Island Public Market during the first decade of the 2000s, or used to shop for unique gifts at some of Canada's large Christmas art/craft shows during the same period, chances are that you would have come across a booth with a collection of colorful dots and seemingly useless objects assembled together only by unfathomable whimsy of their creator.

And chances are that you would have stopped to see what that was all about, especially if there already was a crowd surrounding the booth, as it generally was the case.

As you waded your way to the booth, you would have heard people giggling and comments like :
'Aaah, it's a bouncy ball !',
'And they are magnetic !',
'Oh - and they hold cards !',
'Wow - AND they glow in the dark !',

'Huh, WHO would have thunk it ...

Who

Well, the person who 'thunk it', and who most likely would have been on the other side of the booth, demonstrating the products, is Zoran Perl.
( Originally Prljincevic, a native of former Yugoslavia - now Serbia, Zoran shortened his last name and added a badly needed vowel to the first syllable. No relation to the obscure programming language, Perl ).

Zoran put his electrical engineering training to good use and created a line of products that perhaps only an engineer's mind could produce, still playing with wires, magnets, insulating materials ( rubber ) etc, etc.

Over the years, many other people were on the other side of the booth, demo-ing the products.
So, you might have had their names associated with the 'Clunq experience' :
Lorisa, Curtis, Garrett, Alice, Jordan, Vedrana, Alexandra, Peter, and quite a few others would have been doing their best to show 'what it was all about' to each customer, as if it were the first time they ever explained it - to anyone.

Why

Mostly because Zoran was tickled with the idea of creating 'something from nothing'.

But also because he enjoyed chuckling along with the customers ( gifters ), who - on their end, would have found a crazy enough gift that they could chuckle about with their giftees, so to speak.

Why 'ClunQ' and not 'ClunC'

You might have noticed that the 'Clunc Factory' has now become 'Clunq Factory'.

That is actually the 'What's next' part of this story. But, in broad terms, the new iteration of the products will be playing with current scientific ideas and trends.
Hence, the word 'clunq' sounds more like an elementary ( quantum ) particle than a pedestrian 'clunc'.

And - well, because 'clunq' is just cuter ( pun intended ) than 'clunc' 🙂

Change

As it became evident that the Internet and the whole new digital reality is not going away any time soon, Zoran employed several web developers to set up the website for - what was then called 'Constructive Art' and later 'Clunc Factory'.

But, having done retail sales for so long, he soon realized that 'the geeks just don't get it', what he was trying to do.

To adapt a website to a product or a brand, and not the other way around - it turned out, was very challenging. And to create the customer experience online - to match the 'feel' that a business already cultivates in real life - was very difficult to communicate to web developers who generally have had no experience in sales and dealing with customers.

Also, he figured that he would need to speak 'geek' ( not Greek ), so that he would understand where they were coming from ...
So, ( grudgingly at first ), he decided to learn the language of code and acronyms like HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, SQL, Linux, Git, WordPress, Drupal, CMS and framework this and platform that ...

Six years later ( about 3.5 years longer than he thought ), he can now converse in these languages too. Well enough ( as his colleague Yuna likes to say ), to inflict some serious damage.

The Team

In time, Zoran started to enjoy the newly discovered coding ability and to create websites for other businesses too, knowing full well the frustrations they face in dealing with 'all that technology'.

The knowledge of code also opened the door to many new possibilities.

In 2016, he became good friends with Yuna and NiQ from the Geek YuniQ team, and started collaborating on a number of web development projects.
In 2017, the 3 started working on developing a framework - as these things are called in geek, with the idea that the elements and ingredients that were difficult ( or expensive ) to implement - would become more accessible to a small-to-medium size business, without breaking the bank.

This little website, in fact ( clunq.net ) was put together very quickly, using the new framework - both as an exercise and as a way to de-clutter the studio.

What's Next

Zoran, Yuna and NiQ are starting a Web Agency called 'Brand Nuvo', which will be based on the framework ( bearing the same name ) that they developed. Peter, an experienced designer and motion graphics artist has also joined the team recently. The site is a couple of weeks away from launch.

If you like the way this website looks and works, and you need a new website developed ( or a facelift for an existing one ), you can get a Pre-Launch Discount coupon at BrandNuvo.com.

In the meantime, we need to literally clear the space in Zoran's studio, to make room for the new Agency and new product ideas.

Please take a look around this website and if you like some stuff ( there is still much more to be posted ), fill out a form ( any form on this site ), so we can arrange the time for you to drop by the studio on Yukon and 5th Avenue, in Vancouver BC.