April 23, 2024
In this episode, we're full of giggles. We're joined by our pal Sebastian Abboud, an independent designer out of Nanaimo, B.C, and we chat about Not Beer water branding, Canadian treasure Matty Matheson and his retro food co, Wealthsimples Canadian longevity and much more. Drop your comments & thoughts below, and join us weekly as we zip through our newsletter to show you the gems we sourced from the depths of the internet! Drop your comments & thoughts below, and join us weekly as we zip through our newsletter to show you the gems we've scoured from the depths of the internet!
Sebastian: [00:00:00] We have to click the I meant to put a little note that says don't cuss. Don't cuss. Elysse: We had, we have to collect, or like in YouTube, we have to actually click the is not suitable for children box because Because Gavin's on the Gavin: podcast. Elysse: Talking about mushrooms and Gavin: Nice. Elysse: LSD. Gavin: Have we talked about LSD Elysse: yet? I don't think we did. I don't think so. Sean, can you say something? I don't think your mic's working. Gavin: Oh yeah. I don't hear you. You're muted or something. Oh, this is going to be great. Let's roll. Elysse: We're rolling. Gavin: We are rolling. You're gonna have to cut this part. Elysse: Yeah. I don't know what's going on. Sebastian: We don't need you, man. Just don't bother. Can you hear me? Gavin: Yeah. Before we forget at the end, Sebastian, when we're done the recording, don't close your browser right away. Cause Riverside finishes uploading your video. Cause even if we cut out it's recording on your [00:01:00] end. So later when Elise gets all of it, it stitches it all together. So, um, when we're done and she's like, hangs up, just give it a minute to finish saying uploading and saying like, you're good and gives you a check mark. Sebastian: Sounds good. Elysse: Yeah. We all have to awkwardly just sit for a sec and then, then you can leave. Gavin: Well, you can end the call. We're not on video. Elysse: What's that? Gavin: Do you edit it at all? Elysse: I do. Yeah. Like poorly, but yes. Sebastian: Perfect. Elysse: Or at least enough that it works. Gavin: You know what I thought would be fun is if we had background music, like just super subtly, you know, test, test some old like chili or something. There we go. Elysse: The problem with background music is that it doesn't actually come through on my side. Like I, I, it's really weird. And when it's on, cause I remember you had like effects within like the first couple of times that we did this, like you had like a farting effect and applause and yeah, I [00:02:00] should bring those back. It doesn't like show up in the audio. Super well, it's really strange. Shawn: Oh, okay. Isn't that the kind of thing you generally add afterward? Like in the, in the, I think so. Elysse: Yeah. Yeah. Gavin: You can. I like when we do our uh, d and d podcast. I have a separate line that is just audio, like, just, um, Elysse: we could probably do that with this. You probably can. Yeah. Look at it. I just don't know how. Gavin: Yeah. Elysse: Anyways, we're all here. We're good. Let's thanks for fashion, Sebastian: Yeah, thanks for having me. Elysse: Do you prefer Seb or is it Sebastian? Sebastian: Either one's fine. Elysse: Okay. Do you have a preference? Sebastian: Um, not really. It doesn't really matter. Okay. Elysse: Okay. All right. Cool. Um, how's everyone doing? Sebastian: Good. Is this starting? Are we on? Elysse: Yeah, I've been recording since we started talking about LSD. Shawn: I'm sure some of that will get edited out. Maybe. Hey, is that a new mug, Elise? Elysse: It's not, [00:03:00] it's, uh, every time you go to the Sunshine Coast, I get like a Sunshine Coast vibes mug. Cause I, I love the Beachcomber coffee place there. Um, so I have like a bunch. Shawn: Cool. Shout out to Beachcomber coffee and the Sunshine Coast. Elysse: They're great, right? And Gibson's. Yeah. We got, uh, love, uh, Sunshine Coast. I think we would probably live there if it wasn't the Sunshine Coast. Like really. Isolated. Shawn: I've been, I've been meaning to check out Savory Island, which I think you have to go to the Sunshine Coast to get to. I've never, never actually been to the Sunshine Coast either, but I've heard Savory Island is like a little, it's like the beach at Hornby, but the whole island is like that. Gavin: Cool. Like all, like that white sand or whatever? Yeah, Shawn: it looks kind of Caribbean. Yeah. But I need to go. I don't know if you can get a vehicle there though, that's my thing. I would want to bring my van because I'm a glamper these days. Elysse: Glamper. Some of the Gulf Islands, man, have silly names. Savory? That's silly. Sebastian: I can't believe you've never been to the Sunshine Coast. No, have [00:04:00] you been? Oh yeah. Shawn: Oh, oh Sebastian: wow. Everybody, everybody goes. It's not far. Well, I guess for us it's two ferries. Oh, yeah. One if you drive to. Elysse: And you only pay, like, you technically only pay one way. Like, you pay like a fee going there, and then you just pay like a small fee coming back. It's like ten bucks. Gavin: Mm hmm. I've been to Powell River, but nowhere else. Elysse: Yeah. Gavin: Wait, is Saturn a part of the Sunshine Coast? No. That's just part of the Gulf Islands. Is it? I think it's just some of the Gulf Islands. Elysse: Sebastian's just nodding. I've never been Gavin: there. Shawn: Should we introduce Sebastian? Gavin: Nah. We've had so many name drops of Sebastian over our last few podcasts, he needs no introduction. That's true. We talk, Shawn: we talk shit about you all the time. Elysse: We talk about you a lot. We talk shit about all you guys Shawn: too. It's all good. Um, Sebastian's my pal. He's a, uh, designer and illustrator. I guess it's illustrator and designer these days. Probably know a lot more. Yeah, I switched it a Sebastian: couple years [00:05:00] ago. Yeah, Shawn: yeah. Illustrator and designer. And independent illustrator and designer. Sebastian: Yeah. We were talking about, we were talking about labels, the difference between calling yourself independent or freelance. And, I mean, we said, you know, freelance, you know, It's right there in the name. It's free and it's cheap and independent sounds more expensive. So that's what I'm going with from now on. Gavin: Nice. I like Sebastian: that. Grace. Grace does that too. I listened to the grace podcast and she's independent, independent website designer or something. So I was like, man, that sounds expensive. I'm going to do that too. Shawn: Yeah. Yeah. Independent is like upscale freelance. Elysse: Um, two, two back to back pod episodes where we got Sean's pals on. I like it. Shawn: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Last week is Chris. My high school buddy. Yeah. Elysse: A couple of pals. Right on. Shawn: Yeah. Next week, do we have Gavin's pal on? Uh, when is Tash coming on? Not next week. The week after, I think. No, Tash is May. May 6 or something. Gavin: Cool. Yeah, he's Elysse: May. [00:06:00] Yeah. May will be for Gavin's pals. April is for Sean's pals. I'll, I'll Gavin: line up some more pals then. Sebastian, can you be on the podcast again? It's not a competition, Gavin. It's if you've run out of Shawn: pals, that's fine. Thank God. Oh Elysse: boy. Shawn: Um, should we click some links? Yeah, let's do it. All Elysse: right. Here we go. Uh, enjoy not beer. com is our first link. Um, I love Shawn: this. The label's perfect. Elysse: I do think this is a competitor to, um, like Nani water. No, no, it's not beer. This is water. This is like canned water. Gavin: Oh, what? Oh, it says sparkling water. I thought it was just like NA beer. I like that it says zero taste. It's just fucking water in a Elysse: can. I think it's a competitor to like liquid death, like, you know, the liquid death cans of water. Shawn: That is so good. Never a bad time. Elysse: The, the copy is phenomenal. [00:07:00] We did it Shawn: anyway. 99 percent of participants felt hydrated. 89 percent felt overwhelming, unadulterated patriotism. This is great. Elysse: Yeah. Very good. The last one is, I love this one. The like us versus them. Yeah. Made in America. Recyclable. Does not fund terrorism. Not made in America. Singing these classic, no public comment. Gavin: Oh, that's so good. It's Sebastian: kind of, it's kind of ridiculous that they had to put water into a can and, and make a cool brand. So people would drink water. Gavin: Yeah. Yeah. I guess it's Sebastian: sparkling water. Okay. Fair enough. Gavin: Yeah. It's a little more Shawn: entertaining. It's a little bit more special. I want this. Where can I get it? I can get it on Amazon, right? Of course you do. It worked. It worked. This might be the thing I buy on the podcast. Elysse: I don't think you can get it in Canada yet. Shawn: Activate original. Oh, come on. Yeah, I don't feel like it's a Canada thing yet. Elysse: Um, yeah, interesting. I also [00:08:00] find it interesting that people get beverages on Amazon. I think that's silly. I often Shawn: buy. Yeah, yeah. Where do you think the bubblies in the office come from? Actually, they used to come from Amazon. Now they come from Instacart. Gavin: I usually get the N. A. beers on Amazon because they usually have a better selection. Amazon. Yeah, we don't Elysse: get that in Squamish. We, we barely have DoorDash guys. We don't have a lot. Gavin: Squamish is so cute. Elysse: Very small. Um, yeah, cool. Pretty sweet water. Yeah. Um, Shawn: great way to start off. Elysse: Not beer. It's water. Did you remove the beer taste? Oh, you noticed. Yeah, this is great. Shawn: What do you think of the label, Sebastian? Sebastian: I think it's great. It's great. I mean, it taps right