Sunday's Something New

I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea of "fitting in." I've decided that that's the dumbest thing to want to do ever. And I feel like that is pretty much all every kid wants to do. The beautiful thing about the world is that everyone fits in by default. Nobody has to be a certain way to make friends or socialize. Just look at me, I wear bucket hats and Disney sweatshirts and socks with sandals and I get along fine with almost everybody. Basically, what I am saying is be you and don't try to be someone else to fit in. Just fit yourself in exactly how you are.


Fit INC!

Your College Radio

This weekend my roommate Sal and I put in a lot of time working together on a logo for the radio station here at our school, KDUP. He has a pretty awesome show with one of my buddies and I have a show as well. He has been working really hard to improve the station and I've been working with him on some t shirt and logo designs. I just thought I would share a bit of what we've been doing with you guys. You should definitely tune into some of the shows at kdup.up.edu, there are some really smart kids playing good music on there. The first one is going on the new KDUP t-shirts ad the next will hopefully be the next logo.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm sorry for anyone that reads this thing for my absence in the last few weeks. Between school and now being home for break I have not had a lot of time for The INC! which sucks because that's really my favorite thing to do. Today I thought I would just wish you all a happy turkey day and let you know what we're working on right now.

As you may know, we had a really successful party at Kelly and Stewart's house. Maybe close to 50 people came and a lot of people left with new Incorporated Clothing. There was much fun to be had. Here are a few choice pictures form that evening.


SpottieOttieDopaliscious







But it's always back to business...

Next up for us is stickers. We're working on a couple different designs and trying to figure out the best ones to use. Pretty soon you'll all be able to vandalize the streets Incorporated style. Here are a few ideas:





So we'll have those coming pretty close to Christmas hopefully. Other than that not much is going on at The INC! Of course our online store is up and running so we have been sending out some orders to friends and family around the country. I'm going to try to get my game face on after this break so keep checking the blog for all of your INC! news. Tomorrow there will be a new Sunday's Something New that I have been working on this week.

Adios and Get Incorporated!

Sunday's Something Sneaky

Once again I wanted to let you guys in on what I'm working on today. It's got a long ways to go, but I'll let you see where Im coming from and what I have so far. Hope everyone's weekend was nice. Here you go:





"FAST MONEY DON"T LAST, HONEY"

Friday's 5 - Hip Hop Album Covers

Music is a big part of what we do here at The INC! There are very few moments in the day when I don't have music playing and I think the same goes for Kelly and Stew. My personal favorite genre is hip-hop or rap or whatever you'd like to call it. I think it has a very direct way of expressing the emotions, where a lot of other music is hidden behind metaphors and abstract lyrics. Not that I don't like other music too, I pretty much love it all. But that's not really the point of this Friday's 5. Like I said I take a lot of inspiration from rap and as a visual artist, the album covers are often the best way to connect visually with an album. That being said, there are a lot of bad album covers, but that just makes the good ones stand out even more. So here are my favorite 5:

PS. These are all pretty recent. There are a lot of picks that should be on here but I just didn't think of them so don't get offended please.

#5 - A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory

Not only is it a great album, but the album artwork is really special. Super simple and understated, but really dope. Black, red and green is a pretty cool colorway, but often used poorly in Gucci knock-offs. Not this time. Anyways, just a cool one, and very unique as far as hip-hop goes.

#4 - Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the 36 Chambers

There is probably no album cover more menacing than this. I heard the story behind it and I guess two of the actually Clan aren't even in it, but that doesn't really matter. The way everything in the back is kind of abstracted is sweet and the front man really expresses it all. Whether or not you like the cover, you should certainly hear the album because it's awesome. But the album cover has a great aesthetic that perfectly shows their blend of hip-hop and kung-fu.

#3 - Ol' Dirty Bastard - Return to the 36 Chambers

Keeping in the Wu-Tang Clan, ODB's first album cover is really perfect. I think its taken from his actual state welfare card, which I think he used well into his music career. This cover is not only funny, but also connects the artist with the people. Super dope album, super dope cover, super dope artist.

