Incorporated

TANTADAN! OK it's official...

My business name has changed from "Lowe Studio LLC" to "Lowe Studio Inc." Backdated, effective as of Jan 1st, 2008.

Clever Logos

Not sure if I ever mentioned this blog site before...

http://38one.com/cleverblog

It's a blog about clever logo design. I guess I'm not the only one that admires clever ideas. The thing about us when we see a good design....we wish WE were the ones that thought of these ourselves.

There's definitely a few here on Logolog I wish I had thought of.

Damn Door Ding

So we got our first door ding on our new car the other day. OH the first ding is the worse one....it somehow feels like it's three times as big as it is. Somehow I think EVERYONE can see it, "oh look at that car with the giant DENT on the side of it....

I didn't even get plates for my car yet. THIRTEEN YEARS driving an old car just to get a new one and I don't make it 30 days before getting a ding by some prick out there who somehow couldn't manage to get out of his or her car door without swinging it into somebody else's car.

GRRRR! I'll never know who did this....but if there's some kind of magic juju out there in the universe that listens to my prayers. I hope that this person who gave me this door ding gets some kind of festering rash where the sun don't shine.

Since I'm at home anyway....

I had a fun meeting this morning with a potential client. She was self-employed like I was and we were sharing war stories about how we run business, how we get clients, project horror stories, etc. Every once in a while it's good to talk to someone in your own shoes. I have another self-employed client who we share tax & investment tips as well *wave* You know who you are.

I find this exchange incredibly uplifting and motivating. It tells me that as big as my business problems seem to be....I'm not alone, we all go through it no matter how successful our businesses are.

You might think "DUH Raph, of course!" But that's not an easy idea to remember when you're shelled up behind your home office all alone each day.

ANYWAY, we get to talking about how people assume that since you're working out of your home, you have a lot of time on your hands. She says her roomate sends her out to get milk "since she's at home anyway".

That's very true in a way...since I've been working on my own, I've become everyone's limousine driver, the telephone answering machine, my neighbor's xerox copy guy, the housecleaning man, the airport delivery man, etc etc.

I mean, normally these are little things...I don't mind doing them at all. But when you put everything in perspective, after doing a few "little things" each day, it's amazing how quickly it eats away at your actual work time.

Shit...reminds me I'm late to go pick up my wife right now...............

Poor poor US of A

God, if you're ever in a good mood....avoid watching Micheal Moore's "Sicko" documentary.

I mean, sheezus that film made me completely sick to my stomach about the state of affairs here in the US lately. Even before watching this I never really cared for our retirement, health care and insurance systems here.... now I'm just disgusted. I should have known too....both my brother and a couple of good friends had watched it before me and told me how depressed it made them. And how did I end up thinking, "Oh great...let me rent that so I can get depressed too?" Perhaps it's in our blood to want to challenge out way of thinking every once in a while.

Yeah you bet I'm going to vote. Always have since reaching voting age....but the last 2 elections certainly made me feel jaded and useless. Let's hope this time around people are disgusted enough with what's going on so that there will be real change. ANYBODY is better then these jerks in office now. I have a clear conscious I didn't vote for them the last 2 times.

It took 8 years to fuck up a country. Let's hope it doesn't require another 8 years to lift us out of it.

*breath Raph breeeeeeath* OMMMMMMMM. OK, let me step off the soap box.

How do I segway (sp?) this into a topic about design? Well, I think the state of affairs this year will certainly be something I have to watch out for. They say there's a recession, people are less willing to spend this year, tons of foreclosures, etc...will people find the desire to start new businesses or spend more money for marketing in a slow economy?

I'd like to think so. Logic says when things are going slow is when you need to push hard to market your business. But I know it's easier said then done when you gotta pay payroll and the difference between paying a few extra thousand dollars for new stationery could mean paying an employee and extra month or two. I hope there's a good balance.

Meanwhile I'm hoping for some change in gears this year. A little organizational restructuring, *maybe* pursuit of a new small office towards the later half of the year, some changes in some of the marketing I do, along with some new consultants. Let's see if they'll make any significant boost in my business this 2008.

Now that the opportunity to teach a course at Chaminade this semester is less likely as the days pass by....I've come to thinking that might be a good avenue for me to pursue. A part time teaching job could not only reinforce what I do, it will give me added credibility & maybe provide me with fresh sources of inspiration coming from the creative young students. I'd still be scared shitless teaching for the first time though. I can't imagine standing in front of a class of students for 3 hours each, several weeks in a row and trying to stay informative and interesting.

Maybe I'll teach them blogging....

Helvetica Tribute

Designed a quick logo for a long-time client & friend of mine. Short backstory to this...remember when I mentioned I rented the documentary called "Helvetica"? Well, it's basically a 2-hour schpiel about how prevalent Helvetica is in our society and about how many legends in our business consider it the "perfect font". Like it can't be improved upon, the negative space is in perfect unison to the filled space, and yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, exciting flick huh?

Anyway, just for the heck of it I thought I'd pay a small tribute to Helvetica here and design something made exclusively using it. Simple pimple.