into that, uh, Americana kind of, you know, classic, classic, easy drinking beer. I think it's great. I love it. It's perfect. Do you Elysse: think that that Budweiser might send them like a [00:09:00] cease and desist? This is too, a little too close. Shawn: I don't know. I think we need to look at a bud to see. Elysse: A Budweiser. Okay. Hold on. Shawn: The rooster and the red can is giving me sriracha vibes. Yeah, I don't hate it. the rooster Gavin: too. I was like, what's the rooster for? Elysse: I mean, maybe I'm thinking old school Budweiser. Sebastian: Oh, in the rooster, there's a water droplet. Yeah, in the negative space, there's a water droplet. Shawn: Cool. So is it like rooster water? Okay, yeah, it's got Budweiser vibes, but it's not like It's like Elysse: similar. Shawn: Okay. Elysse: Um, sorry, let's go back to this. The rooster. There's a water droplet in the rooster? Where? Oh, yeah, that's Gavin: cool. But why they're like it wakes you up. Oh, maybe you're not hung over. So it's good for the morning I don't know. I'm reaching on the The rooster yeah Maybe it's supposed to be like, you know, how people call it. [00:10:00] No, I'm not going to do it. Say it, Elysse: say it. Gavin: I thought that as well. Come on. Someone had to say it. It's there. It's right. I thought it. I'm glad you Sebastian: said it. Alright. Elysse: I think I'm the only one who didn't think it. . Let's uh, Hey, let's Sebastian: click another link. I'm ready. Moving on. . Gavin: It's probably intentional. Sebastian: Get some air on Gavin. Yeah. Yeah, we got a fan. Fan out there. Should be noted. We're all in the same space. We're all at the same, we're at the input logic, all at input logic office. All in different areas. Yeah, Elysse: all in different areas. What is this? Um. I don't actually know. Canadian, or yeah. Canadian longevity? Shawn: Okay. Not health? It's sponsored by Wealthsimple and Simple Ventures. Elysse: Live longer every day. A Shawn: unique story written in your data. That freaks me out a little bit, but let's check it out. Sebastian: I just love that Sean hasn't seen any of this. [00:11:00] And he never sees it until I, to be Elysse: fair, I I do these and most of the time, like, I don't know what this is. Look, Shawn: look Elysse: cool. Shawn: We just take the links people share in Slack. Like these are not curated. Elysse: So make actionable health decisions simpler. Just cover insights for over 60 biomarkers. So focus, clear, think sharper, improve digestion. Is this a software? Gavin: I feel like it's data collection. It's like using like your Apple watch or something. Shawn: Um, a little note about the design, I liked how that oval shape, that like pill shaped image was actually a video when we first scrolled down, like you scrolled to it, and then it played. Yeah, check it out. Oh yeah, oh cool. Isn't that neat? Elysse: Yeah, I like that. Shawn: Yeah, nice little details. It's a closed stop. Yeah. Huh. Elysse: Um, I still don't know what, what though. Shawn: There's coaches. Um, Oh, a blood test, you do a blood test, you consult with a coach [00:12:00] and then you make smarter choices. Okay, cool. I want to try this. Sebastian: Yeah, that was my one, that was my one crit for this. Like I looked at this and I absolutely love the design, Sarah from the sands and the pear and the color and everything's really nice, but I didn't get what it was until I had to really figure it out. Elysse: Whoa, that's a big membership. What? I also don't want to give my blood to people other than like the medical people, you know, like I don't want to give a company Like my blood. Is that fair? Shawn: Yeah I think it's fair. That seems totally reasonable They're gonna make Gavin: clones of you. Shawn: No, how emojis in the design like We've been working on a new input site and I was told emojis are over like that I should not be using the emojis I don't know. Gavin: Um, from a non designer perspective, I think it feels familiar and I [00:13:00] do like them. Shawn: Okay. Sebastian: Okay. Shawn: Yeah. Sebastian: I don't mind them in this context, I think, because maybe they're, they're smaller and used in a really kind of supporting way, whereas they're not like front and center. When I first, when I first land on the website kind of thing. Gavin: I think the vibe it gives me is like, I'm gonna be like texting these people too. And maybe that's the interaction you have. That's cool. I like that. Yeah. That's a good call. Yeah. It's like I'm on iMessage with these people. So immediately it felt very, um, yeah, like one-on-One Elysse: mm-Hmm. Sebastian: maybe they didn't want to budget for, for custom icons or something too. I like, I like that it said it's Shawn: free backed by the greats on that hero section right here, backed by the great. And then WellSimple and Simple Ventures, which I assume are basically the same organization. Like, Simple Ventures is probably WellSimple's Ventures arm, backed by the greats. All the greats are here. Everybody made it into this round. Elysse: Not a lot of [00:14:00] info on here, though. Like, there, there's no, like, about page. You just, you sign up. Shawn: I bet you it's like a, um, uh, one of these pre launch landing pages. Like, Is anyone going to put in their credit card and give us their money? Like, Oh, there's a real business here. Gavin: It says get VIP access. Yeah. It says eligible for insurance coverage though. So maybe that's why they jacked the price. Oh, they should make that in bold. Like I only just read it now. Yeah. Yeah. All I saw was the one 59 and big letters and I was like, nah, I'm out. If I was like, Oh, this could be an insurance claim. Shawn: 160 bucks a month eligible for insurance coverage. Gavin: Yeah. Yeah. Mental health. We should actually steal Shawn: a user. We want to try and keep it cheap. Gavin: Well, even if it was cheap, but getting, getting a, as a deduction, like a health claim, that's still pretty cool. Elysse: All right. That's a cool website. Gavin: Yeah. Elysse: Okay. [00:15:00] Um, Sebastian, you shared this last week. Matheson food company. Sebastian: Yeah, this is a Canadian treasure. Maddie Matheson. brand. Elysse: It's a Sebastian: lot of red. Shawn: It's Elysse: a lot of red. Shawn: I love it. It's another one of these throwback brands. Like what era of design do you think this is? Like fifties, forties, earlier thirties? Elysse: I don't know. Shawn: Yeah. It's going way back. Sorry. I cut you off, Sebastian. Sebastian: No, I was just looking up the, uh, I was trying to find the agency that did it. Yeah. Wedge studio. I think they're based out of it. Shawn: Oh, we don't talk about other agencies on the pod. Oh, sorry about that. Edit that out. As if we've totally talked about other agencies. Yeah, I know. I'm just being a dick. Elysse: This could have been a way better picture, I think. This looks icky. Gavin: The, the balsamic? Or the green olive? Yeah, the green olive looks hectic. It's like, um. Elysse: Looks real gross. I mean, I Gavin: would [00:16:00] still Sebastian: eat it, but it looks like puke in a bottle. Elysse: It does. So. Sebastian: Wow. It's interesting, too, because. You know, I've been, I've been following his career since those early Vice videos and he has merch, which is really like, it's very sort of, I would say representative of him and his personality and his kind of, and it's really, I want to say a bit younger, a bit more, um, a bit more fun, but this is really kind of stripped back. And you can, you can sort of tell that, you know, he's trying to appeal to like a wider demographic and the kind of, the kind of people that, you know, might, might find these products in the grocery store. Elysse: Actually gonna pull up his merch. It's a Sebastian: lot safer, but it's also, yeah, that that sort of nostalgic type of type of thing is working really well on this. Cool. I love it. I think it's great. The color's great. Type's nice. Who is this guy? Perfect. Elysse: So Matty's a chef. He's a Canadian chef. who Sebastian: Matty Matheson is? No. Elysse: Yeah, this is Shawn: Oh god. You live under a rock? I live in Nanaimo, pretty close. I live in Nanaimo, I know where [00:17:00] he is. Elysse: He's a a chef. From like the Toronto area, I think, um, he owned a couple of restaurants, I think during his vice days, he had a show where he would go out to like, or no, he would get super drunk and then go to like a hangover spot for something. And it would be like food highlights, but like while he was super wasted. And then at like 28, 29, he had a massive heart attack and needed to like become sober and switch his life around. So, um, Yeah, he's done like a bunch of cool stuff. He's, he's also the producer on the bear and is an actor in it. Yeah. Oh, really cool guy. Shawn: The bear was great show. Elysse: Great show. So you've seen Maddie then he's the handyman with all the tattoos. Cool. Silly handyman. Yeah. Oh, Shawn: no idea. Elysse: Yeah. Um, he has like a pizza spot in Ontario. Um, he's got a new Italian place. Anyways, his merch is really [00:18:00] cool. Sebastian: It's just awesome to see, like, a guy like that have, like, such, such an impact on, like, the food scene. I mean, think about, like, celebrity chefs. Mm hmm. And a lot of times they're super buttoned up, and, and he's just not that. Like, you know, he's, he's himself, like, unapologetically. And, yeah, watch it, watch a couple YouTubes, Sean, you'll pick it up pretty quick. Elysse: Yeah, you'll like it. You'll Shawn: get his vibe pretty quick. Yeah, yeah. Seems cool. It's great. His merch is rad. I want this Rizzo's House of Parm shirt. Elysse: That's a restaurant in Southern Ontario. And his daughter's name is Rizzo. No way. Cool. Yeah. I