#2 - Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

Her first and only album of all time, and she really did it right. The entire album has interludes of a children's classroom, tying in the album cover really well. This album talks a lot about going against what's popular, which Lauryn certainly did herself, quitting music altogether after this album. We've all spent plenty of time at a desk, and I know personally that that's where a ton of my creative works gets done.

#1 - Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy



This one is actually 5 covers in one, making it really the coolest thing that's come out in a while. No music artist really uses visuals as well as Kanye in my opinion, but no music artist is really as good in general. He linked up with the painter George Condo to do 5 different covers, one of which was too much for Wal Mart and Target to even shelve it. So what did he do? Just pixelated it and used that version. November 22, get ready.

There you go, I hope you enjoyed it. Time to go Friday.

Sunday's Something Sneaky

The blog has really been slacking this weekend. First with the sub-par Friday's 5, we still haven't put up photos of the party and today's something new is once again just a sneak peek. I got this cool idea for a design but I haven't finished it quite yet, so I'll just let you see how I'm doing and where the design came from. Here you go, Sunday's Something Sneaky:

My progress:


One inspiration:


Other inspiration. Curren$y is a super dope rapper. Everyone should check him out:


HAVE A GOOD WEEK

Friday's 5?

Last night we through the Portland edition of the Launch Party and it was a great success. I think lot's of people had fun and lots of people left wearing new t-shirts and sweatshirts which was awesome. You might have noticed, however, that there was no Friday's 5 yesterday. So today I thought I would make up for it. So here you go, a day late, Friday's 5: Excuses for why I didn't do a Friday's 5 yesterday.

1. Too focused on the party and had too many things to get ready for it.

2. I had to play an hour or two of Fable III.

3. I went out to eat dinner with my mom who came down to visit for a few hours.

4. I was lazy.

5. I forgot.

So now you know.

Get Incorporated - VOTE!

I've always loved this iconic photo of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 because of the incredible heroism of this one man. I often have wondered if would have been different if there were a million men behind him. Would the tanks have kept going? Would they have been able to? Today, we all have a chance to get stand up for something. The mid-term elections are today and whichever way you lean, left right, middle, whatever, The INC! encourages you to go vote. It is really important that we all have our say in the government and how things are run. Like I said, it doesn't matter what you believe in, it matters that you believe in something and make it heard. In honor of this important day, I thought I would share my re-envisioning of this heroic act, the one in which the masses get incorporated and stand up together for what they believe in. Go Vote!

Come Have Party

So we're going to be having a little party down in Portland this weekend. If you'll remember, we had a Seattle Launch Party, which you can reminisce about here, but we really haven't done anything to introduce ourselves to U of P or to Portland in general. So if you're not busy Friday night, come on over to Kelly and Stewart's and hopefully all will have a great time. If you are busy, cancel your plans and come. Sound good? Details are on the poster below.

Sunday's Something New

In honor of the quickly approaching ski season, I thought I would release this ode to the Keep Tips up signs that you see all the way up the chairlift. There has got to be very few skiers or boarders left who have not made a hilarious Viagra-related joke about these signs. But The INC! switched it up a bit and just wanted to remind people to always keep a fist up. Always question what you hear and stand up for what you believe in. So here's the Sunday's Something New:

Friday's 5 - Our Taglines

Here at The INC! we come up with a lot of little phrases and taglines for our company. Little things that say a lot about our company and mindset in everything we do. You might see them in designs or around my Twitters or Facebooks or blog entries, so I thought that all of the really Incorporated people might want to know a little bit more about these phrases like where they came from and what they say about our company. So here you go, Friday's 5:

5. "You're In or You're INC!" - I just came up with this one the other day. I was thinking about what's in right now: skinny jeans, flannels, jean-leggings for girls, Wayfarers, etc. But you know how many of those things were in like three or four years ago? None. Things get cool and then get trendy and then are out in a matter of just a few years. The INC! intends to be the opposite of that. To be in is to be trendy and cool, but it's fleeting. To be INC! is to be classic, to be forever.

