Tooting Your Horn x Chillin Productions!

There are so many factors that makes for a successful and renown artist: timing, subject matter, connections, art competitions, peers, subjective judgment, talent, and even luck. As artists we are quick to attribute our success to any of the factors accept ourselves. We are afraid to toot our own horn and take credit for all the hard work, time, energy and money we put into our work. We are afraid of being judged as "egotistical."

On the other extreme, we have artists who are quick to butt into every conversation and talk about what they did, and how great they are, and how much they contributed to the project. They ramble on and on about how awesome they are without ever stopping to take a breath or ask you your opinion and just start listing off names of other established artists who they know. Totally obnoxious and annoying.

However, there is a happy medium between being too timid and being an egotistical jerkwad. After all, in the art field, it often necessary to toot our own horn. But there is a difference between bragging (the good kind) and being an asshat. Because what we create is very personal and a reflection of what is in our imagination, we are often afraid to really talk about our own work as in essence we're talking about ourselves. However, we highly encourage you talking about your own work, but you can't get lost in your own ego.

That said, time for some cheerful bragging: So about 5-6 years ago, Monkey got invited out into the city with some friends who had heard about this event at some nightclub where there were hundreds of artists, fashion designers, with live painting and music. Although he's typically not the nightclub type of guy, because it was art, he was in. It was a huge venue with tons of awesome art, cool music, and it was a lot of fun! Even back then (this was waaay before art school, mind you), Monkey was inspired.

Fast forward a few years. Monkey hears about Chillin' Productions, and realizes that this is the VERY SAME event (well, different artists and such, but you get the idea) that he had been to so many years ago. He contacts the organizer, shows the Monkey + Seal portfolio, and although we can't make it into the next show due to a schedule conflict, we're in with the organizer, and about four months later, we're signed up for the Holiday Show!

So, after a few years of waiting, this Saturday, Monkey and Seal's art will be displayed at the Chillin’ Productions' annual Holiday show! Woot!

Over 200 Painters/Photographers
80 fashion Designers
Video Installations

Live Painting by:
Rachel Znerold
Jasper Thomas
Daryoush Bahar (www.Atussa.com)

Live Music and DJ.

When: Saturday, December 4, 2010
8:00pm-2:00am

Where: Mezzanine
444 Jessie Street, SF CA 94103
www.mezzaninesf.com
$10 at the door
Must be 21 + ID

For more details go to
www.chillinproductions.com
www.mezzaninesf.com

It should be a pretty awesome show, and we're definitely looking forward to checking out all the other awesome art and enjoying some drinks, good music, and good people. We hope to see you there!

Giving Thanks

While we're not huge fans of the traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner (Monkey's vegan and Seal's vegetarian), we do appreciate the holiday as a chance to reflect on all the things that we have to be thankful for.

Whether it's a nice and cozy (although sometimes cluttered) Monkey + Seal cave to live/paint in, or the fact that we get paid to be creative, Monkey + Seal both have a lot to be thankful for. We're definitely thankful that we have the privilege of being able to keep up this blog, and that we have a super group of readers out there who support us. Thus, as a little thank you, we're going to offer 20% off everything in our Etsy store from today (Wednesday, 12am PST) to Friday the 26th, 11:59 PST. When you check out, use the coupon code: "tofurkey" to get your discount!

While Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on all the things in life that we generally take for granted, we believe that there should be more Thanksgivings - maybe one every month! We find it's always a good idea to reflect once and a while to put things in perspective, especially when things are looking tough. Sure, we might not have that "perfect" art job, or we might be having a creative block where weren't not even making art, but at least we have a roof over our heads, food in our tummies, and the privilege of being able to connect to others via the internet.

So take the time to give thanks for all the awesomeness in your life, and we'd like to thank you, our readers, our customers, and our friends and family for supporting our creative endeavors and helping us thrive!

Empire Building Kit Review

So we already reviewed Chris Guillebeau's Empire Building Kit for his 2nd 24-hour launch, but he's opening it up for sale again - but this time it'll stay open! So you may be asking "why even review this again if I can sign up whenever I want?" The answer is that if you buy it on Wednesday the 16th, when it goes on sale, you'll get a free copy of Chris' "Backyard Biz Profits," which focuses on applying his empire building strategies on local markets. Not bad, eh?

