10 DAYS LEFT...

Shawn Carter's newest compact disc, The Blueprint 3, drops next Friday.

Everyone here at 0484CREATIVE is waiting on the edge of their seats. Except for Matt, who is the one person on Earth who doesn't like, nor listen to music. (So, it's really just me that's awaiting the CD.) There are some albums that are not meant to be downloaded, leaked or bootlegged (not many, but a few). This is one of those situations.

American Gangster was legit, but it was more of a soundtrack than a real Jay-Z album. Kingdom Come was disappointing but nothing can really follow up The Black Album right? Anyway, even the album art for BPIII is cool. Who else can make CD without a picture of themself on the cover? Nobody.

Check out this amazing little promo video they made for the album.

MILTON GLASER

Saw the new Milton Glaser documentary To Inform & Delight last night.

Glaser is one of the biggest living American graphic designers. Although I'm sure you've never heard of him, which just shows you that nobody appreciates the arts nowadays (at least that's what my Dad always says). Anyway, it was a cool film and the screening, which took place at the Orange County Museum of Art, was sort of packed which was quite surprising.


Glaser designed the original 'I Heart NY' campaign which has been plastered on every cheap tourist trinket imaginable and re-appropriated millions of times. He did the project pro bono and has never received any money from what is one of the world's most iconic designs. Above is a newer version which Glaser developed post 9-11.





Hillman Curtis put together this nice 5 minute video about Glaser a few years ago. (It's basically like the Cliffs Notes version of 'To Inform & Delight'.)

FOREVER

New music - first.

From the forthcoming documentary about Lebron James' high school exploits, More Than A Game, comes this nifty new little rap song, entitled 'Forever'. Matt and I actually saw Lebron play in high school once, at a tournament at UCLA. Coincidentally it ended up being his worst game ever and he finished with 15 points or something pathetic like that.

We saw Sebastian Telfair play at the same tournament and both thought that he was going to be better than Magic Johnson. Then, a year after that, we saw Dwight Howard play at age 17. We decided that he sucked and would probably never be better than a Manute Bol lookalike. These are some of the reasons why we never made it as pro talent scouts and stick to drawing doodles on the computer instead.

Anyway, here is 6 minutes of Drake, Lil Wayne, Kanye West and some white guy from Detroit. Put this song on loop, grab a lemonade, act like you're slaving away all day at your computer and you too can pretend like you work for 0484CREATIVE.

FREE SMALL BUSINESS TIPS

You can now make your checks payable to: 0484CREATIVE

After holding out for about 6 solid years, I finally filed the paperwork with the County to register our little design business. And along with that, we also got ourselves a fancy grown-up business bank account (instead of that old shoebox stuffed with loose change and Golden Spoon coupons)


Now we can pay our vendors with these snazzy, slightly larger business checks rather than the dinky personal ones I have with Amazon tree frogs on them. Or those cheesy Harry Potter checks that Matt has.

Anyway, the point is, up until now, we've been doing just fine without any official documentation 'legitimizing' our company. In addition to our own little gig, we have some insight from working with a bunch of small business and start-ups, as clients of ours, over the years. A few random thoughts on starting a small business:

Do not file your DBA statement, or apply for a business license unless you really have to. Do not incorporate; that costs money. Don't waste money.

Do not put "C.E.O." on your business card. It's tacky.

Do not trademark or copyright anything. Do not worry about anyone stealing your business name or concept. Don't waste time.

If you are just starting a small business and you waste the least amount of time, energy and money on all the distractions, 1 of 2 things will happen. You will either manage to survive and your company will slowly grow and thrive, at which point you can file all the fancy paperwork that you skipped. Or, your business will dissolve, for whatever reason, and then you can send me a 'Thank You' card for saving you a lot of time and money and unnecessary headaches.

Build your brand. Find clients. Foster relationships. Do the work. Forget the paperwork. Getting all of the paperwork in order does not mean you have a business.

If you're sort of a nerd and want more info on this type of thing, check out this book written by the guys over at 37signals. (you can read it online for free)

TRETTIN SURFBOARD FACTORY

My boy Danton needed a new surfboard.



After enduring torture working as an engineer for the past couple years (which, for the record, is about 23 months longer than I lasted) Danton quit his job and is moving to China next month to teach English to all of Gabe's relatives. Anyway, I helped him make this 5'9" Fish this week and he's going to bring it overseas with him.

MAILBAG

We got a package from Brand X the other day.



Brand X is basically the young, trendy division of the LA Times (aimed at like the Scion-driving, Twitter-addicted, Jabbawockeez type of demographic, you know what I'm talking about). Apparently they're asking 'emerging local artists' to design artwork for a Nissan Cube vehicle wrap contest.



In addition to the info about the car wrap thing, they included a DVD of Fast & Furious. The gesture was nice, I guess, but I'm going to have to get rid of this thing ASAP. I'm not trying to be a movie snob or anything but I really can't risk one of my friends from Film School seeing this laying around and thinking that I actually bought this thing (even if, as the package claims, it really is 'the best of the Fast & Furious movies' series).

