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CJP #95: Sherman Wellons · Coconut Justice

• Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hey, what's good? Sherman Wellons is a creative director down in the LA area that owns and operates his own studio called InertiArt Studio, where he combines art and technology to emotionally impact an audience through visual connections. All that to say, he's a bad brother with skills to make dope visuals with meaning and results. This is my conversation with Sherman Wellons. Before we get into it, remember to go to coconutjustice.com to get you some clothes that I think would look good on you. Let's go. Sherman: Nice. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): There he is, you guys. There he is. I told you. It's my boy Sherman Wellins is in the house. Sherman: Sup Carlos, I know I've been promising to do this for a minute, but now it's time, so you know, I gotta keep my keep my word. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It happens when it's supposed to happen. Sherman: Yeah man, gotta s keep that being in integrity, you know, that's what it is. Now here I am, finally. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. So explain to the folks what you're doing down there in the LA area. Sherman: Yeah, so like Carlos said, my name is Sherman Wellins. I have a my own personal brand or even brand of studio, call it Inertial Art. You can see it right there. You can just go Google it, look it up. and I am what I would consider okay, you know the corporations have your titles and all that good stuff, so you Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: do that. so Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm. Sherman: I would say I'm art director slash creative technologist, but in short lamest terms, I'm a creative guy that just knows a bunch of technical stuff to actually make things work. I mean Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And you're good at computers. Sherman: and I'm good at computers, yes. You know, I'm one of those Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: left brain, right brain dudes that knows how to create, knows about graphic design, knows about branding, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: all that good stuff. Then programming, you know, databases and how all that, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): programming, databasing. Sherman: digital media. intertwines and if you want to know how I met Carlos, we used to work together at good old fashioned BLT where we were working on all sorts of stuff. Am I allowed to mention some of the stuff we worked on? Is that allowed? I know it's been it's been past, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. Sherman: I mean we ain't no NDAs no more. I they've been getting rid of us and stuff has been launched out and everything. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I know. It's been a long time. Yeah. Sherman: so just a little backstory about how we met. So I remember when I first rolled up in you know BLT, you know, I was They weren't sure what to do with me because I had a whole bunch of skill sets. You know, pretty much you guys were working on websites, you know, I was working on ads, and I was working on websites too, as well as doing s some small motion design stuff. And it's it's it's wild how when we and what I mean by we, and I'm talking about this, when we see each other, we always end up bonding, you know, 'cause when we walk we walk into the studio, it's like stop Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yeah, we do. Wait, he said he's talking about toast he's talking about toasted folks. Like when you go into white bread, you always look for the toast. Sherman: You always look for it. We're like, crap, we got another wait a minute, you're creative too? wow. And it's just like we Yeah, you ain't here by how'd you Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. They let you in here? Sherman: get in? You here too? Yeah, no. Yeah, so it's it just it's just like one of those and probably anybody who is, you know, a person of color who in the creative industry, they probably know what this feeling is like because there've been so many times and places you walk in and you feel alone initially and you're just like, Okay, I I'm hired here, but those they start thinking, he's D E I and all that other bullshit that goes with it. No, we're just skilled and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: we know what we're doing. in It's just it's it's funny, but when you start seeing other people that look like you in that same area, then it's like of comfortable, I'm not the only one here. I'm not the only one that is just as gifted, talented and smart and probably people even around me are even smarter. And that's the type of like environment that I I like to be in, but there's not too many toasties, you know, in our industry. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Sam No We don't we don't have friends like that. Our friends, you know, our friends Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): are still in school trying to grind and all that stuff. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Sherman: Yeah, y e exactly. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And no there's not a lot of us in management Sherman: No. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): positions out here. Sherman: Yeah, we don't make those decisions, you know, and that's the Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: thing. We're not in that we're not at the tables making these calls. And maybe one day that will change. Don't know. I mean it's changing. I I I hope Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): no, it's changing. yeah, it's changing. But we have to build our own thing. That's the thing. Sherman: yeah, actually, yes. Instead of trying to knock on their door. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): 'Cause how are they they're not they're not trying to share their pie. Okay, we'll make our own pie. Our shit our shit is Sherman: That's very true. That's very true. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): doper anyway. Sherman: It is. It's not all stale because we got seasoning and flavors up there. Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is. It's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Why do you think they invite us? Look, this shit is getting stale. Let's go get some toasteds. Sherman: it's it's it's there, but you know, like you said, trying to knock on those doors. Like you see like some of these ads, like Converse, you know, how they just totally just screwed up their last ad and and had these conversations. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That one was wild. Sherman: That blew me away. but again, look who's in the rooms. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Exactly. Sherman: And and it and it continues to happen and it will always continue happening until Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: maybe things will are changing. I mean, like you, you know, we've been in this industry what twenty plus something years. And, you know, not to give away our our age and our experience. they know we all they know we're all. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. no, these folks know. These folks know. They know Leo. Sherman: they know we all so maybe things have changed I haven't stepped foot in actually I've been working remotely and home ever since COVID. my last time I actually was in office was in here in LA at as Satchi and Satchi. And again, if I start counting creative artists and developers Damn, it's like that. So it doesn't come to mind real quick how many there were. I didn't see any. I just my producer Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. And it gets worse when you get to Silicon Valley. eight Sherman: those? pretty sure. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): we're not in those rooms. Sherman: At all. wow. Wow. Yeah, it's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): At all. At all. At all. Sherman: things we have to like you say, we gotta make our own tables now or man, the sk the skill sets are here. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And then and then what's fun and then what's fun is when I walk in the room, number one, everybody thought lunch showed up. Sherman: Or if I was your wonder where's Leaf Blower? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, everybody thought lunches. And then ain't no lie. There's not a lot of brown c American brown kids in there. And then you get hit with Sherman: Nooo. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): me. shit. Listen. Sherman: you probably threw them all off. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Listen. Yeah. These folks are crazy, dude. Sherman: Yeah, I just have one story that was funny when I first walked up in Satchi and Satchi years ago. kind of it was kind of like a joke. my producer, he was Dominican, so he can get away with it. But when I walked in there, the first you know, you walk into the meeting room, you know, to make me some hands, hey, you know, I'm Sherman. you know, I'm gonna be working on, you know, this Toyota campaign and everything. And the first my producer was like, you're Sherman? I thought you were security. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): To be fair, you probably have the biggest biceps in multimedia. Sherman: Yeah, I've been I've been told that before that workout. So, you know I mean I'm not you know, I'm not I don't be on the camera posing and everything, but you know, I sit in front of the computer all day so I gotta take care of my house. So yeah, my arm I'm a little thick, you know, in in the area. So he threw that comment out there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. There's been a there's been a couple animation industry events I'll show up and people would be like, damn, you're swole. Like I'm not little. I'm not little. Sherman: We should be. We we sit in front of we gotta take care of our health. I mean we sit Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: in front of computer all day. I mean, that's kind of like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: our lives. And I mean I'm sitting as wrestling all day and getting you just can't just sit in front of computer all day. So yeah, we're gonna be swolled. We're we're Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You cannot. Yeah. Sherman: gonna it shouldn't be like the st the stereotypes shouldn't be there. I always it's interesting when I tell people what I do, they've always say they always think I'm a personal trainer when I first meet them. And I tell them Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: no, I'm actually a creative person. So I've been working on my elevator sales pitch to kind of help people understand more of what I do. And what I tell them what I do for a living is basically I am that person that works with clients to help them target the audience through digital media so they can be impacted emotionally. Because that's what we do. Even you do that when you even come with your cartoon characters. You know, our job is to really visually communicate to an audience so that we can p impact them emotionally. To make some sort of decision. and that is like what we do for a living. And I've been having to change up my terminology because we're living in a different world where creative directors, art directors, they all get thrown in this one bowl and don't realize there's different skill sets that come with this these these quote unquote titles. some art directors just know how to art direct and they just know Photoshop and Illustrator, they may know some slight animation. know maybe it's in C C Flash whether if it's in Rive or anything and that's probably the furthest they go. They don't go into After Effects. They don't go into Unreal Engine. They don't go down the rabbit holes of cinema four D and start combining all these things together. so I've been really just trying to how can you especially go into these network events and when you become an independent like I have been for I'm like going on like eighteen years now, you still have to do the marketing aspect of it and really explain. Not so much explain but be able to get people to understand what you do like within 30 seconds. I've Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: I've had to learn that stepping out of the production hole because you know, throughout my whole career, you know, how I eat is I've been I support ad agencies. And like how me and Carlos may, you know, a lot of companies, what they'll do is they'll hire contractors or artists with variety of skill sets. Carlos can draw circles around me. You know, he is excellent, you know, illustrator and having that combined. skill set with knowing how to animate your own characters without having Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: to have an animator do that is a real skill set. Some people can just draw but he can actually take his work and actually bring it to life. And then back on the day working on the Tron websites and you know coding all that stuff up with Yeah I know. I I know it's yeah it Yeah was this guy right here. Yeah we were working on it. That's a lot of Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's a set of flex right there, baby. We yeah. That last Tron movie, it was me, Sherman, a couple other folks. Yeah, baby. Sherman: folks don't know People of color were behind that. Like me and Francis. Francis was the other developer at BLT. We Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Shout out Francis. Hell yeah. Sherman: worked on parts of what Parts of the Caribbean website, you know. Yeah, we Yeah, you built the store for it. Yeah, I've worked Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I was on that project. I built a store. I built a store. Yeah. Sherman: on a whole lot of I can't there was a whole lot of s pieces to that that we all were working on together. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Sherman: not too many people know that because we're not in the front talking about these things. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Hey, here's another one. Me and Francis were the two people that built the website for Tangled, the Disney movie Tangled. Two of us. Yeah. Sherman: Hmm. I remember that. Yeah, I remember you too working on that. We were working on the ads. with Mark. was it G Gio? Yeah, Mark Cost. Yeah, Gio Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Cost Costan? Costan. Geo. Yep. Geo. Sherman: and I forget the other brother's name, Aaron. I think that was his name. That was it. I think was his name? Yeah, I think that was his other name. But he he was working on some other stuff. But pretty much, yeah, we were building all the ads you guys were working on the website 'cause I remember I would leave late and I'm like, Dude, you still here? You're like, Yeah, I pretty much live here Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I never went home. I lived I'd lived a block away. I would walk home to walk my dog and I'd go right back to work. I would get Sherman: Yeah, you were up there all the time. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): like this might be TMI, but I used to go on a date. Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and then go back to work after the date. Sherman: wow. wow. You were dead, yeah. You were dedicated. Yeah, you did. You did work. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. I worked. I worked. Yeah. Sherman: You did work a whole lot. 'Cause I remember the few times I was up there super late to like one o'clock in the morning, then I'm I happened to go to guess get something to eat before I left and I see the little computer light on, you still in the corner. I'm like, what are you doing here? You know, but yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Dying. Sherman: I know, trying to meet deadlines and everything that that was given to us that We should have been more of control over of you know, but still y it helped you build Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I'd I left so much money on the table working like that, dude. Sherman: Yeah. Yeah, your life does it you s we do that when we're younger because we have to that's one thing I had not only they told us but Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): 'Cause they told us they told us work real hard and you're gonna get your big break and all that stuff. Okay. Sherman: Yeah, but also here's another here here's another thing too that my perspective on like I did the same thing. Me, I was leaving late, you know, as well, just Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Uh-huh. Sherman: we're still there. I remember my art teacher, Miss Edison, she was I went to University of Georgia and just people who know, I happen to be the only brother in all my drawing classes. we we just weren't we just didn't exist. But I had a black teacher. And when she you know, she used to give me a really hard I mean, I thought she was targeting me and she would really give me a hard time and she would critique the hell out of my work. And of course the kid who was opposite of look like me, she couldn't like you know, she wouldn't really give them the hard she would critique them, but it's like a this is not how you do it. For me, it Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: was where's the belt? You know, and the whee, you know, what do you need to get it together you know. so when we had our review and I was nineteen I think I was like nineteen at the time, and I I still remember this to this day, you know, and I'm you know 50 years old now. and she told me, she was like, I was like, Miss Edison, why do you give me such a hard time? You know, why are you critiquing me so much more than these other students? And she straight up told me, she said, you know what, let me just go and break it down to you, son. You know, I was 19. He said, How many other brothers, black men do you see in this classroom? And I said, I'm the only one. So I'm gonna give you a piece of advice. There's gonna be people who can draw circles around you. Thousands. There's gonna be a thousand people who are basically grasping at your heels. But keep Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: this in mind, you are always gonna have to work twice and three times as harder as your white counterparts, just for simply to prove that you are worth being in the same room, the same office that they are. So just keep Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: that in mind in your career because the moment that you Come in halfway, that you're not exceptional, you will not survive. She told me this at 19 years old. And it started really sinking and resonating with me because then I started looking around the art school in the graphic design department, and it was just me, another Latina brother, and Mika, the other sister. And I was like, Yeah, I I really in my head I was thinking. took us my skill set. They see my work. It doesn't matter what this looks like. I can be it doesn't matter if I'm purple. That was what was in my h mindset. I wanted to because I'm an artist, that should you know, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): gonna be that good. Yep. Sherman: I can be it should be about that. But then you you get in the real world and it's still not that way 'cause people Yeah, 'cause people are making decis Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And it's about that. Sherman: people that are making decisions they look anything like us. And they will bypass us. just because of that, even we can be exceptional. So you can get the mediocre person will Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: get that job just because he is friends with somebody's brother, sister, mama at the company and they don't Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: know what they're doing. And I can't tell you, I'm pretty sure you've experienced this plenty of times working in industry and finding that out. And it's it's it's the it's still there. I've had I had as a consultant, I've had to change my mindset with that. No, I had to realize that some people they just don't know and you just have to just educate them. But that was just really interesting, you know, that she said that to me at nineteen. So going back to there's reasons why I was there late and the reason why you were there late. Because when shit hit the fan and something didn't go well, who are they gonna come blame? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Main. Sherman: Yeah, you know. Despite the project Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ha ha ha. Sherman: despite whoever's making decision for that deadline is ridiculous. They fumbled it. At the end of the Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: day, because we are the engineers touching that product before it goes out the door, they're gonna come look at us. So we had Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right, right, right. We used to make up we used to make up for the deficiencies of project managers. Sherman: Yes. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And what were the project managers? Sherman: They were well, we know what they were. They were, you know, a little on a they look kind of like my screen a little bit right here. they were they were Caucasian, you know? They were Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: Caucasian. And not to take away, I remember, I'm not gonna say any names, but I remember when I was at BLT, I had asked the initial project manager, cool great guy. he's been in the street for a lot long time. I give him the way, but when I first met him, Disney is a rough client. Any you I know folks who haven't maybe worked on their accounts, but Disney is a very challenging client. You know, there's a lot of parts. Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. It's a monolith. It's it's huge. So many people need to touch things. So many to be yeah, so many decisions need to be made. And they're being led by Sherman: Yeah. Too many cooks in the kitchen. Too many opinions. Yeah. then that that's what Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): people that don't care whether or not you're paying your bills. Sherman: Yeah, exactly. And and also those who really aren't putting their heart into it. So so sometimes what I mean by difficult, it's not that the people are difficult. A lot of decisions are making it. The Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Process, yeah. Sherman: process makes it difficult. So unless you really come in and say, Hey, let me help you define a process, let me stick with this process, we will guarantee that we will get you from your concept all the way through development and it will go out the door. And that's what project managers are supposed to do. There's there's they're supposed to know that process to be able to work with the client to help them with their chaos so that they can't manage their chaos. and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And shitting on our weekends isn't always the net the answer. Like yeah. Sherman: Yeah, I I have a life too, you know. I wanna be able to go out and do other things. We saw us in front of a computer all weekend. but we did it Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Exactly. Sherman: but we did it anyway 'cause we were younger. We I mean we didn't know better, but we knew what the ramifications were if we didn't do this. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): All I knew was work hard. That's all I ever, that's all I've ever done my whole life. Work hard. Tell me Sherman: Yeah, 'cause we have to. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): what you need done. I'll be right back. Sherman: I'll be right back. And that's it. So we would save a lot of project managers by coming through working on weekends late night and getting a project done. And they of course they look good. But I but one instance was I noticed that say the project manager at the time really didn't have maybe two years experience in project management. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sherman: they came from a background that had nothing to do with interactive media at all. So I remember laying out, here's what I need you to do, because I've been in it for 10 years, you know, before I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: I was already developing you know flash apps and web and so forth. We Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Same. Same. Yep. Sherman: had we had we had experience coming in, that's why they hired us. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I was coming from Leo Burnett, one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world. Sherman: Yeah, so you knew what you were doing. but this Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: project manager, I don't know how they got in, but they didn't know this process and man, it's not it's who you know. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's it's not what you know, it's who you know. Yeah. Sherman: I'm just like scratching my head, like, how did you get in this position? And also you're not taking my advice. I've been doing this for ten years before you even step to this. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Exactly. That's the thing. Sherman: you should be listening to what I'm saying. You know, I've actually mapped it out for you or what you should do. And as a result, I remember this. it costs when it came to the bill, because I'm billing for all this stuff. I mean, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hell yeah. Sherman: and I'm up there late at night, you know, and and when he hits me up and says, Hey I'm actually glad at the time who the manager was. there was some discrepancy in the hours. You're like, why is this taking so long to do? Why are there so many hours? Francis was up there sleeping up in the office on Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: a couch. he had to like rebuild his his whole his his whole code logic base several times. I wasn't gonna rebuild Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: mine because I put it in I put it on paper on and basically almost like a UI document, which by the way was I put one together and that was kind of ignored and thrown out the door. But anyway, I'm not even gonna get into that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I wrote a I I wrote a very long and extensive email about the process, how Leo Burnett does it, and why why Sherman: The process. Yes. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): over at BLT they needed to pay attention to the people that have been there and done that before. We continue Sherman: Yeah, and I didn't just Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): to trip over ourselves because you continue to do it incorrectly. Sherman: Yeah, it's like why won't they just take the advice of people? We may look different, but been there done that, you know? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That have been there and done that. Sherman: and that's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You think BLT is the first hundred hour work week I ever put I ever Sherman: I know, right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): sent the the the timesheets in for? Nah son. Sherman: Yeah. Yeah. We we've been there and done that. But I guess the point being is that, you know, this person gets in there, you know, they don't look like this, you know, they just happen to be a lot less melon in their skin and they know somebody and they're actually running a project that's millions of dollars and they're costing money. I was very fortunate who you know who the manager was then, say his name, but he wa actually approved my hours and said, I get it, because the process was ignored. You need to pay this person. You know, no matter what. I felt bad for Francis cause he was the one that was on salary and he just had to eat. He had to eat it. yo, you so you ate it a lot too. I'm glad I can't attract Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Me too. Me too. That yeah, that check did not move, boy. But then if you took, but then if you took like 45 extra minutes for lunch because your your eyeballs are are melting out of your skull, they caught an attitude. I even said, Hey, the project is at this level. I know you need Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): to have I know you need to have your little meetings and shit, but I'm gonna go home a block away. Sherman: Shower be up there all night Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And I'm gonna lay down. Yeah. I wanna shower because I smell like feet. Sherman: on the right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And because I took an extra forty five minutes after submitting the time card that I submitted. Now you guys want to catch an attitude because I took an extra forty five minutes for a nap. Sherman: Yeah, it's I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Really? Sherman: it's wild. It's wild. It's almost like you know, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Okay. Sherman: s slavery ended a while ago. We are we do this bec Yeah, I know, right? Yeah, a corporation. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): No it didn't. It just turned into a corporation. Sherman: It's like, you know, but you're just like you take advantage of what we like to what we love to do for a living, you know, because again Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): One hundred percent. Sherman: the dollar part is part, you know, capitalism is involved with it. So I I I wonder that's why that's what really encourage me from going from, you know, being on salary to actually being more like a vendor and being more like a consultant, more or less, because there's there's you know, that's look like this, you know, if a person's making bad decisions but they are still on the weekends, get a chance to spend with their families, you know, go out on movies, a dates, you know, I am a human being. I should have the right to do the same thing too. And I should not be Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): percent. Sherman: should not be working on the weekends for a deadline that's not really gonna kill or make or break anybody. It's not like there's a nuclear war going There may be a campaign launch date that has to be that Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: has to happen because of a movie maybe coming out. But it's not Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hey, and that's it. I'm glad you said that because that was the other thing. Like, all these all these projects are falling apart. And I'm just like, all right, no, no, no. And and then like the project managers are like, hey, hey, hey, why aren't you freaking out? I was like, what you've refused to remember is I learned how to throw hand grenades and shoot people. I was in the military. None of Sherman: Yeah, 'cause you went to military. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): this. Your little button doesn't frighten me. Sherman: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's it's not a nuclear war, you know, there's n there's nothing we're good, you know? Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, we're good. No one is shooting at us. We can go to lunchroom and grab a sandwich. Like life is all right right now. Sherman: Yeah, th it's it's not n it's not like the world's ending if you don't make this thing within an hour or something. It's like come on people. There is Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: that's that part of the whole industry is what like kinda gave me like a really sour taste in it because, you know, as artists we just wanna affect people Yeah, we want art peop Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): We just wanna art. We wanna make art dude. Sherman: we want we want people to actually be impacted by what we do, to impact them emotionally, hopefully bring a smile on their face, and get them to think. to get them to encourage them or influence them to be a better person or others. That's what, you know, are in is communication, you know, that's what we want to do. But there's this whole capitalism Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Sherman: part that we have to do this in order to make a living. So 'cause it is fair, you know, we ha Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Because it's fair. If I show up and I do your projects, you give me money so then I can go home. It's not that difficult. Sherman: Yeah. Yes. And then contribute to our Yeah. It's that should be the simple formula. But you know, who know, but that gets ruined too, I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. That process goes ruined too. Sherman: know, right? It's just like what's going on with humans in these days, you know? It's a service you y you exchange that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: so that's so I have so that's where when co s so when I was actually I was very Very fortunate when COVID hit, I was actually working when just is a long story. So when BLT I had my contract ended and I was freelancing for a variety of agencies at the time when BLT's the whole management came in and just like wiped everybody and got rid of everyone. I that's when I started with Saatchi and Saatchi. I was working with them for like ten years. And I was a vendor to them. I totally switched my whole mentality up was about trying to get a job. And when I became a vendor, it was I was treated differently. I know I had a deadline. That's all they cared about. They care how I got it done. They want to make Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sherman: sure I got along with the creative team. I was able to talk with the media buyers and the producers. And the relationship was a more of a mutual respect versus when you are on a job and you employee, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): An employee, yeah. Sherman: you know, people want to throw you around a ringer because they don't know what you're doing and they have nothing else to do. Instead of focusing on a project at a time. And that would really like help me change my whole mind on how to approach working with agencies and and clients or whatever. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's such an important point. So for Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): the young, the young up and comers that are listening to Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): two old dudes complain. That's that's Sherman: Listen to us. Listen to us. We've been there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): that's it. Yeah, that's that's the you have to understand all of this dynamics that's happening between the leaders of the of the country and Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): everyone else. Like the leaders of the country, they They kind of want you to start your own company. They want to start you want you they want you to start your own business and stuff like that. And that's why they make rules to benefit folks that start their own business. Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): There's a lot of folks that don't want anything to do with that. And so they have a spot for that. That's called employee. Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): There's a lot of folks that are fine, show up, you give them what to do, they do the thing, and then they go home at five o'clock. Sometimes we just Sherman: Sometimes one o'clock in the morning. He used to do that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): didn't even fucking go home. Sherman: That's true too. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, but but if if you want that that feeling of accomplishment like Sherman is talking about, it's that like don't be afraid to take a look at entrepreneurship because Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): that's that's if you want to come and go as you please and you wanna be treated with respect and all that stuff, start your own thing. Sherman: Yeah, I I I definitely would advise that to especially the the newcomers coming. I know it's very difficult for young designers now. It's nothing like when I was coming out of school where I had the whole AI thing. I had I was able to basically just show my portfolio online and I had a job within two weeks. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Brother, when we were coming out of college, it was like d doing design is like clapping two two rocks together compared to today. Sherman: I know, right? Everything was yeah, very much. I mean, we were in demand, the internet was just coming out. I mean, the way technology was Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. This back when I graduated college, what, 3D Studio Max had like six six little balls that you can add materials to. Sherman: I I know, right? Yeah, so different now. There's so much stuff that's things have changed. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): so much. Sherman: but now the the one thing that's very tough for the I would say the the younger generation is that when I just happened to you know to see on LinkedIn when people are posting jobs, they want you to be a creative director, art director, photographer, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: social media content creator, expert in that. What you do edit it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): expert they want you to edit they want you to illustrate they want you to know python Sherman: Yeah, and once you know everything and on top of that you gotta be the marketing strategist. And you just came out Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And you better have a good attitude. Sherman: Yeah. And you better have an online portfolio at twenty five years old. So you have to be twenty five years old with twenty years experience. That's what 'cause that's exactly that's exactly what that inquires. and not to toot my own horn, but because I have the gray hair in my beard, I know how to do like pretty much all those things because I've in been in the industry and I've built Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They're done that. Sherman: been there done that. You know, I built all everything for every platform that you can think of that's digital. So yeah, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: I can say yeah, I could be a creative director, but but realistically, when it comes to deadlines, it will take me a long, long ass time to do all that stuff. Because, you know, I I'm not gonna be to get that done in two or three weeks. Because it's just me. You know, that stuff like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: that does require a team in order to be able to make these deadlines. I remember when I had this wine Guy I was talking to about work and he was asking me to not do all these things. I said, yes, I can, but what are your deadlines like? If you expect somebody to be knocking us out in three weeks, that's not possible. Maybe two or three months. But if you're in a hurry, I would have to hire a team in order to delegate work to. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: And part of that is, of course, the education. That's lack thereof. in our society now that's really happening, which is blowing my mind. Away. So take it back to when we were you know, being to get a job or being contract work within two weeks, you just send a portfolio and resume and you get a phone call. Now it's a reading, you can s click on stuff forever and be sending your resume out for years and nothing. And nothing. Nothing Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Nothing. Nothing ever I know. Sherman: it doesn't even see a person. It sees an ATS you may have Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And this is for our and this is for our old heads that think that, you know, maybe because I got laid off from Sherman: Yeah, nothing to do with it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): whatever car manufacturing place and then you do a couple designs and you think you're talented and all that stuff. Now that you're older, ain't nobody looking at you, my guy. Ain't nobody looking at you. You might Sherman: Ain't nobody looking at you at all. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): as well start your own thing and start working in the neighborhood to see who you can work get glean work from. Sherman: Yeah, it's it's wild how the whole like this new economy how is just shifted. now that folks have laid everybody off and there's a bunch of talented people out here, I'm noticing that these agencies are people looking for smaller teams now, but they realize Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: that, you know, this whole AI push it's not replacing people. It's I I I swear every time I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's isn't it proving to be even more expensive than actually just hiring people? Sherman: Yeah. It is. I mean 'cause you if I just wanna I just wanna just for those who like we had a brother on last week, what's his name? the one who does AI films. what's his name? Dutch. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Dutch. Dutch Jackson, yeah. Sherman: Dutch is what he what Dutch Jackson is doing is phen it's great, it's phenomenal. And but he's again, he's running into a problem with AI. and that is the expense of it because he's paying Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: Higgsville, he's paying all these companies to generate this material and we chatted about the perception of AI is it looks good and it's cheap and it's fast. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: you know, the position that he was in since he was coming off as an AI filmmaker, people thought, Well, I can just ask you to do something with twenty bucks for a whole screen and it shouldn't be anything, 'cause you have to do just type it in and boom, I got my my video, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Don't don't fall for that misconception. Don't f don't think that it's Sherman: And and it's such the is Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): gonna be Sherman: it's such a lie. It is such a lie. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: even chatting with him, he realizes like man, this is it's he so much goes into the thought, the script, having to prompt more than once. So he's a Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sherman: credit that's ching, t- ching, ching. Every time you got a pool clip downloaded, that's money going out of his pocket. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And that's a good lesson. That's a good lesson for all these rappers that think that they're gonna be getting the music videos for free and or cheap. Two hundred and fifty bucks Sherman: That happened. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): barely opens the door, my guy. Sherman: Barely. He's gonna you're probably gonna end spending more than that on credits at the end of the day. Two hundred and fifty dollars is not to do it. Not do it. Two two hundred and fifty dollars, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): One hundred percent. One hundred percent. Sherman: I don't even think I'm trying to think what in I'm I'm because I'm in corporate, I'm trying to think what two hundred fifty dollars what that would get. I mean Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Lunch. Sherman: maybe. I mean that's like for me two yeah, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): A lunch meeting, maybe? Sherman: that's like for me two hours worth of work. if I was gonna break it down hourly well. That's like two hours worth of work, which is at that point research s and script writing and figuring out the direction we're gonna go. We ain't even gotten to production. We're just thinking at that point. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Because it's a again, it's a process. What what what Sherman: The process. Yes. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): folks, especially small companies, small businesses, they don't understand that. They think that they're gonna just Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): show up, they're gonna give you five hundred bucks, and you're gonna do a whole marketing kit. No. No. There's a plan to it. You have to plan, Sherman: Yeah. Yeah, they don't understand a process. Yes. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): you have to set expectations. You and Sherman: Yes. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): even like I'm I'm I'm I'm like that. I'm a teamwork guy. If you come to me for Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): a logo or whatever, I want to work with you to Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): make you something that you're proud of because this is your company. This is an extension of Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): you. This is how you're going to pay your bills. This is going to how this is how you're going to feed your children. So I need you tapped in. Sherman: Yes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Tapped in and planned. Yeah, this Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. So we wanna like I wanna have that conversation with you. Like, where are you going? What are your what are your goals with this thing? Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): If you're just gonna st you know, just sit around and just do a few things for the neighborhood, maybe you don't, you know, okay, cool. But Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): if you're trying to do a logo and and and all your marketing and stuff like that, we need to see like, are you going to social media? Are you just gonna be doing mailers and shit like that? Like Sherman: Yeah, are you gonna do email marketing? Are you gonna have a landing page at a website? What other omnichannel touch points are you gonna be hitting? Are you gonna be hitting you know, television? Are you gonna be hitting s you know, C T V versus T V? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Are you gonna use are you gonna use stock photography or do you need me to bust out those skills too? Sherman: Yeah, exactly. Do you gotta pay for that? So that's one that's one like you're just so right. There's that's one missing skill that a lot of these smaller agencies, studios, I won't say studios, but mostly on the agency sides do not have. And that's actually where I've been able to fit myself in to come in and help with studio and with advertising agencies with this process because just to sum it up what Carlos is saying, especially for the younger generation, when you have a process, when you have a formula, you can pretty much dictate the outcome of the final product every time. Versus when you don't have a process, it's like you're trying to bake a cake with no ingredients or direction. How's that cake going to come out? We don't it may not even come out right. You don't even have directions on how to put the temperature on, how long it needs to go in the oven for. You don't even know the ingredients that need to go in. It's the same exact concept. You have to plan every single strategic aspect of even when it comes in logo is not a company. The logo is just a mark that represents a company. You know, the brand is what people think about when they see your company. Like now I have my brand up here. This is just a logo, but what does my that logo and that symbol mean to so when somebody sees that, they They understand that it's a creative studio. I this is something I still struggle with, even just when it comes to branding and really positioning myself and getting that out there to the public because inertia art is such a weird name. I guess this is so weird, but you see art in it. So, you know, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: and I was when I came up with the name of it, you know, I'm a big science person and I'm a big art person. So that's where the two words came together. And I'm gonna let people look up inertia so they can s I want people to think, look up inertia. So you can see what that means and then put art to it and then it'll define itself. And then you'll be like, okay. So I'm gonna leave that little mystery. I'm not gonna get into that part of it. But there's there's still that whole that whole aspect of the industry that is being missed, and I the people who are being hired at these agencies, they're young. They're younger. They don't have these a lot of experience and they're younger because they're cheaper. I I just Had a client that I just worked on a website for, and I was it was ironic, they fired all the senior people, they got rid of everybody, restructuring, that's happening a whole lot. And but they're still going after clients. So they got a project in. And they hired young folks to come in and run the project, and people who went who literally Don't have experience managing interactive media work. You know, it goes to our website. And one thing I love about this project manager, this person was older, and they straight up said, I need help because we over here do not know what we are doing. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: to me, that is the best client because they admit Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: that they do not know and they need help. Versus Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They see clearly. Sherman: they see clearly that there's a problem. And that's what I do. We Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: come in and solve problems as senior creative people versus some of them are just like we know we're doing we're not and you're gonna fight those are the worst to have but one thing I love about this agency is they say that we do not know this. So I actually had to go in and kind of help guide them with the process of how to you know create a website when you start with your Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: blueprint your wireframes you present that to the client so they can actually get an idea of how the website's gonna flow I mean I literally had the whole bro I held the hand Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: I held the hand I held the hand all the way through. I I held the hand and I was holding it all the way. And project launched, successful. Hey, everybody's happy. Everybody's happy. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I I have I was talking to hell yeah dude hell yeah dude just was it last week maybe two weeks ago now last week maybe Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I got a call from someone in dire needs back in in Chicago and she said hey we're making this app would you mind Talking to me and the product manager of the app because we think we're getting Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): taken advantage of. Said, all right, cool. So we said in this meeting, I was like, what do you got? They're like, what do you mean? I was like, you have no flow charts, no no wireframes, no, like, what are you building? Show me what you're building. They're like, no, we don't have any of that. I was like, what? Like, how are Sherman: What What are you doing? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): you? I I and then I asked them, I said, Can you build a house with no blueprint? They said. I mean, not really. I said, yeah, exactly. What's the Sherman: What are we doing here? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): what's your path? Like where are we going with this? Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And then and then the fact that the fact that, you know, going back to how we talked about sending our resume out to all these places and nobody's get right. So okay. Sherman: Yeah, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So I don't qualify for jobs, but yet you idiots Sherman: Mm-hmm. This person. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): are stumbling all over the place. Sherman: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I can make wireframes. I can make flow charts. I can make outlines. I can make rough designs. Sherman: Yeah, the plan. You know how plan. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Son, these folks, they're so goddamn frustrating. Sherman: Yeah. And the the ironic thing about that, Carlos, is that the same this what was going on now, I experienced that ten years ago when I mentioned even when Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sherman: it came to the Pirates of the Caribbean website, you know, the person Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: at the time didn't have a lot of experience and they were put in a position. and I just so far as like Being open and listening, not saying I know everything. That's when you s when you can actually just be like, Look, I don't know everything. And like I can admit I don't know everything. I don't know everything. But I can figure it out because Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. But I can figure it out. Yeah. Sherman: I know how to research and use critical thinking. that's just something that I'm hoping everybody can somehow use utilize the noodle Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's really Sherman: a little bit. Maybe maybe it's just our generation where we know how to think. You know, but that's that's yeah, that that's that's that's kind of a challenge in some areas. yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mom and Dad didn't do it all for us. that's crazy. That's crazy. Okay. Cool. Sherman: but still to your point is that companies, the decision makers up top, they want cheap labor. And this is part Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: this kind of goes back to American greed. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: you can afford to go ahead and pay a little more sp for experience. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sherman: It's not about putting all your money in the stocks and your stock buybacks, you know, because that's how you actually improve not only your company, but you make your customers happy. Like in your case, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: that company, they reason why they called you because they're about to lose whatever dollar amount, whatever client they were, because they had no clue how to plan this together and they took on this project. They even took on a project before making sure they even had the right people in line to even work on. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And let me tell you something. Just because someone has money does not mean that they are intelligent. Sherman: You said that a hundred, hundred percent. My wife is dealing with that right now. with with her with on her side. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): The apologize to her for me. I'm sorry, Mrs. Wellons. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you have to deal with that. Sherman: Yeah, she's dealing with that now. And I and I I mentioned this to her before. There are a lot of people who have money who actually you would think they're intelligent, but no, they're not. I mean, look at the president. Look who's all those people, Elon Musk, every All of Mediocre and dumb to a T. All of All of Ugh. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): All of them. All of them. All of them. Marco Rubio. All of them. That Ted Cruz knucklehead. I I'm I just got done releasing this thing on on Cuba, this talk on Cuba. So I'm like, I'm like tweaking on Cubans right now. Like bullshit Cubans. Bullshit Cubans. The Ted Cruzes, the the Marco Rubios, Sherman: you are no man. I I n Marco Rubio's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): the and and I'm about to get on. Miami Cubans too. So let's let's get back. I'm about Sherman: will vote. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): to flame Miami Cubans. Sherman: I will vote for Donald Trump. Let me no let me stop. I mean that right Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yep. You will get Sherman: there. The ported. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Kick the fuck out. Sherman: that's a whole other topic to talk about right there 'cause to this day I'm still stretching my I'm s I Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): But that's exactly that's proof. Just because someone just because someone's parents gave them money doesn't mean that they're smart enough to pull any of this off. Sherman: Exactly. And that's the leadership roles. That's what we're able that's what we're experiencing. I reason why I came in as a cons I I do like more consulting work, because those people they don't know and the ones that are smart will say I don't know. Let me hire to help me get to the goal that I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm coming in, I'm coming in as a teammate. Sherman: Yes. Yeah. Versus when you're employee, you get looked at as an employee and you get treated differently. And I I didn't like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: that aspect of becoming an employee when I was working for companies. And that's what made that's actually really, really encouraged me to become like a vendor and consultant. On top of I didn't want to just be doing the same type of work all the time, all the time over and over again. So when you do get laid off, then you're just stuck with one skill set and then you're scrambling. like crazy to try and figure out what to do next. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: I remember when I was laid off my s thir second year when I used to work for IBM. So I got out of college and went to the University of Georgia and I got hired at IBM. I got hired at So I'm from Pittsburgh. Yeah, I'm originally Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You're originally from the East Coast, yeah? Pittsburgh. Sherman: from Pittsburgh. I went to UGA, did my four years under there, did my three and a half years because I went to summer school. I wasn't playing and just to sh get through. cadet to put myself through college. So, you know, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hell yeah. Sherman: there was no I'm gonna go skiing this weekend. No, there was none of that. I had to I I worked 32 hours a week. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): books and books. Sherman: Yeah. It was boot yours was boots and books. Mine was I worked at the cable company 32 hours a week and I went to school. And that was pretty much Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: it. Of course, hit the gym just to make sure to keep my mind clear, because if not out of practice crazy, I I'd have snapped on somebody. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Of course. I don't wanna snap. Sherman: in school and that's all I did, you know, for three and a half years. You know, summer school went straight on through that, knocked out the electives, whatever the case may be. but I remember when I got laid off from IBM, you know, my second year around, I really didn't understand what was happening. You know, I thought that I I made it. I got this job with IBM. You know you know, my statement and wrong Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You know? They've been around longer than most of us. Sherman: Yeah, you know, I you know, the famous I being loco, you know, this is going to be this was during the this was during the dot com year. So this is around you know, two thousand, two thousand and one-ish. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Sherman: and I th the whole American dream that that's being allied to and that's another nightmare, that whole thing, the white pick offense, I thought I was gonna be set for life. This is where I was gonna be for the rest of my career. And next thing you know, was like two and a half years later, dot bomb happens and they're like, sorry, you gotta go. And literally Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: flipped my world upside down. I I I was really shocked about it. But one thing I ha I have to admit, working at that place at IBM, I I treated it like it was a master's school program for me. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: I study I still studied. and my manager at the time, Colin He basically was like, okay, there's not too many people who are designers like yourself. You have a BFA and graphic design. You're over here with us. And this this is where I started learning the JavaScript, the HTML, the object Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: programming. He was like, this is what you need to learn how to do. And I didn't understand why. And he broke it down to me, says, if you don't understand how to control your pixels, how are you gonna understand how to make them? Creatively. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. I like Sherman: And that just hit me. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): that control. Sherman: I was like, snap. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: Let me let me go work with let me go work with this programmer buddy over here and just kind of see what he's doing with this stuff. And I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: happened to work with, in my opinion, some of the smartest people at that time that I've experienced. one of the guys who didn't work with him directly, but he's in my partner. I mean, he was my department. He's fifty-four. now and he's retired. So let me tell you that's how smart he was. And he was a programmer over there. He wrote some patents and used to work for Apple, made some patent for them and he's done and he's fifty-four years old. So hats off to him. He's one of somebody I admire in that. But I worked around these Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: brilliant, really smart people like that. And I was able to treat it like mad and I soaked it up. I I learned how to program as a designer at IBM Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: And once I learned how to program, that really just changed my whole perspective on design itself. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Programmers make way more money than artists do. So much more money. Sherman: They do too. They do. They do too. But here's the ironic thing, here's the ironic. Once I learned how to program and also being an artist, I was able to I was able to talk to developers. That's language. And I can go and artists. And I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And artists. Cause those are they aren't the easiest to talk to either. Sherman: they know nothing about how to structure anything when it comes to programming or coding or even the workflow behind that. So what may what actually I would say what's kept me alive for all these years is being able to hop on both sides of the fence and excuse Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yep. Yep. Sherman: me, work work with a development team and actually be a straight coder. Work with our team and just be a straight designer. And then be that middle person that says, Okay, let's work with design team. Actually I can take my own designs and take them through the production pipeline as a developer and at the end of the door, it goes out the door. So that's what's been allowed me to actually, you know how you said developers make a lot more than artists. I was able to start raising my my rates and what I do and what I deliver because not only am I coming in as a designer, I'm coming in as a developer. I'm coming Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: in to somebody who knows how to build this and structure it. It's not about pretty pictures. It's actually Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: about creating a user interface interface that does something. It's about creating taking that still. And taking the concept and making it move and, you know, whatever it's three D or whatever, that you're fusing all these technologies together and putting it out the door. And that's what made my salary go up. 