like the beef barn one. I was Shawn: gonna say, I love the beef barn one. Like, is it a gym or a restaurant? Elysse: I think he called his gym the beef barn. Oh, Shawn: okay. Yeah. Elysse: He's like a bigger, like bigger dude for sure. And I think he like is getting back into shape. And yeah, he calls it the beef barn. Shawn: Nice. Nice. Elysse: Yeah. Good old Matty. Um. [00:19:00] toolfolio. io. What is this? Gavin: It's a portfolio of tools. Okay. Generate imagery with AI. Good. We need more AI. Elysse: We need more AI that comes up later too. Oh, I see. It's got like Gavin: project management, YouTube analytics. Okay. So it's like tooling for like an aggregator for tools. I mean, I just use product hunt for this purpose. Elysse: Yeah. Gavin: Yeah. That's a good point. Is this more curated though? Like product hunt is just like, I find anyone can put stuff Shawn: on there. Yeah. Gavin: Well, and it gets really noisy. Like everybody pats each other on the back if they're like well known, but like, I, I, I kind of like the more indie stuff that is a little more curated sometimes because, uh, you find the gems that, you know, some dork in his basement has been working on forever. Nobody knows, but it's actually brilliant. I bet it's whoever Shawn: founded proof hub. If you can go back to the homepage there. Yeah, probably. It's like all the. You've heard of every name on that list. Can scroll down a little bit, please. The, yeah, right [00:20:00] there. Project management, proof hub, all these other ones. Like, well, first of all, like a loom is not a project management tool. Um, but like, and then there's this proof hub here. We should see who is the founder of proof hub and who is the founder of tool folio. Elysse: Yeah. I don't know. Let me look it up. Oh, Boeing. Um, I Shawn: hate this site so much. Oh wow. I was like, look at this guy. Coming out strong. You know what? It looks a little like Basecamp though. Definitely pulling some Basecamp vibes. Gavin: It makes me think I need to buy a, um, an ebook to like, three installments of like, to make me a better person. I mean that wouldn't hurt. Sebastian: Yeah, you could use it, man. Gavin: I've read all of them. It's not working. Sebastian: My life is a mess. Shawn: I totally just threw my coffee cup at the garbage and missed, and I'm the only one up here. So I essentially just like tossed my coffee across the office. Let's move on. Gavin: [00:21:00] I'm done. Website sucks. Let's get out of this ebook page. Shawn: Stack. Okay. Elysse: Stackbrowser. com. Shawn: Oh, it's a browser. Elysse: It's a browser. Shawn: Sort of like an arc. Okay, okay. I mean, I feel like we're being a little critical, but at the same time, an alternative browser, like, I would have gone anywhere but this neon sort of pinky gradient, because that's so ARC, you know? Like, anywhere. I would have done any other color combo. Um, yeah. Sebastian: Well, yeah, but they want that, right? Gavin: The, like, familiarity, you mean? Sebastian: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. They want to fit in. They want, they want you to feel like it's familiar. Shawn: Hmm. I guess the landing page looks quite different. Yeah, but the browser itself is very, yeah. Yeah, yeah. cards instead of tabs that's interesting that is an interesting idea Gavin: do people really need that like for all the [00:22:00] ARC users I think Sean uses it and the guy Cory at our office also uses it like I mean I just use Safari I'm old and boring but like I don't find it that complicated to like do command one two three or four to switch tabs like what what is this all that oh my god Shawn: I'm a clicky. I use my mouse. I just like click on things, Gavin: but try never to touch my mouse ever. Shawn: I kind of want to try this. Like, I don't love the logo, and I don't love the landing page, but the product looks interesting. Gavin: So, hold on. The, the thing that you just showed, like the collaborative thing, does it add collaboration to stuff that doesn't have built in collaboration? Because that's cool. You know, like notion has built in collaboration, but like if we went over an email together, I don't know why yeah That's a good example. Like that's actually kind of neat. Yeah, this is just for fun. Yeah. Elysse: Do you want to review this email with me? Gavin: For funsies Well, okay, like there's that's a good use case though like so we just hired a new co work manager for a co [00:23:00] work building and sean and i've been trying to like train her on our wording that we use because like People tend when we first hire them to like lean to the more professional and we like a more chill vibe so like Being like, Hey, can we review some of the emails I want to send out? And like going through it like this, I think that would actually be a pretty good use case because right now we just paste back and forth in Slack. Shawn: I I'm interested to talk about that as a tangent for a second. Like do other entrepreneurs, other people who run companies find they have to retrain students on not talking like robots. Gavin: Yeah. And so that like Sebastian did teaching for a while. Like, is that, is that something you guys talk about at all? Like communication. Sebastian: I mean, it's not like there's a class on it, but I think it's definitely mentioned that you should, you know, obviously be yourself. But I remember, you know, early career, just graduating, feeling like you have to be, you know, really buttoned up and dear sir or madame. And it's until you, until you get into the [00:24:00] industry and you figure out that like, you know, people are just people and they want to work with other people that are nice and decent and not, you know, Not robotic, but it's not something we focused on, but I think it hopefully it came through at least in, uh, in some of the material, some of the courses. Elysse: I had to unlearn that because I was coming from like corporate, corporate, corporate, corporate. So like unlearning that's the expectation. Gavin: Like if you were supposed to like, so the corporate world wanted you to be like that. Elysse: Well, I mean, at Disney, yes, for sure. There was like, there's like a benchmark of like, you know, Excellence of like Disney magic, you know, of how you have to talk to people. Um, there's probably someone like watching me and snipering me right now to not say the wrong things. Um, I'm going to have Gavin: to use that wording. I'm going to be like, remove the Disney magic that we don't want that. You know, I'm taking that phrase. Shawn: I like the standard of excellence part. We have, uh, we, we maintain a standard of excellence in all our email communications.[00:25:00] Elysse: Yeah, for sure though, like, because I started in CS and so like communicating with people, uh, there was like a level of, I don't know, just whatever Disney stuff. Um, but yeah, like after that there were most, two of the companies that I worked for after Disney were also owned by the founders of the like Kelowna office, so it kind of carried over. Um, so when I got here, I was like, wait, you guys are okay if I, I'm like a person. Not like a corporate entity. Um, so I think there were like for sure moments where Sean you tap me and you were like, you don't have to sound so like, I don't know, rigid. I didn't realize I Shawn: was talking about you and I. Yeah, it's happened a number of times that we've hired somebody and they've come in and like they send their first email and CC me and I'm like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Well, you have to have a little chat here. Yeah, yeah. Gavin: Move to Disney magic. You don't have to say Elysse: regards and like best, [00:26:00] whatever. Yeah. Gavin: Dear madame. I'm like instant delete. Elysse: Kind of like that. Gavin: I'm just going to start. Sebastian: Somebody wrote me an email that started with dear madame. I would for sure read it. Fuck Gavin: that. I'm going to start with, Hey asshole. See how many Shawn: responses I get. Just because people address their emails to you that way doesn't mean it's a good practice. Gavin: If people started addressing their emails to me like that, I would actually read them. Yeah, Shawn: that's true. Dear Madam. Did I tell you somebody left me a note on my van the other day that started with Dear Asshole? But you read it. You read it. I certainly read it, yeah. Elysse: What did it say? Did you park like an asshole? Shawn: I didn't think I did. I just have a big van. It's not my fault it's a Mercedes. Um, it, uh, they said I was taking up two parking spaces. I'm like, it's just big. It's a bus, basically. Yeah, what are you supposed to do? That's a good Sebastian: band name. Somebody put that in Slack. Dear Asshole. That is a good band [00:27:00] name. Like, who is this? I'm thinking about that. Oh, we're done. Never mind. Oh, no. Do you want to go back? No, it doesn't matter. It's not worth it. I was just gonna say like who is that aesthetic like speaking to like who's the audience for that type of aesthetic and who is looks at that and they're like I mean that's amazing I love where this is going Elysse: I don't know who are those Sebastian: people Elysse: I mean we get to one later that I have the same question for Sean you shared it there's some illos in there that in the email I said will haunt me in my dreams Sebastian: yeah Elysse: um it's a great question I don't know do you think they sat around the table and had like a you know branding and Like strategy conversation about like a target audience for this. Sebastian: I mean, I hope so. I feel Elysse: like Shawn: we're on the record. Whoever this designer is, I appreciate you. You're at a good place in your career. Keep going. You're doing