Anyway, as for the Cube wrap contest, not sure if Matt and I will submit something or not, we'll see...

COKE FREESTYLE

The Pei Wei by my house just got a new soda machine from the future.

I don't even drink much soda but you simply can't pass up opportunities to mess with big shiny gizmos like this one.



Basically this thing is called the Coca-Cola Freestyle Beverage Dispenser and it pours over 100 variations of Coke products; Raspberry Sprite, Strawberry Sprite, Grape Sprite, etc. Apparently it's really precise about mixing the flavors for whatever drink you choose because Coke adapted the technology from dialysis medicine dispensing machines.



According to the internet, this project has been developed by Coke for the past 5 years and cost a few hundred million dollars. I guess that just goes to show that some people are taking soda way too seriously.



Overall the machine was kind of fun to mess with, but soda from the future still tastes pretty similar to regular soda. As far as technological breakthroughs go, Matt said he's still waiting for the day when you can point your cell phone at things and pay for them whereas I'm mainly looking forward to Hoverboards.

RECENT WORK: COMMISSARY

We recently got to do some work with our boys over at Commissary.


Main flash site



We revamped their site, spruced up their blog and built, styled, and stocked an e-commerce store for them. As you can probably tell from some of these screenshots, Commissary is a really unique brand with an, um, 'distinct' voice and positioning all their own. For example, they run a sale sometimes where they trade Commissary shirts for 12-packs of beer (seriously).


Branded Commissary blog


Branded E-Commerce store

Anyway, it was a cool project for us to work on. Word on the street is that Commissary has some more ventures and things on the way and we're looking forward to those as well.

LOOK WHAT I FOUND

I'm back from Wisconsin.

It was a good trip. Few random thunder storms here and there but a bad day out on the lake beats a good day at work, right? (That's what people with real jobs have told me anyway)



I see that Gabe decided to post a few more photos from my trip on here. (I guess I wasn't the only one who took last week off) Coincidentally, I happened to find this photo of Gabe that was lying around, taking part in some water activities that are a bit more his speed.

Anyway, I gotta go see how much it costs to get this image printed on coffee mugs and fridge magnets.

REAL WAKEBOARDING PHOTOS REVEALED

Don't let Matt fool you guys.

First of all, I know the photos that he posted made him look like some type of water sports super hero but that should just further prove that you can't trust anything you see on this blog.





In my ongoing quest to embarrass Matt at all costs set the record straight, I was recently able to obtain these additional photos from Ryan. I think these shots portray Matt's wakeboarding skills in a more accurate light.



If you'd like this photo in high-resolution, to use as your computer's desktop background for example, just e-mail me. I'm also thinking about compiling these into a 2010 Wall Calendar.

Furthermore, it's also been brought to my attention that Matt's arms look rather large in some of his photos. Let me just remind all of you that Matt uses Photoshop for a living. I admit that he did a really good job pasting Hugh Jackman's arms on his body, but don't be surprised if you see those images in our portfolio later inside a new IMAGE RETOUCHING section.

OK, just wanted to clear that up. I gotta get back to work. Not all of us can frolic around on floating trampolines all day.

P.S. I can too swim (and those lessons were a long time ago, not last summer)

BADGER STATE

I'm hanging out at a little lake in Wisconsin for a week.

I asked Gabe if he wanted to come out and do some wakeboarding with me. His first response was 'It's already snowing in Wisconsin?' After explaining the differences to him between snowboarding and wakeboarding, he made up some excuse about work and decided to stay in California. I guess those swimming lessons he took at the Boys and Girls club last summer didn't go as well as he'd planned.

He e-mails me about work every 5 minutes though, so it's pretty much like he's here anyway.

I think Ryan is trying to replace Bear Grylls as the new Man vs. Wild host

Here are a few photos from out on the water.

If you want to see more, check out my dvd, Matt's Pro Wakeboard Extravaganza (technically not available in stores yet, but once a few sports agents see these photos, I'm sure it's just a matter of time)

Alright, I have to go e-mail Gabe instructions on 'how to use the computer'.

SHOW BUSINESS

Met up with my boy Jordan Warren over the weekend.

I met Jordan a couple years ago when I cast him in Eviction Notice. I held auditions over at Film Independent in LA and Jordan came in and killed it. He was just on another level. Ever since we first started working together, I just get this sense that he's got everything he needs to go really far, so it's just a matter of time. (Meanwhile Matt and I just have to bide time with the whole graphic design thing, just until Jordan blows up and gives us official spots in his entourage)

Anyway, we discussed a little short film that Jordan co-wrote that we're planning on shooting in October.



Speaking of Eviction Notice, IMDB emailed me recently and granted the film it's own page on their site. Not entirely sure what having this page now does for me except for the fact that I'm sure my grandparents will be proud (after, of course, I explain to them what IMDB is, after I explain to them the concept of the Internet).



Also met up with Albert. Hadn't seen him in while so I finally got him his loot from our NBA bracket.

And I checked out Funny People on Saturday. It was good. A bit different than most of the recent Apatow stuff, but in a good way. I'd say it's definitely worth watching and if you hear different from anyone else, just remember that I have my own IMDB page.