364 - Shop Talk with Billy Baumann and James Flames

Episode 364 - Shop Talk with Billy Baumann and James Flames

The Dream Team is back after what seemed like weeks of battling off food poisoning, cosplay nerds and the rock and roll elitists. In today's Shop Talk Mark, Billy, and James take a long look at the way things were and how they still can (or sometimes can't) affect us in today's digital centric world. Everyone has got some great stories to tell with applicable advice from how you run your business, be it a boutique agency or if you're all on your own, scrapping and hustling for every dollar that you're making.

Talking Points

- Delicious Design League has some big news on their brand new office by their new neighbor, Bobby From Chicago.

- Confronting your nostalgia for the old days in design and seeing if things still hold up over time or fall short of expectations. Doing things by hand and before the digital era doesn't necessarily make it better.

- Mark continues to go back and forth on the Apple iPad Pro. Will he switch over to the dark side and get a Microsoft Surface?

- 100% speculation on what went down with Apple and the F.B.I.

- A back breaking prank phone call.

- What gets Mark wet on his recent trip to LACMA.

- How pushing the envelope 40 years ago doesn't seem so controversial now and how pop culture needs to be seen through the lens of when it was created to appreciate it.

- Mark' appearance in The Force Awakens.

- What to do when you find out you just created something that has already been made by someone else and you didn't know it. Where is the line in ripping someone off if you legitimately made it through your own personal discovery and how art is synergistic in its ability to communicate visually.

Circle Of Trust Talking Points

- James Flames discusses his Flatstock experience and explains how he strategically set up his booth and stood out from the competition around him.

- How to test the demand for a new product without going all in too soon.

- Billy went to C2E2 with Secret Panel and has some stories about proper booth placement and the difference between various conventions and their professionalism.

- Mark and James help Billy with alternate strategies for obtaining licensing and how to find other avenues to where you want to go when it seems like you've hit a roadblock.