great work. There's some polish here, but it looks a bit junior to me. It looks like they said, we want kind of an arc vibe. Let's make a landing page. That's [00:28:00] sort of like. Follows in the spirit of the ARC brand, but like make it our own. And they chose some kind of unique fonts and made like a logo, uh, that has nothing to do with the product and through gradients on it, you know, like real space X it's a, I just feel like it's, it's, it's executed at like a, at a junior level. Sebastian: I Gavin: would agree. It does look like a template where they swapped the imagery. Shawn: Yeah. The front end seems pretty nice though. Like it's executed well, whoever coded it up, took the design and executed it really well. And, and because I've been really critical, I want to say the product actually looks really interesting. I'm going to try it. Elysse: I do like that. My cursor could be a rocket ship. That's the seller for me. Gavin: Is that a rocket ship? Elysse: Yeah, it's a little rocket ship. And this one's like a little diamond. Yeah, it Gavin: is. I'm like my monitor is so far away. Okay. I do want to try the collab thing. I think it would be interesting. Elysse: Okay, next one. TheGoodLineHeight. [00:29:00] com Did you have something you wanted to say, Sean, before I deleted that? No, I was just Shawn: going to disclaimer myself. Like, I just, um, I always have to pull punches. I can't just make punches, you know? Like, I have to pull punches. I'm too nice at heart. Can you say you're nice? Maybe I'm not nice. Maybe people who say I'm too nice are actually not nice. Anyway. Let's talk about line height. Sebastian: I think we need a whole other podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Elysse: Uh, the good line height simplified type scales by automatically calculating the perfect line height for any text and grid combination. Shawn: The good line height is 40. Nice. I actually, this is super helpful. Whenever I'm writing CSS, I start with the line height multiplier of 1. 5 and I'm like, Ooh, Ooh, that's too much. And then I dial it down a bit. Um, usually it ends up at 1. 2 or 1. 3. Um, baseline grid. I'm gonna be honest, I don't remember what that means. Let's mess with that one. Gavin: It's the grid that it [00:30:00] sits on. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Shawn: Eight, how many pixels is the grid? Ooh, I usually do that, like, the size of the font. What happens if you turn that to 32? Elysse: Can't. Shawn: 16. 16. Interesting. Baseline grid is 16. Okay, I don't even know what that is. Is there a CSS property for that? Gavin: On the topic of, like, CSS or even just fonts in general, I have this, like, I think I might have, like, mild OCD, actually, with this kind of stuff. Um, I can't. I shouldn't say I can't, I won't use numbers that aren't divisible by two. So like two, four, six, eight, 10, 12, that's sort of like when you said 1. 5, that bothers the shit out of me. I I'll do like 10. You know what I mean? Uh, and it's interesting. I want, does anybody else do that? And I think in my brain, it's like, I like the consistency of, because if I'm going to do, 1. 5 Then am I doing another half so I'm doing like one point seven five or [00:31:00] one. That's what I do Shawn: five So I do so I'll be like one point five. Ah, that's too much one point two five Okay, and then sometimes I'll split it even more like one point one two five or one one two five, you know I hate that I guess yeah Sebastian you work a lot with type What do you think of this? Sebastian: Sorry, I just zoned out. That was so boring. I'm just I don't know, man. I draw pictures for a living. I don't do this stuff anymore. Yeah. I don't know. Adjust it till it looks good. Shawn: You need some skateboards with pants, Sebastian. That's your man. Skateboards Elysse: with pants? Shawn: Have you seen Sebastian's work? Let's throw up Sebastian's work on here. Is this okay? I didn't know. Pull, um, what's the best Sebastian of boot. com. I'll send you this Sebastian: down. I'm working on a new site. Shawn: Oh, okay. I mean, is there anything we'll have to dribble? [00:32:00] Elysse: Is it designpickle. Shawn: com? Gavin: No. Elysse: Okay, why does your name come up on that? Gavin: Don't go to Design Pickle. That's his alternate, uh, ego. Did they Sebastian: buy, uh, maybe they bought, uh, they bought ads when you Google my name? That's awesome. Elysse: It was sponsored also. Sebastian: That's amazing. Design Pickle's shit, man. I hate all that stuff. Sorry. I've never even heard of it. Subscription based graphic design. Shawn: Yeah, this is Sebastian. Find the skateboards with pants. Guaranteed there's skateboards with pants on here. Sebastian: Wow, that was early career, Sean. Oh, okay, okay. Shawn: Oh, I like the burger guy. I've tried to branch out a little Sebastian: bit. Elysse: Where's the burger guy? Right there, big orange. Yeah, yeah, Sebastian: yeah. Elysse: Look at that. Oh, yeah, right there. Nice. I dig it. Yeah, that's cool. Um, like no contact skateboards with pants doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So I'd love to see, yeah, we need some context Gavin: here. What a skateboard. The Sebastian: skateboards themselves don't have pants. Oh, it's just pants riding a skateboard. [00:33:00] Shawn: Oh, cool. Yes. See, there's a skateboard. That guy's wearing pants. We're getting there. Yeah. Gavin: I think that's a woman, but okay. Yeah. Elysse: Yeah. These are great. Yeah. Shawn: Yeah. Sebastian: Yeah. A lot of this is just, I mean, a lot of this is experiments and life stuff. It's not, I don't post that much kind of client work here, but every now and again, it makes its way into, into the grid. Elysse: Oh, I think Nick has one of these on his wall. Sebastian: Yeah. I think he bought Shawn: one. Yeah. Yeah. You can't hang around input long without seeing a lot of Sebastian's work. Yeah. It's saturated around here. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Elysse: um, I have seen the skateboards that you did in the office. Those look great. Sebastian: Yeah. That looks sweet. Thanks. Cool. Elysse: Um, well, if someone has the skateboards with pants. Oh, do you do tattoos, too? Sebastian: No, it's just, I just got a, got a little, little DM saying, Hey, can we get these tattoos? And it's like, absolutely. Just send me a photo. That's Elysse: fun. Shawn: At least, at least likes tattoos. Mm hmm. Elysse: I like [00:34:00] tattoos. How Shawn: many tattoos do you have? Is that like a, can you ask that publicly? I don't know. Is that like a private question? I don't know. I don't think so. I don't Elysse: know how to answer that, though. Um. I don't know how to answer that. Cause it's like this whole one and then this whole one and then. Shawn: So you haven't counted I'd be keeping a running count. I'd be like, I'm on tattoo one Oh one. Yeah. I'll flex now. I've got three tattoos, guys. Three. Elysse: I'm going on Saturday to get one. Nice. Gavin: What are you getting? Elysse: I'm getting like a traditional peony. Gavin: Like a flower. Oh, Elysse: cool. Shawn: Sweet. Elysse: Yep. Shawn: I thought you mispronounced pony for a second. Like you're going to get it. I thought Elysse: I mispronounced my Shawn: little pony or Gavin: something. Elysse: I heard Gavin: PNE in my head. And then like in Vancouver, there's the PNE rides. I was like, you're getting like a roller coaster or something. Getting a Elysse: mural of the Vancouver PNE. All great Gavin: tattoo ideas. He's a fan. Shawn: All right. Let's click some more links. I'm tired of looking at this. It's boring. [00:35:00] Jeez. Oh, what happened this morning? We're all a little salty. Was it the walk to the coffee shop? Too much caffeine. Elysse: Um, intercom. com, new age of customer service. Okay. AI first. I Shawn: like the dichotomy here. Oh, here he goes. It being AI first, but then they used real artists, but because they led with AI first, everyone thought it was AI art. So you look at this and you're like, wow, that's a really dope AI painting when really it was like a human painted it, you know? So all the art on their website is human created, but they really had to kind of clear that up with their messaging. Gavin: Mm hmm. Why? Why did they need to clear that up? Shawn: Well, because if I was the artist and I spent hours painting that and somebody said it was AI generated, I'd be kind of pissed. Gavin: Oh, I see. Okay. Elysse: How do we feel about AI versus customer service? Because I have feelings about it. Shawn: I mean, I don't generally like it, but Gavin: Um, it depends on its [00:36:00] ability to serve me. I don't care if it's a human or not. Uh, so what did I say something bad? I don't know. It's just Elysse: the ability for it to serve me. Sounded so like mighty. That's Shawn: how Gavin judges all his relationships. Yeah. On a scale of 1 to 10, does this serve me? Gavin: I meant like serve my purpose, not like, not like I'm its master. You know what I mean? Like, just let it lie. Just leave it. Okay, but like, really, like, if I'm, you know, if I'm on Amazon and I'm like, Hey, I got to do a return and there's like some human on the other end is like, hold on, I'm doing like 20 other messages. I got fucking sit there for five minutes versus AI is like, Hey, tell me the issue. Be like, this is the order. I didn't fucking get it. They're like, cool. You know, send us a picture or something. Boom. Okay. Your orders. Refunded. Took me like five seconds versus waiting for someone. So, like, it's [00:37:00] ability to do the thing I want it to do that I'm contacting in real time. I don't care if it's human or not. Shawn: I, I recently learned, this is a little tangent, that most of those AI service bots