And if you were too lazy to go click on the review, we'll sum it up again for you:
Basically, if you want to start up your own business, you need this guide.

Why?
- 365 emails (one per day!!!!) of reviews, hints, tips, action plans, and more awesomeness that'll inspire you to stay active and keep on keeping on
- interviews with other business owners that are making at least $50k a year with less than 3 employees
-answers to specific questions like "if you're starting an ebook business, how many people on my list do I need before I should start releasing new books?" or "what email service do you use to manage your email list and why?" or "how do I find my market?"
-there are bonuses up the wazzooo! Extra interviews from his other projects, and the seriously, the in-depth interviews with some awesome, awesome people.

If you have any questions, feel free to email us (at info@monkeyandseal.com) and we'll give you our honest opinion on the matter and answer as much as possible. We were a bit hesitant, but really, $149 (there's also more stuff if you get the $249 or $449) is totally worth it if you are serious about starting up your own empire. $149 can be made up by skipping your morning coffee once every three days. $149 can be made up by cooking instead of eating out (in San Francisco) 15 times. In our minds, it's a small, small price to pay to get the knowledge and key skills needed to take your game to the next level.

If anything, we look forward to 1am, as that's around when Chris sends out our next email. We signed up for the first go-around, and we're on day 68, and what we've got so far is well worth $149. It's actually a bit shocking to think that we still have almost 300!!! more emails to go.

Anyway, we believe so strongly in Chris' product that, even though we're part of his affiliate team, we highly encourage you to go pick it up even if you don't go through our affiliate link.

If you want to go check it out, no strings attached (ie: the non affiliate link) after 9am PST on Wednesday, you can go check it out at: http://unconventionalguides.com/. No hard feelings, promise. However, if you'd like to help support us along with Chris, our affiliate link is here: http://unconventionalguides.com/cmd.php?Clk=3725273, which we would super appreciate you clicking on, but either way, we highly recommend you checking it out!

I hope you jump on this offer now (it's your last chance to pick up his free guide on local markets (later to be sold at $49), but if it takes you a while to digest/save up/etc., take your time. Like we said, if you have questions, email us at info@monkeyandseal.com or leave your question in the comments and we'll do our best to answer you quickly. Huzzah!

Printing your promtional materials

Hi everyone! Monkey, after ordering samples and actually using some of these services, has put together a review of large printers in case you are interested in printing business cards and postcards. We haven't really looked into posters, or other printed materials, and we're comparing based on business card prices and postcard prices. Originally made for the SF Etsy Street Team, we decided to share it with you!

-www.PSPrint.com has a good selection of cardstocks, and are cool because you can order small quantities (like just 50) while most other printers start at around 100 or even 500. They also have rush options for same-day printing (although they ship out the next business day), and you can pick it up in Oakland. Their most expensive quantity/time frame (only 50 cards, same day printing) you're looking at 42 cents per card, and if you order 500 cards with a 3-day turnaround, it drops to 7.5 cents per card. We can't stick with a design long enough, but if you're in an identity for the long term, you can get 10,000 cards printed the same day for only 2.7 cents per card. They're also printing business cards and postcards on 100% recycled paper now with soy-based inks, so there's not a whole lot to be worried about. They're so good, we signed up to be their affiliates, and are the Monkey + Seal local printer of choice.

The one thing about PS Print though - they'll say "omg, we're having a huge sale!" Don't freak out and buy right away, the prices aren't really any different from any other day.

-Moo.com - Our 2nd go-to printer. Moo has really high-quality cards that are thick, satiny, and you can have different designs on the face of every card. This make getting choosing what image you want on the face really easy, as you can have them all! My only complaint is that the back side of the cards all have to be the same, and they're a quite a bit more expensive (~35 cents each), but you're paying for the high quality and customization. (They're also amazing, so we're also affiliates of moo as well).

-As other handmade artisians, however, you may want to check out www.1984printing.com. They're woman owned and operated, local to Oakland, and even though they're a *bit* more expensive than PS Print, you can know you're supporting a small press that's pretty punk rock.

They do have higher minimum quantities, however. I haven't worked with them personally, but they hooked up the SF Zine Fest on poster printing deals two years ago, and seem to be really cool.