4. "Be Immortal" - Kelly came to me with this tagline accompanying a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. A hero of both of ours, he is a great example of what it really means to "live forever," to make such an impact that even after you are gone you are remembered. Hopefully The INC! will be another name you'll never forget.

3. "The Kings of King County, From the City that Reigns" - This one actually outdates The INC! by a few years. Back in high school, Kelly and I decided to try to bring back tank tops. Our plan was to wear them everyday down in college. We wanted to get custom ones with KINGS OF KING COUNTY on them. Although we never actually followed through with that, we never forgot the tagline and what it meant to us. Kelly just recently added "From the City that Reigns." It most certainly rains in our city, but we want to expand the idea beyond that. We want Seattle to be on the top, to reign alongside us, The INC!, the Kings.

2. "Leave the Lights On..." - We came up with this one about the time we came up with our logo. We decided to go with the lightbulb because that is a pretty strong symbol of the bright idea. In a world and industry where so many people are following, it is these bright ideas, these lights, that are truly important. Leave them on.

1. "Get Incorporated" - We chose The Incorporated because it describes how we want our company to function. It is not simply a clothing company run by three guys. It is a brand made up of everyone who wants to be a part of it. How do you become a part of it? Just Get Incorporated. Buy in to what we are trying to do and become a part of it. Everybody's welcome.

There you go. These 5 short phrases build an outline for what we want our clothing to say and what we want The INC! to mean.

New Day, New Job

It's pretty funny how many different jobs one has to do when running a small business. I've been a delivery man, artist, computer guy, and many more. Last night Kelly and I tried a new one: model. It probably looked pretty weird when my roommate walked into the house and us two guys were taking pictures of each other in front of a sheet in our stairwell. However it looked, the pictures came out pretty dope and we'll be putting those up on the online store in the next few days. So here are a few shots of my first, and hopefully last, experience as a model. Next time we'll be using these ladies.

The Wardrobe:


The Model:


The Photographer:


And as for the results? Check them out in a few days on our website.

Sunday's Something New

So I know last week I said that it would be only a Sneak Peek on Sundays from now on, but I decided that every Sunday I'll just show you something new. Could be a Sneak Peek and it could be a full design. Today, it'll be a full design. Don't know if this will ever end up as a t-shirt or anything but I thought it was cool. Anyone who knows me knows I pretty much am always in a hat, so I thought this one was appropriate. So here you go:

Ice Cube Kind of Day

Today was a good day. I grabbed some of the new SuperChronics and King County Cowboy crewnecks from Kelly and then wore it into a new store down in Fremont, Officials Vintage. This place is all about classic sports gear like throwback jerseys and Starter caps. If you read Friday's 5 about The INC!'s love of Seattle sports, then you know how down we are with the classic sports gear. So while I was in there, the guys working there asked about my sweatshirt, which led to one of them buying one, which led to me letting them know about The INC!, which led to them asking about consignment, which led to me running to my car and dropping off some new SuperChronics sweatshirts for them to sell. What an awesome chain of events. So everyone should probably go check out Officials Vintage, its at 3602 Palatine Ave N in Fremont, right around the corner from the George & Dragon Pub. It's a dope spot regardless of the fact that they now carry The INC!

Go say what's up to Rio and friends down at Officials Vintage today.

That New New

The INC! is expanding! We just picked up a couple different crewneck t-shirt designs: the SuperChronics and the King County Cowboy. They look really good. The SuperChronics plays on our beloved, deceased Seattle SuperSonics' logo from the 70's and 80's with a little twist and a new color scheme. Our King County Cowboy image replaces the classic bucking bronco with a bucking elk to give it a more Northwest feel. We'll be putting these on the online store in the next few days, but until then you can still let Kelly, Stew or I know if you want one. For now, just check them out and as always, Get Incorporated.


Of course I have the matching hat...