are using, like, ChatGPT under the hood. So you can actually learn to code in the Amazon help desk. You can be like, write me a function that does this free and like blow up their chat. G-P-T-A-P-I expenses. So good. Elysse: Okay, so all the art on here was done by artists. Gavin: Yeah, Elysse: not by ai. Cool. Even this like pentagram vibe one . Sebastian: I actually really dig that. Elysse: Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. It is cool. Shawn: It's a super cool aesthetic I think. . Elysse: Yeah. That is cool. Shawn: Mm-Hmm. . I think that's actually Adam though, isn't it? Like it's a i representation of an Adam Sebastian: Yeah. I think, uh, I mean the Este this, the aesthetic of this is just, I think wonderful. I think it's just, I think it's great. The only question mark I [00:38:00] had is that like in, in some of the background images, they use like old masters paintings. Like there's a starry night background. Um, you know the Van Gogh, you can find it somewhere, but. And I saw like a little discussion on, on LinkedIn about it and like, you know, how did they use, how did they get to use this? Why did they use it? And it's because it's in the public domain and anyone is able to use, um, that stuff. So, so yeah, it's kind of an interesting treatment. Yeah. Centuries Elysse: old. Like the, yeah, Sebastian: it's just so old. It's just, uh, The Gavin: whole public domain thing is kind of weird. Like, and everybody was recently talking about the Mickey thing cause it went to public domain, but I didn't realize you could do that with like any art, like a van Gogh and be like, Oh yeah, no, we're just going to like use this on our site now. Cause we can. Sebastian: I don't think it's, it's not any art, but I think it's, it's the ones, I guess, that reach a certain point of age. I'm not sure what the, how, how that kind of works, but, um, but yeah, but [00:39:00] Shawn: I'm curious about that. Like, well, Michael Jackson's music eventually be in the public domain. Like there's like entire estates that like, Elysse: that's privately owned. Gavin: Right. So the difference that has to be public domain, well, wait, but hold on. Like it's not public domain initially. Like I'm assuming Mickey wasn't public domain. No, Shawn: it was privately owned by Disney. So at some point, Elysse: but after like, what is it like 75 years or something, like the IP is no longer. I don't know how it works, but there's something there. Yeah. Shawn: I'm curious about that. Elysse: But with the music, I don't know, because I guess Steamboat Mickey would have been privately owned as well. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how that works. Shawn: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it's Elysse: after like a set amount of years, if something is just becomes a pulp. I don't know. I have no idea. Shawn: I have issues with intercom in general. Sorry, I used to love them, Gavin: but Shawn: I used to love them. I really did. One of my favorite products on the internet for years. Um, and I, Admittedly, I haven't tried it [00:40:00] in two, three years now. Um, but they just like went crazy enterprise with all their product offerings and it rather than one product, it's like many little, they, they took what was one great product and they split it up into like different service offerings. And now you have, you like buy them individually and stuff. And it turns out really expensive. Gavin: Um, Shawn: yeah. So, in my experience, so it's not the first help desk product I reach for anymore. Um, but they were one of the first to do that great little chat widget in the corner. Um, they weren't the first to do the chat widget, they were the first to combine it with user metrics. So you could be like, when a user does this event and this event, show a message, you know? Um, and that was really cool. So I really like this product for many years. We use it on quote robot. We use it on post stacheo. Um, we haven't used it since. Yeah. [00:41:00] Elysse: It is super expensive though. Like if you have an enterprise level account with intercom, it's like. 50 to 60 K a year. Like it's not wild. Shawn: Yeah. Gavin: Yeah. And maybe that was their intention. Like they're, they're looking at their verticals going like, Oh man, do we really want the startups or do we want the enterprise? And obviously the money made sense in that direction, although they would, otherwise they wouldn't have gone there. Shawn: Totally. Yeah. I mean, it's a highly successful business. Um, I like the founder. Isn't he in like an Irish dude? Um, I don't know how to pronounce his name. It's spelled like yo gan or something, isn't it? Is that guy the McCabe guy? Yo. Anyway, um, he's a cool dude. Um, I'm pretty sure they're like either involved with that web summit that happens in Ireland. Um, anyway, they're like, they're doing good stuff and the product is still like super high quality. Um, yeah, inspiring company, but I just like embalmed that it's not something I will pay for anymore. Hmm. Elysse: Yeah, that's fair. Um, okay. [00:42:00] Well, now that we're talking about AI, let's maybe go to this one. Gavin: Contractor shall not make any use of artificial intelligence tools in the creation of the deliverables without the prior written approval of company. What is this? What are we looking at? Sebastian: Alright, some context. I think I shared this. So, Handsome Frank is an illustration agency, uh, representing some of the best illustrators from around the world. And I just posted this on Instagram as a, you know, as a, as an opportunity to sort of share your thoughts and, uh, Yeah, that's it. So I shared it cause I thought, I mean, you guys, we talk about AI a lot and AI and illustration, AI and art and what does it mean for, what does it mean for products and creators and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it's just something that came up that I thought was interesting. Elysse: Our team had some feelings about this. Someone said, don't even use Adobe then. Don't use any products. I Sebastian: mean, I think it's important to note that like without the prior written Of company, right? So, Gavin: yeah. Mm-Hmm. . Sebastian: Um, it's [00:43:00] not that they're saying that, you know, no AI can be used. It's that, just make sure you clear it with us before you Shawn: Yeah. And I think that's totally fine. Like, yeah, absolutely. The, um, it's a little more interesting with development. Like I see it in design. If you specify like, okay, you can use AI for mood boarding, or you can use it for inspiration, or you can use it for like, staging characters, um, to get like a. a scene, you know, but you can't use it for the final output. Um, or what percentage of it could be used in the final output. It's interesting to specify those things. If you're not expecting the designer to just like wholesale using AI image, you know, um, in development, it's interesting because like, if a developer isn't using AI at this point to speed them up, I'm like, are you wasting time, you know, like Googling and looking on stack overflow. Well, even Gavin: the color combos, like I see, I've seen someone use, like, I think maybe it was Illustrator or something, but like, The [00:44:00] vectors were there, and you can quick, like, run AI, and have it, like, try new color combos, and fill it in, which normally you'd have to do manually, and you, like, you're doing it in seconds, and, like, iterating on just, like, different palettes, which is super interesting, and, like, that could just be a huge waste of time, like, you could do it in five minutes instead of an hour, and, like, sure, it's AI, but, like, Hey, I'm just swapping colors here. Like I've still done the art, like, where, where is the line there? It's like, Hey, can I use, can I use my program to swap colors easily? Is it, are you guys cool with that? I don't know. Like there's, there's a gray area there. That seems ridiculous. Elysse: Well, wasn't there like a story, Sean, which I think Sebastian, you're also a part of in some way, if I remember correctly, but there was like a local shop that was getting like posters done and they, like the artists used AI for it without. It was the city. It Shawn: was actually, well, sorry. It wasn't the city. It was like the. One of these tourism associations associated with the city Gavin: and here in Shawn: Nanaimo. I was trying not to name names, but sure. Sebastian: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, [00:45:00] I can speak to this. So what happened is there's just a local organization was putting together this like, you know, support local event and the illustration that they were using was AI generated. So an AI generated illustration of Nanaimo with the main headline that says support local. So, you know, I fired a couple of men, a couple, uh, a couple of stories, you know, just, just to kind of say like, this is, uh, this is not, this is not how we should be using AI, especially not in this context. This is so messed up. Plus it's very poorly, uh, rendered and. And yeah, and I mean, I had some, some discussions with some people over there and just kind of giving my, giving my opinion about, you know, when these things should be used, how they should be used, and, uh, when is a terrible use for them, and that would be that, uh, an absolutely awful use of an AI generated image to, uh, um, yeah, to say something in that [00:46:00] context, but I think AI I just wanted Shawn: to play the devil's advocate. Yeah. Um, so like in that context, I believe that is a non, a not for profit org, you know, or, or like, I mean, the, the city that's interesting is a municipality considered not for profit. It wasn't the municipality, but