Ignore the "web 2.0" reflection thingy. I just did that for fun. I notice it's easier to wow a client doing that extra presentation step these days too since everyone is into that Apple marketing fad. I'll take it...anything to make life easier.

Getting Inked

I'm getting inked!

Naw...I keed. I wish I was getting a new tattoo so I could say I was newly "inked" in that way. For 3 years now I've been wanting to get a tattoo sleeve down one of my arms. Did you know I was actually on an 8-month waiting list to get tattooed by the best artist in town... I was 1 week away from my appointment and then I had to cancel. Why? Because I switched the money I was going to use for the tattoo to pay for my first trip to visit Florence.

Awwwww! heheh. Someday she can't complain when I eventually want to cash in the favor and finally go get my tat! :)

I digress. Basically, I finally initiated the process of incorporating my business. So pretty soon I'll be operating as "Lowe Studio Incorporated" Sounds spiffy. Suddenly I got Metallica's old song "Damage Incorporated" stuffling through my head. Maybe that will be my theme song on my future reality show....where I hire young designers and show them the real world where we have to ditch half our creative energy and divert that into endlessly typing out proposals and contracts all day long.

Getting incorporated will be good. I'm teetering at the profit point where I may be saving a little money in taxes by being reclassified...and I'll be better positioned to handle payroll in a couple years or so when I'd be considering hiring people. I think this will be a positive move.

It might be a long shot but I got asked in the last minute to teach a design course over at Chaminade University. I guess the real guy dropped out at the last minute. If it does go through I'd be more then a little freaked out because I've never taught a regular course before...not to mention the semester starts next week giving me only days to prep for it. EEEP!

The opportunity is too good though. If I end up good at teaching, who knows what kinds of doors this might open up for me in the future. It's too good to pass up. We'll see....chances are they'll find someone else as you normally need a master's degree to teach. I guess if they have nobody to fill the role I'm the last ditch replacement. Those poor college kids....wait till they get a load of me.

Surfas

My brother was in town for about 3 days on his way to a trip to Australia. That lucky sucka. While he was here I had a chance to take him and my dad out to the North Shore to kick back a bit. I had my camera with me so I thought I'd try take a few shots out there.

I had my tripod with me too. I think to get good shots with a telephoto lens I think you pretty much need a tripod or you need an incredibly steady hand. I'm about as steady as a 7-point earthquake so I figured I'd bust out the tripod.

Anyway, I head out there to the beach and all around me are guys with all their professional cameras. Lenses as long as your arm and glass as big as your head. HO SHAME!! I quietly took my camera off the tripod and just quietly snuck some shots trying not to look like a total loser.

I had a few shots. The waves weren't HUGE this day. The shots certainly weren't as steady as I wanted them to be. There's a small bit of motion blur but it's alright. One day soon I'll get that new camera and then look out suckas!! Heheh...photography is definitely a "big dick" field. The bigger your lens the more people suck up to you. No pun intended.

While we're on photography. There's a competition for young photographers here: http://www.gpoty.org The winner gets a new 40D Canon camera. I'd enter if only I didn't need to be 20 years younger.... I mean.... like 4 or 5 years younger. *cough*

2008

So here we are in the new year. 2007 blew by like a storm.

Business-wise it was a good year. I definitely improved my profits over the previous year...something like looked doubtful around the middle of the year. This was right before my wedding and things got a little slow. I was like , "UH OH!"

Then after getting married it took a while to adjust. Luckily I got slammed with work in the last quarter that made up for everything and then some. So it goes to show you never know.

I'm not liking that though...it's kinda hard planning ahead on a pay cycle that isn't regular. I know all my associates that work for themselves all say the same thing. I gotta find a way to circumvent this.

If there's one disappointment that I've had lately is the fact I'm still not at the point where I'd feel comfortable leasing out an office and hiring someone yet. I just can't risk that overhead feeling uncertain whether I could weather out a couple of slow months here and there. On the other hand, I'd hate to have to wait till I'm slammed and stressed out before I expand out in desperation. I just don't know how to bridge this gap. I'll get there, but it's just a matter of feeling my way.

Two and a half years of doing this though...not bad eh? I thought I'd have a lot more confidence by now but each time a client pitches me with new challenges I don't know how to immediately solve, or each time I see someone else's artwork I wish I could have though of myself I'm definitely humbled.

It's also coming around to tax time too. DAaaaamn. Here's where I see how much Uncle Sam is going to take from me again. Even my wife is discouraged by how much is taken out of her paycheck over here in the US. She says after taxes, FICA, medicare, SS, medical insurance (yeah she still has to pay a little bit even though she works at a hospital how's that?), etc. she's seeing about 36% of her paycheck wisked away. She says in Hong Kong it was only about 17%. God even I'm discouraged after hearing that. Hong Kong is supposed to be among the top 10 most expensive cities to live in.

Anyway, I've been paying a huge amount of estimated taxes all year, I hope this time I'm not slammed with a huge payment of taxes to write out like I did the year before. That hurt. This time I'm a little wiser with my deductions. Keeping my toes and fingers crossed.