-GotPrint.com has the best prices around for stuff printed on heavier cardstock. They offer really nice matte finished, heavy cards. I'd say their quality is very similar, but not quite as good, as Moo's. However, they do not have rush services available for the nice premium paper stock, and their customer service (if something goes wrong) isn't that awesome (it's actually pretty craptastic) - they're very big boxy, and seemed to care less to lose my business when something went wrong and they couldn't meet my deadline You definitely have to stay on top of them to make sure your order goes through, but if it does come out okay, the product is awesome and the prices can't be beat. They're based in Southern California, I believe.

-GreenerPrinter.com has some good product, but they're slightly more expensive than PSPrint, but I also have not worked with them very much. They are eco-friendly, but most other printers are going pretty green, so unless it is super important to be 100% green, I'd say there might be better options.

-Vistaprint = says stuff is free, but tacks on little fees that add on for custom printing, 2-sided, getting rid of their logo, etc. However, if you need super cheap and you don't have design skills or friends with said skills, they are pretty cheap, but the quality is also such. I don't recommend them at all, to be honest, unless you're absolutely devoid of design capabilities (but then you can always go to Moo.com, so I guess I don't recommend them at all unless you have absolutely 0 capital).

-Overnight prints.com - PS print is still cheaper for overnight printing. I did the price comparisons, so I'm not sure why I'd ever choose them.

-Rocketpostcards - They're almost 3x as expensive as PS Print. Not sure why I'd ever go here, besides that they're located here in SF rather than Oakland.

-Logos Graphics - If you have the budget and want to go the custom letterpress route, I could very well refer you to our affiliates over at Paper Source or at Minted.com, but Paper Source doesn't do printing over the internet for business cards, and I think you'd probably have to call Minted to see them. Thus, I've worked with the ever-helpful and talented Lars and John over at Logos Graphics. They recently printed up some wedding invitations I designed for a friend, and did an awesome job for a great price and I couldn't be happier with the entire experience.

Here you go! I hope this helps, and if you have any other opinions on printers, please let us know!

Raffle Winners Announced!

Thanks to everyone who participated in our raffle! Fun times all around, and here are our list of big winners!

3rd place: Nico M. wins a copy of the Monkey Zine!
2nd place: Karin from good one karin wins a copy of the Monkey Zine and the Bad Date Zine Issues 1 & 2!
1st place: Alana R., one of our facebook fans gets to choose any one of Seal's digital prints!
Grand prize: Sean from our newsletter list wins his choice of either the "Cryptids At Night" Serigraph or a $45 gift certificate at the Monkey + Seal shop! Grats!

Congrats to everyone for participating, and we appreciate everyone who took the chance on the extra entries. All winners should be notified via email in the next few days (Monkey is still a bit ill) about how to claim your prize. Or, if you read this, just email us (info [at] monkeyandseal.com) with your mailing address and we'll get it shipped out ASAP.

Also, just fyi, we used random.org to do a random number generation after plugging in everyone's name into a numbered spreadsheet. We then took the first four numbers and went from 3rd to the grand prize that way. It's a super cool site for anyone interested in running a raffle, lottery, etc.! Check 'em out!

PS - If you have time, we'd still love to have you fill out our survey! Thanks!

The Art of Non-Conformity/9

So Monkey + Seal, through a series of random link exploration on twitter (btw, you should follow us: twitter/monkeyandseal - we have a twitter now, yay!), we stumbled upon a website titled "The Art of Nonconformity" run by Chris Guillebeau.

We highly recommend checking out his blog, as he has a lot of cool things to say about making your own path in life and being able to do what you want to do in life. Monkey read both his free manifestos (A Brief Guide to World Domination and 279 Days to Overnight Success) which you can easily download to your computer, and found a lot of really good information.

Anyhoo, we get his blog updates in our email, and so far, what the man has to say is pretty awesome. Go check it out today!

In other news, Monkey + Seal have started designing their new business cards and are kicking around the idea of getting some promotional postcards made. Any suggestions on items we should feature on the front? We're thinking of doing an old-fashion split card, with one Seal item and one Monkey item. We'd love for you to check out our shop and give us feedback as to your favorite item!

On a quick closing note, we're both really excited to check out 9, which opens in theaters today. When we saw the teaser trailer in the theater, we nearly got out of our seats to cheer, and we hope to get a chance to check out this film ASAP!