anyways, their mandate is to improve business in the downtown core. Um, they don't have limitless cash. So, um, they hired a local. designer who, um, I mean, I don't think that the customer was aware it was going to be AI generated or maybe they were, that's an interesting topic of conversation. Um, but like if they didn't have the budget to pay a local illustrator, which direction do you think they should have gone? Like maybe they just use a photo instead. Exactly. Yeah. Sebastian: Shoot a photo. Um, yeah, just use photography, especially in [00:47:00] something like that, that doesn't need to be. I would argue sort of, you know, you're not producing anything new by, by using an illustration in that way. So using a photograph, but most artist illustrators would be very open to using an existing piece of work for that context even. So like, even like a licensing thing, it doesn't cost that much money too. And if it's for a not for profit used in, You know, only in Nanaimo for a period of, you know, everything we do with, with illustration licensing is, is kind of, you know, determined on how many eyeballs are on it. Where is it? So where's it seen? Uh, what kind of media is, is it on, you know, digital, is it print, all that kind of stuff and how long. So something like that. I mean, honestly, I would have, if they would have, if they would ask me, for example, I would have let them use whatever they wanted. free of charge, you know, they're, they're not for profit, put my name in the corner. Um, but that's about it because I believe in shopping local. I believe in, you [00:48:00] know, using my work in that kind of way to, um, to, you know, to enhance downtown Nanaimo and, you know, in a, in a, in a marketing piece. But so I, I, and I understand that, like, I don't think anyone really noticed that it was an AI generated image except me until, until I opened my mouth and started posting it and stuff. And. So, I mean, I'm, I'm very aware that like, this is a really, you know, tiny issue and, you know, they didn't, uh, they didn't mean to. You know, hurt anyone by doing this, but Gavin: still, yeah. Where's the art? I kind of want to see this piece. Like, is it on their Elysse: Instagram? Sebastian: It's, it's not worth it. Yeah. It's just move on. It's just move on. Oh, Gavin: I'm more, but people watching it are probably like, what does it look like? I want to see what it looks like. I mean, it's just, just Shawn: imagine you say like generate a downtown cityscape, but you know, in mid journey, boom, that's exactly what it was, you know? And they just used it in the background of a poster. Gavin: Oh, I see. That's, that's why a photo could have worked. People Shawn: probably thought nothing of it, you know, until Sebastian came along and made a big stink [00:49:00] about it and offended a bunch of people. So good on you, man. Sebastian: That's what I do. Shawn: That's why we have you on the pod. Sebastian: It's cause I care. You know, that's all it is. Yeah. Yeah. Elysse: Um, Sean, you shared this. I don't love it. I don't Sebastian: even want to scroll, man. I don't want to scroll. I actually Shawn: really like it, but that's fine. It's for you, Gavin. It's a, it's a full stack web framework. You're the target demographic. Elysse: Okay. So it's enhanced. dev. I just don't know what they were thinking with like some of the little, like these, what, like, uh, is it a sheep with wings? I love that. Gavin: I don't know what it is. You know what I love about it is it's the opposite of fucking for sell websites because everybody has those, you know, it's like I'm at a dev site and this screams like, Hey, we're different. Check this out. Not like here's my, my hero page. And like [00:50:00] the example text in our editor, that'll make you faster. I don't kill me now. Shawn: Yep. Yeah. Anyway, it's, um, I found it. I think I was looking into web assembly stuff and they have this enhanced wasm. And, uh, I was like, Oh, an alternative to like the world is react is everywhere now. And Gavin's been playing with HTMX, um, me too. It's fun. It's cool. It's like refreshingly simple compared to next JS. Um, I saw this and I shared it into our code channel so that the, the other developers on the team can tear me apart. Gavin: Yeah, I get a lot of, a lot of heat from the rest of everybody, but I'm not a React fan, never have been, never will be. Like it's just so cute. I know, it's adorable. I just want to snuggle it and program some stuff. Elysse: It's just not like, I don't know. It's just so cute. Shawn: What does the rewind button do? Elysse: I think it just brought him back up the [00:51:00] rainbow, which is never going to say Shawn: that's hilarious. Oh yeah, there he goes. Look at him go. He's stoked, Gavin: man. That's me when I'm on, I'm using this framework. Kind of looks like you. I need the ears. Shawn: Yeah. So let's look at this code for a second. This looks like a class based thing. I don't love that. Gavin: Yeah. Yeah. And it looks like component based wrapped in, um, it looks very reactive. It looks like react. I'm out. I'm an unhappy flying. Oh, is it telling you what you can hold Sebastian: for a second? All your listeners just close. Shawn: Is this telling you what you can ditch though? It says ditch throbbers and loading screens by removing framework, bloat and authoring only code you need. So is this an example of the code you need, or is this an example of the old bloated way? Gavin: This actually looks like the old bloated way. It does. Yeah. Shawn: So, hopefully that's not the production example. Don't you want a tattoo of that, [00:52:00] Elise? That little, I don't know what it is. Elysse: I mean, at this point I would probably get a tattoo of almost anything. Um, it's, it's fine. Shawn: Is it the creature off the NeverEnding Story? It kind of looks like Elysse: Falcor, Shawn: the big doggy thing. Elysse: Falcor? Shawn: No, no. Oh, no way. Anyway, I'm pulling Elysse: up Falkor just so that. Shawn: The website is very magical with these mythical creatures, but the logo is very like, Gavin: yeah, they just missed the mark. Shawn: Oh, wow. Okay. No, I totally. Yeah. Gavin: Yeah. It could be that if it was the baby version, it's like the little, you know, when it's an infant, Shawn: floppy ears. Yeah. Elysse: Is Falkor, he was a dragon, right? He wasn't a, is he like a dog dragon? Do we know what Falkor was? A Gavin: fuzzy dog dragon? Yeah, I mean, he's flying. Hmm. This movie Elysse: has so many sad memories. Wasn't there that [00:53:00] the horse that gets stuck in the quicksand and then every kid was like quicksand so scary. Shawn: Was, was that that movie or was that the princess bride? Elysse: No, that was that. Oh, okay. The princess bride has the, the, what are the rats called? The R O U S S. Shawn: Oh, in the swamps. Unusual size. Yeah. Yeah. Elysse: Um, yeah, I mean, Shawn: cool. I'm in, if anyone's played with this on listening to the podcast, any of you, 20 people, um, definitely hit us up in the comments. I'm curious, like, what is this framework like? Gavin: Yeah. I might give it a go and then I'll give you a drop next, uh, next recording. My unfiltered opinion. I usually filter my opinions. Shawn: Uh, yeah. Is that true? Get Butler. Elysse: Get Butler. com. Gavin: Again, I mean, I know what it is. It's a version control. What do I need a Butler for? [00:54:00] I don't understand what this is. Elysse: I mean, if AI is serving you, Gavin: I don't feel very served here. This is too much clicking. A git client for simultaneous branches on top of your existing workflow. Oh, goody. So like now you want me to go outside of my terminal and fucking click stuff just to do git commences is stupid. Shawn: I mean, it looks like maybe git for people like me who get confused in the CLI. It's like, Oh, I'm in the middle of a rebase and something went wrong. Like, what do I do? Okay. Sebastian: I have no idea what you just said, but I'm just, yes. Yeah, me too. Me too. Gavin: Yeah. Version control is just like a snapshot of the work that you're doing. You can merge it into, think of branches like folders, like, Oh, move this piece that merge those pieces of code together. And yeah, normally you do it via like the command line or, or like a text base interface, cause you're a developer. I don't know about the, yeah, I [00:55:00] don't Shawn: understand what problem they're solving. Like I don't either. It must be something to do with merge conflicts. Um, multiple PRS. Yeah. I don't really know. Why? Interesting. Why should I use Git Butler? Multiple Gavin: branches from it. Like, Git Butler allows you to organize your committed and uncommitted work in a way that you can really, or that you can easily create multiple branches? I can already do that. Yeah, interesting. Shawn: The, um, I'm all for new developer tools. So like, hooray for this team making a new developer tool. And I think it's generally good. Cool. I'm sure people really love this. I just don't see what it actually does for me. Gavin: I can see if you're very visual, uh, and don't like the CLI. That's fair for sure. Shawn: Oh, so is it just like a WYSIWYG interface for Git? Maybe that's what it is. Just like a downloadable. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, that's cool. If you don't want to use [00:56:00] the command line. Yeah. Elysse: I do think that these two testimonials are silly. The design looks gorgeous. This is really cool. It doesn't even say what it's getting pulled from anywhere. Gavin: Yeah, this is really cool. Okay. Back to back to the command line. Thanks for, can we talk about the design for a second though? I actually really like it. Um, yeah, I really like this. The font is neat. Um, and the, uh, the, what is that font? Like the blocky font you designers know what that is where it says like quick commits, what is that? Like a, like a Shawn: monospace. Gavin: Yeah. I really like the blend of like a non monospace makes it feel more technical. Cool. Sebastian: Yeah, I think you mean typeface. Gavin: Typeface. Sorry, I don't, I don't know the terms. , I'm just joking. . Elysse: Do we, I hate people like that. Prefer the flying sheep or the little Butler guy. Gavin: Oh, Sebastian: oh, absolutely. This one. Gavin: Yeah. I think the Butler feels a little more, uh. Will serve me well. Oh, geez. Sebastian: He's Shawn: [00:57:00] back there. Oh, so good. What a zinger. Oh, nice. Okay, let's move on. I'm done here. That's it. That's all. Oh, that's all the links? I mean, we Elysse: could end on, I didn't open, um, Let's actually pull this up and dribble. Go through the dribble. Gavin: Oh, here we go. Shawn: Didn't we do this? I thought we did this. Gavin: Oh, we're on, we're on Sebastian's Instagram. Shawn: Well, Sebastian: we don't have to spend more time on my work. Gavin: Well, we could pick it apart. It was Sebastian: Sean's work. Gavin: No, it's Sean's Elysse: work. I can bring up that golf website, Sean. Gavin: No. Oh Shawn: yes. Let's do that. Yeah. Let's shout out golf group manager. Elysse: Oh, Sean's frozen. Gavin: Alright, we'll keep moving on. I really like the, uh, the skateboard tree guy. Sebastian, when you do some of this art, like, do you just come up with the ideas, or do you look out the window and have inspiration? Like, I've always wanted to [00:58:00] be good at doodling, and I've picked up a doodle notebook and sketched before, and then I started using my iPad, and then, I find I just draw the same shit. Like I've drawn so many coffee cups and so many doughnuts and so many pizzas slices with cheese dripping. And then I'm kind of like, okay, I, I got nothing. And then I look at yours and even stuff like just a boxing glove with a pow or like, I don't know, a little flint. I don't know. Like, how do you, you know what I mean? Where do you get this stuff from? Sebastian: I mean, I think it kind of depends. Like some of this stuff is, is client work where there's, there's a brief, We try to communicate something like the boxing glove, for example, for an example is from an album artwork for this band. So I sort of said like, um, let's just draw a bunch of stuff and tell me some of the themes that are in your album. And they can kind of give me a list of themes and then I'll start to kind of draw and generate ideas that way. Um, I think with personal work, it's a bit different. It's usually, it usually just comes like as an extension [00:59:00] of, of the things I think about or whatever I'm into. That's why they see a lot of skateboarding stuff and. You know, I mean, I have young kids, so we're, we're reading a lot of kids books and I think some of that comes in and inform some of my, some of my work as well. And, and you know, other stuff I'll, you know, I'll get inspiration from some things online. I like Pinterest actually a lot strangely cause it's just such a smattering of like random stuff, you know what I mean? And I love, I love that you just, when you open it, you're scrolling down and then it's just so, Disconnected and so it'll just kind of you know spur some spur some ideas and do some sketching and kind of go from there So it kind of depends. There's a couple different a couple different ways depending on what the project is or what the What the what the brief says and what the clients looking for? So Gavin: yeah, Elysse: this this one Sebastian: says Gavin: that is by far my favorite that thing is so dope. I would get that tattooed Yeah, yeah percent. Sebastian: Yeah, that's for a bike shop in some nonprofit in Reno, Nevada called cool Yeah. Cool. And they just said, we like this kind of, we [01:00:00] like an edgier type of thing. And so I was like, all right, well let's just, uh, let's do it. The one before it is like the, the pink one, not that one. I don't know why I draw that kind of stuff, but Gavin: I like it. Elysse: Yeah. This is cool. Yeah. Whole pizza bike. Shawn: Yeah. So a note on the pizza bike, um, when you had your office. Uh, actually, no, this is going back to your house. Like in the, um, I was going to say in the ghetto there in the South end, little house where you and Maxine had your offices next to each other. You had a board. Was it a whiteboard? And you had about 30 nouns on the whiteboard. Bike, pizza, pants, skateboard, apple, worm. And there was just like all these nouns. And like, I was like, what is this dude? He was like, Oh, and I need to doodle something. I'll pick two words and I'll combine them. You know, that's how you get a pizza bike [01:01:00] or like a monster flower, you know? Um, and I've, I still use that if I doodle, I'll be like, give me some random words to mess with. Elysse: Yeah, Sebastian: that's Elysse: sweet. Sebastian: Yeah. That's really good for trying to come up with new concepts and like, you know, more kind of conceptual work and seeing how I still do that for some of some projects too, you make big lists about. Um, you know, whatever, whatever you're trying to, whatever nouns have anything to do with the project you're working on, and then see if you can combine them in interesting ways and, uh, new sort of juxtaposition and things like that. So, yeah, I love that you remembered that. I totally forgot about that. Gavin: As a, um, as someone who wants to like do this stuff more, what would you tell some, like, not as a professional, like, I, I like the idea of, for example, coming up with my own. Not genre or style, I'm not quite sure what to call it, but like, you know, like a t shirt or something that I want to sell on Etsy, but just like in a, uh, some quirky little guy that says like something funny, but in, in like my own [01:02:00] vibe. What would you tell someone that wants to do that as like a hobby, like to, to, um, to develop that? Like what would, what would be your advice, I guess? Sebastian: I mean, I think you need to be. comfortable with making a lot of work. I think there's no shortcuts. You just have to produce a lot of things and a lot of bad things until you can make good things. Um, but I would say also experimentation is huge. It's been huge for, it's been like the thread through my career. I, I always just be trying new things because I like to, but I think you can start by, You know, pick a, pick a group of three to five artists whose, whose work resonates with you and try to identify why and pull little pieces from each of their, each of their work. So maybe you take an eyeball over here, you take a color palette over here, you take, um, you know, you take the way that the [01:03:00] texture from an artist and you kind of mash it all together. and into your own, your own tastes and your own subject matter, whatever you're interested in. And by doing that, you know, repetitively and, and, and consistently, I think you'll start to develop your own style pretty quickly in your own kind of voice as a, as an illustrator, as a, as an artist. Um, so it's about, I mean, there's that, uh, steel, like an artist, right? Where you, Where you take all these little bits and you sort of, you know, filter it through your own artistic lens And that's how you kind of develop your style, but there's no shortcuts like it took me like I have over a Thousand pieces of personal work on dribble where I've just and I've just been going and going and going and I like it It's it's fun. It's my career, but it's also It's also fun for me. So Thankfully, it's gotten me to a place now that I feel pretty comfortable in the stuff that I do, and I get, uh, enough, you know, commissions and things to make a living doing this stuff, so it's great. Shawn: As, [01:04:00] as, uh, as a friend who's been watching you for a number of years, um, one of the things that you told me early on, I'm going to say this to the melody of Dr. Dre, it was, uh, Just doodle every day. Um, that's a reference to our coffee walk this morning, but, um, the, uh, It took about a year of you doodling every day. Like, I remember you were like more of a communications graphic designer. And, uh, in the early days and you were like, I'm just going to doodle every day and hopefully people start hiring me for this kind of work. It took about a year before you were like, I'm an illustrator, you know, like, um, It took longer than that. Yeah. Well, I mean, before I started noticing, like, you're getting paid to doodle skateboards with pants, you know? Yeah, Sebastian: totally. Yeah, my, my whole, my whole business plan was just, I want people to pay me to draw whatever I want. Gavin: Nice. Sebastian: That's been like my, my guiding, you [01:05:00] know, goal. And, and it's, it happens, you know, fair, somewhat often, which is amazing. And it's, you know, it's kind of crazy, but, um, like I said, there's just, there's, there's no shortcuts. You have to just make a ton of work and you have to experiment and you have to constantly, you know, have the kind of. The need and the want to evolve yourself and your work and, and feel comfortable enough that you can put it out there. Like, I go back through some of this work sometimes, and there's just garbage. There's just terribly, terribly executed, like not smart or conceptual or particularly interesting, but, you know, that piece of bad work led me to a bit better work. Piece of work led me to a bit better. And it's just, it's a progression. So Gavin: yeah, that evolution, I think like, I mean, I guess you have a bit of a designer background. I don't know your education, but like, if you look through some of these Sebastian: degrees in graphic design, Gavin, okay. I actually didn't know. Yeah, I do.