I founded Mad Banana with Joe and my wife, Anj, back in June, 2004. He always wanted to name a company that somehow incorporated the word “banana” in it, so we just added “Mad” as an acronym for Motion And Design.
I was staying in the States since 2002 with my wife as she completed her MBA, and we talked about putting up our own studio when I got back. This was the time when digital video hardware and software were becoming accessible to smaller companies and desktop video was becoming acceptable to the industry. I brought home a Power Mac G5 and CRT monitors in a balikbayan box on our flight back to Manila. We started with that G5 and a Powerbook G4 and set up shop in my mother-in-law’s condo in Greenhills, San Juan, and thus began our 15+ year partnership.
Joe was a graphic designer by trade, but our 3-person studio needed a marketing, sales, and accounts person, and he was it. He had always expressed his lack of talent in selling our services and managing clients, but our clients loved Joe. He probably would not admit it, but I think he loved them back, in his own weird way.
In the next few years, we expanded our team, moved to a bigger office, and changed our name to Caven Studios. Joe’s graphic design duties became less and less as we hired artists to do design work and we needed more clients. This saddened him because he was really an artist and not an accounts guy, so when times changed and our team eventually got smaller, back to almost our original number, he found some joy in working on graphics once again.
We will always have great memories of Joe and his antics. He was always broadcasting that he was an introvert and wallflower, but he had made himself endearing to both our clients and our staff. In some ways, I would think that he was built for this pandemic when everyone is forced to stay at home and social gatherings are done online, but I think I can speak for those close to him that we are also thankful that he missed this weird time in our history.