[01:06:00] It was for teaching. I use for teaching. I, I had to do it, Gavin: but like, you can tell there's obviously. Like that backing and some color theory and stuff. Cause if you go through some of these doodles, like if you scroll down, Elise, them in, um, in isolation, like those ones are very specific. But if you go down to like the grouped ones, them by themselves could seem like, for example, uh, let me see. Like some of them could be seen as like, Oh, that's not a very good doodle by itself. You know what I mean? No, no, like I'm not, I'm not trying to, you know what I mean? Um, but like, because of the color combo and all the other stuff that goes together, gives it like such a vibe. Um, it's just really interesting that like that confidence to pull it off is like, is part of it. Right? Like there, that, um, Like that yellow background with the pink guys. Right? Like, I don't know, just the, whatever the, the bird or something, would you be like, okay, I could draw that, but [01:07:00] it's more the vibe of the whole picture, the color palette, the, um, I don't know what I'm getting at there, but there's something there, or even like the bottom, right. That, that car. Like, I could draw that car, but I wouldn't think of putting all the other stuff at different layers with, like, that pastel y color. It almost tells a story, so it's more than just drawing a fucking car. It's, it's like, yeah. Anyway. I don't know what I'm trying to say, but there's, there's an experience there you can tell that if I were to try to draw the same picture, it would look like shit, even though I might be able to draw that car. But it just looks worse, somehow. Sebastian: Yeah. I, I, I mean, I really like the kind of randomness of things. You know, I'd like, I like that things are smushed together that have no real connection beyond it fits in that space. Um, and then that's what, and that's what a lot of this stuff is. And you know, the yellow one, for example, you were talking about, those were all leftovers from a really amazing. packaging project that I [01:08:00] had that never saw the light of day, but they were supposed to go on like a kid's milk project. Gavin: Oh, cool. Sebastian: Um, so our kid's milk packaging that was supposed to be in wall, I assume probably, I think I NDA, NDA this, but, um, it's supposed to be in Walmart. It was supposed to be everywhere and it just, it got kibosh, but I did all these stuff and about 25 illustrations for the packaging. And so those were all leftovers of that, of that project, um, but it was very random. It was, it was supposed to be random. It was supposed to be like somebody kind of like doodling in their, in their, in their notebook kind of thing. And to kind of capture that kind of randomness. So, um, yeah, and I think with, with this and like producing and like artwork and in putting it on the internet, you have to be, you have to be able to disconnect from it, you know, kind of like, um, Emotionally, I guess you have to be able to make something and be like, you know, this is just out there. This is the Internet's problem now. It's it's it's not a reflection of me [01:09:00] personally. And that was the thing that I had to, you know, remind students a lot is that the things that you make, um, they can be. Total trash. And it doesn't mean that you're trash. It just means the thing you made is trash. And so the, the, the, the, the earlier, the sooner that you can disconnect yourself like personally, and you're, you're, you're emotionally from the things that you make, the better off you'll be on this career because, you know, I still get emails from some clients that are like, What is this? This is, this is, this is not it. This, this is terrible. And, and it's fine. I don't care. Like it's just, you know, it, cause it's just something I made. It's a piece of work. It's not a reflection of me. And you know, it's, it's, it's, I just missed the mark and we all miss the mark sometimes. And that's just the way it is. So, um, yeah, but I think through, through making all that, through making such a large kind of body of work and stuff, you, you, you force yourself to kind of. Disconnect from it and I'll get to a point with personal work where I'm so fed up and like every time I'm going in There I'm changing colors and I'm tweaking things a little bit and then [01:10:00] I'll just put it on the internet And that's my way of like disconnecting from it, you know And I can just file it away somewhere on Dropbox and it's no longer my problem and I can move on to the next thing And that's been kind of like, it's almost kind of like therapy in a way, like it's, that's kind of like your release, that's kind of the part that you're kind of moving on from this, from this, you know, this, this torment. Yeah, calling something done Gavin: is, is difficult, right? It's like being able to, to put it out there and be like, okay, I'm ready to move on. It's so easy to like, Keep iterating. We see this with clients all the time. Like a part of like one of our goals or core values is like getting, getting clients to launch because they get stuck in that, right? They're the fear of putting it out there. They're like, no, let's iterate more. Let's iterate more. It's like, you need to release this thing. You know what I mean? And like, stop fearing the outcome. It's, it's time to let it fly, you know? And it takes a lot of like, I don't know, guts and effort and yeah. Sebastian: Yeah, click on that sort of, sorry, click, click on the brown, the brown sort, brown with top middle one, dude. Yeah, [01:11:00] this little, this guy poking out of the hole with his two middle fingers in the air, it's probably one of my favorite things I've ever drawn and that was in, I was in this meeting with some, some, some pretty, pretty big wigs for that milk packaging project and that came on screen and you know, we're like, oh, maybe like we could do this, you know, this kind of thing and like the guy, the, the. This boss, whatever, at the, at the, at the big company. It was like, maybe not this kind of thing. I don't think that's the right tone. And I was just started cracking up. Cause I was like, I've never seen like a two guy with two middle fingers in like a, in like a zoom call. Like all these suits, that was great. It's just like, perfect. This is that, that's when I knew that I was in the right career. Yeah. This is, this is the path for me. Shawn: That's so good. So that's so good. Yeah. We should get stickers of that and sticker bomb. Gavin: Yeah, we should, I'm, I'm so into that. We're going to need the, uh, the vector file for that. At Shawn: least it's trying to call time. No, no, Elysse: no, no. I actually wanted to also, we, I think this has [01:12:00] happened probably more times than I think we care to, not that it's a bad thing, I'm just going to get to the point, um, we use Sebastian a lot for our merch as well. I don't think. We, he lo I don't know. Do we love that? Do we, do you love, do we, do you like getting T-shirts and totes to your house to , but you've done a lot of our merch Sebastian: being the, the shipper and receiver and all that kind of stuff. Elysse: One of my favorite conversations on Slack was you were doing our merch last year for our summer swag and it was like this sweet design and we had like a shirt for it and it was black and Sean just like comes in there and he's like. Hear me out, what if we get these black shirts and we bleach all of them? And Sebastian was like, no, no, absolutely not. Sebastian: No. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. No, I, I, I do like doing that kind of stuff. I do every now and again. Um, like I had a, we had a little store here in Nanaimo for a while and like, just, just by, you know, by virtue of having like a [01:13:00] retail space like that, you're gonna do a lot of those kind of jobs. Yeah. So I like doing it every now and again and. Um, but, uh, yeah, sometimes you just have to put your foot down when Sean throws some weird ideas at you. Shawn: Um, you do have a knack for picking merch. Like good quality t shirts, tote bags, um, hats. Sebastian: You're just trying to guilt me into doing it again, aren't you? Shawn: No, no. I'm buttering you up a really natural Sebastian: talent for picking. But we really do need Shawn: our summer merch soon. Um, I have noticed Elysse: that you haven't been active in our swag channel. I'll post something and it's like, Sebastian: I don't even know why I'm in there. You're the swag guy. You're the swag Shawn: guy. Yeah. Nope. Sebastian: I haven't invoiced in a long Shawn: time. Now, I mean, I feel like we're, um, Nick and Lula have done a great job with the swag recently as well. Um, so you are missed Sebastian, but we'll be okay. Elysse: Yeah. We'll get you a nice package this year. And you can tell your family that [01:14:00] there's no more packages. Just mysteriously right. Tell my Sebastian: very patient wife. Yes. Elysse: Um, that's it. Yeah. Shall we wrap? Okay. Shawn: This was super fun, Sebastian. I mean, I see your work all the time too much, maybe. No. And, uh, it's, uh, in this context, having you speak over it and going through it together, like this has been super inspiring for me. I got a notebook right here. Like, I feel like I want to hang up and doodle for real. Yeah. Same here. I want to pull Gavin: up my iPad and like start doodling some shit. Sebastian: Nice. Cool. Thanks for having me guys. That was fun. Thanks for coming. That was great. Thanks. Elysse: Um, all right. When you hang up, Gavin: hang around for a bit. Elysse: Okay. Don't, don't leave yet. Okay. Okay. Bye. Gavin: Bye.