'cause I started off in Atlanta. That's where IBM was. I got laid off there. after I got laid off from IBM, I actually was a software developer for this company called Round Box Media for about two years. I have yeah, I have a graphic design degree and I'm doing software development. You know, it's like, what Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: But I I I learned that from IBM because I was taught I was taught from programmers the concept of object-oriented programming. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: So I was actually not only as software developer, I was creating the interface and assets in Photoshop and Illustrator before I coded them up in Flash at the time. because it actually was dynamic just to give it MBC all day. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm hmm. Model view controller, baby. Sherman: it just that concept right there. is so i I mean it's it allows you to be very diverse. So I I want to tell all designers do not fear the MVC model view controller or the programming. It sounds boring. You may not think it has to do with anything with design, but once you learn that, man, it even makes you a better designer. It even helps Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): But it does. Hell yeah, it does. Sherman: you. I mean even I mean 'cause that's how BLT was smart enough to hire people like us to save their ass pretty much when bad decisions are being made because we have that background. We didn't have to go just let me just pass off developer now. That's why you up or late. But you were making stuff, making change of assets, and then you Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. Sherman: had to code it up and then you had to like deploy it. So that right there is like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. They just they would just hand us a a Photoshop file. And Sherman: Yeah, that's all we get. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): if it it wasn't even it wasn't even properly labeled. You'd be like, why does this shit say layer 754? Sherman: No. Layer, layer, layer, layer. Seven Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): The fuck? Sherman: I don't even want to get into that. man. That drove me cr that drove me crazy with designers. But but then but Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): please. Sherman: then that's that's the that's the part where designers miss when it comes to like money. We make a living based off of our time equals money. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: We give somebody a time, they pay us so we can pay our bills, keep our lights on, eat food, whatever Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: the case may be. And I tried to always talk to designers about this. Every little thing that you do when it comes to even labeling your layers, putting them in folders, putting your your objects in certain places, is very key. But if you don't, if you never cut. Yeah, you don't have to turn around Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Where you don't have to continue to dig around looking for things. Sherman: digger round for things, that makes production so much faster. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So much faster. Sherman: And it saves so much time. You could probably cut down like an hour or two, like a developer when I would get I end up end up charging more because I was actually having to clean up. Photoshop files. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: and that's just why I became a vendor because of that. And then what I would do, then I would consult with the designers, but hey, I know you never coded before, but I want you to like think of everything that you design layout in like blocks. Everything. The navigation's its own little block. You know, this whole top header is your your own little block. So it was a middle section. And when you start thinking that way. then it makes it faster for the developer to actually take your graphics and bring all that stuff to life. But again, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: that's not taught in design school. Nobody knows until you actually get into doing it. And that's why I suggest Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And you work with some lazy ass people. Sherman: man, lazy is an understatement. But think about it, that's that's a reflection of them though. You know? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Like you're right. Right. Sherman: How lazy you are. That just shows that you're a a lazy designer. That you're not even and also shows that you're a selfish designer because you're not thinking about when you have to pass that off to somebody else. What you have to go through. You're on a team. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. And it exactly. Like you're in a team. You're in a team and you have to you have to approach it as such. Like if we're on the same Sherman: You have to approach everything in the team. You're right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): team and we're working on the same project, I wanna be able to go into the folder structure and find the thing that I'm looking for. I don't wanna have to Sherman: Exactly. Everything. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I don't wanna have to interrupt you. Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You got things to do. You're already moved on to the next project. Because remember, Sherman: Project. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): it's a sweatshop. Sherman: Yeah. It's pipeline. It's a pipeline. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. You already moved on. I don't want to have to ask you. Sherman: Yeah. Man, that is just s like so critical. And they people don't make the they don't connect the dots. That's dollars and cents and time right there. And project Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. Sherman: managers don't connect that dot. Some business leaders, people making decisions, don't connect those dots because they've never had to do it themselves. And that's where I think our Where people like us Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And they don't trust and they don't trust the developer when the developer says, Hey, there's some things, la la la, they think that they know better. Just because I guess managers and their title or something, but but I'm telling Sherman: Yeah, which is really weird. 'Cause they're yeah, they get the title of manager. Yeah, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): you, I'm in here, I'm telling you, your your car needs oil, and you're gonna question me. Sherman: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That that mentality drove me nuts again, and that's why I decided to become a vendor and a consultant. Because that the title, like why does the title get to people's heads that you don't know what you're doing, but you're the actual engineer building the thing? You know. I don't tell Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: my doctor, my doctor is checking me out. I don't tell them what's going on with me. 'Cause I didn't study medicine for ten or twelve years. So I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Here's the rash. What do I do with this? Sherman: yeah, I don't say I have a rash, but let me tell you what I think you should do for the rash. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Contrary to what all those dumb commercials that talk to your doctor about. Sherman: Yeah. Hello. So it's that Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): No, I don't want to. Sherman: yeah, I mean it's just bananas t it sometimes that that whole mentality. sadly I'm just always been wondering if that's just the culture of advertising and just being in a creative field where you have the ego that takes over instead of actually being a real team player because you want to impress somebody. that may have given you that job because the insecurities in your skill sets really not there. That's really what I think it comes down to. You know, the insecurity that you really don't know what you're doing, so you have to have a meeting after a meeting in order to feel that you're important. And that can be detrimental to the cause of the project a at hand. And just Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And it's crazy how it's usually like people try to feel important on a Friday after lunch when they have to prove that their that their job should exist. Like, why are you doing that? We're good. Now Sherman: Yeah. Yeah. What are you doing? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I have to work over the weekend because you feel like you have to pee on the street. Sherman: Yeah. I gotta work on the weekend because Monday you made a promise that you shouldn't have been you shouldn't have made a promise for it. So now when that promise happens, I just charge more for it. And then that's kinda funny when Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: you s when you don't work for them, you just charge more for it. Then that promise like, well, you know what? We can just wait till Monday. You know, the the tune changes because at that point Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sherman: now that budget is being affected by somebody's bad decision. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Exact. Sherman: And that's the difference of when you're an employee versus when you're a consultant and they have to get this done. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sherman: And then some may just say, Well, we won't use a consultant no more. We'll try and find an employee to do this, but what employees are gonna fight you on working on the weekend? They're gonna fight you and then they probably won't even do the job that well because they're gonna be so pissed that you may have tried to hold well, you want this job position, then you better do it. They're not gonna put their heart into it. They're not gonna really go through it with a fine tooth cone to make sure that the product is good before it goes out the door because they're already just pissed off. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And they're gonna give you this line. Just be happy that you have a job. You could you Sherman: Yeah, I've heard that one too before. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): could not have a job. Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Well, being treated like this, I might I might have to take my chances because this is bullshit. Sherman: Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I have to say I I've Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: I took my chances years ago and I could say that everybody has their ups and downs, you know, when you become an entrepreneur and you become a a vendor. but I tasted what it was like for ten years to be a vendor and to have not it's really not it is freedom. You still gotta work. Don't get me wrong, not like you you don't work at all. It's not like you just sit around and do nothing and money comes to you. You still have to work. But the difference is, like for me, I'm an introverted person and I don't like office politics. To me, office politics get the way of trying to get the project done. Cause at the end of the day, that's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Same. Same. Yeah. Sherman: all we're you're you're paying me to implement a service. You're not paying me to be a politician. So therefore, I don't care for your politics. and when I was working with Sachi and Sochi, I actually got a taste of not what it had to do with office politics because I was able to work outside of the place as a vendor. So the only my only politics was just that I just made sure that I I treated my the team members that were leaning on me for this work is to make sure that I was always there for them. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: they had any questions, I was always there for them. sometimes I took out to dinner as a thank you for handing me the work. And based off a salary, I made four times the money. You know, because I was treated as as a vendor. And when it comes to taxes and they didn't pay my taxes, they didn't pay my health care, they didn't pay none of that. So all that money that a lot of companies put into healthcare, I just said, you just put that in the check and you know we'll we'll we'll be good. I'll handle that my own self. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Yeah. Yep. Sherman: And they like that relationship because they don't have to pay for any four one K. They don't have to pay for Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Yeah. The way I explain it is you give me a check to go away. I don't have to Sherman: Yeah. Yeah, give me a check to Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): have my I don't have to have my my feelings into this project. I don't Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): have to be I don't have to be babying this project and you know, it doesn't it's Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): not that precious. You're giving me a check to just let it be. Here. There you go. Okay, Sherman: Yeah, let it be. Let me do my job. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): see you later. Sherman: Yeah, let me do my job. except for this time, this was a ten year checks and checks and checks and kept going and going and going and going. that it was it was a great relationship Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, that's a great relationship. Sherman: until you know COVID came in and destroyed like all that once the supply chain happened and all that, you know, back then Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: the car supply chain just went down and they had to ship all the work to Latin America. But that's a whole other story on how that'll happen. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I've been fighting with them for projects for my whole career. My whole career. Folks in Costa Sherman: Yeah, it's it's yeah, it it's been Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Rica, they used to get the project and then they'd mess it up, and then they'd have to call me to fix everything and to deliver on time. And now you have to pay extra Sherman: Yeah. He comes back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): because you're an idiot. You should have called me first. Sherman: in the first place. But again, project managers they just see a dollar and don't realize you get what you pay for. You know, that is Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. And that's what's happening up here too. Like, like at first I had come up here and I had gotten my couple jobs. I worked for one crook that didn't pay me for three months, took him to court, paid for it or worked for another crook who did he he ended up go he had gone to jail for like pyramid schemes and stuff like that. Sherman: damn. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yeah. that's why I don't All these business owners that are trying to run for Congress and stuff like that, y'all are crooks. Just let it be. Just give it to somebody else. Give it to some Sherman: Yeah, they're they're Sir Crooks. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): all these normal people that want to work at the for the government, give it to them. All you Sherman: Yeah. It it's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): all you business owners that are trying to run for office of it, you're all crooks. You're all fucking crooks. So, Sherman: Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and up here, what they're doing is I I thought it was me. Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): But come to find out what they're doing is they're using the what is that the visa H1B visa that Sherman: yeah? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yep, they're using H1B visas to go and hire contractors from not here, and then they bring all these contractors in. They're not hiring Americans, they're hiring outside folks, and Sherman: Cheaply. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): they're yeah, so you can get For the price of me, you can get three developers from name a country. Yep. Sherman: Wow, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And then they're doing that down in LA too, because Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): the animation industry, they go to Indonesia, they go to Sherman: Yeah, I've been saying that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): they go to India, they go to China indirectly. We finding Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): out, we're finding out that indirectly, like these. the the animation companies here in America go and they get a contractor company that then end up hiring animators from North Korea. Sherman: North Korea, wow. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): North Korea. South Korea is our friend. North Sherman: Interesting. Yeah, North Korea we're not friends. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Korea not so much. The only person that they get along with is Trump. Sherman: Yeah. Yeah, I know right. True. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. So all this all this stuff is happening and they they continue to say, well, Americans are lazy and stupid. Sherman: Stupid, maybe. Some, not all, but some. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Meh some. Some. Yeah. Some. But yeah, that's what they're doing. So they've been Sherman: Wow. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): all these folks that are worried about AI taking over and stuff like that. They haven't been hiring American son. They haven't. That's why we're struggling. That's Sherman: Yeah. Yeah, they haven't. They're Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): why a lot of a lot of very talented, very intelligent people, they're just sitting around trying to figure out like. And and I'm sorry, but no, I'm not gonna fight for a job at Starbucks. That shit's for high school kids. I'm a grown ass man with a resume Sherman: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): that is stuff for anything quite fucking impressive. Sherman: You've done a lot, a whole lot. I think we we all have. And it's it's so wild how eventually I think that will come back. And not to take anything away from the developers, the animators in these other countries, nothing wrong with that. The problem is with Americans, you send them a creative brief and expect them to translate that. And we know how creative briefs are when we get them, we put together. And you start working a project, and this is why the process comes in. Early in early in the stages of development, you realize, that's not what we were thinking. We were actually talking about this. And then the scope sort of changes, but it's still it's aligned, it's an early enough process where it can change that it's not at the final deliverable stage. I've actually had to years ago when I was working for GE, General Electric, we were working on an application that They s it was sent to India. they're having problems with the developers in India. I I remember getting a call and I said from a friend Terry is like, hey, I got this GE project. It was sent to India because somebody in-house decided to send it to India to get it developed and worked on. it was an application. So when I got the code base and I took a look at it, all the JavaScript was all on one line. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): No. Sherman: I had classes and and so far to your audience with a class is just imagine like a class is a is a piece of script. a script just has information. And many classes put together is allows the interface to actually function and happen. Just a quick recap. So but humans, like when you read a letter or an email, you know how we have line breaks so we can see every line. Imagine trying to read an email all on one line that you have to scroll all the way to Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's a long ass story. Yeah. Imagine having to read Moby Dick, but it's all one long ass line. Sherman: Yes it is. All on one line. On one line. So when I got the code base from them, all the code, literally all the classes of JavaScript, they were all on one line. All the HTML was all on one line. And no, it wasn't minify. You're probably asking, well didn't they just minify it? No, they didn't minify it. They just wrote everything all on one line. I don't know if that was cultural or if that's how they were taught. But diagnosing it was tough. And this was back before AI existed. This was ten years ago, this was a problem. Before AI. So I actually had to manually, manually go through those scripts, put line breaks in them, and make it that it was readable first. Then I was actually able to continue with the app, build, see what the problems were and and diagnose it. but again, what had happened was that the UI That the wireframes and the scope will work was they were it was interpreted different because the project manager did not word it in a certain way and the the developers from India took that wording literally and they built it. And really the fault wasn't the wasn't the developers, it was the project manager's fault. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So it's it it's it's quite yeah, it's quite possible that they're like, hey, we're gonna break this all up into different classes and and and the project manager who probably, you know, it's got manager in their name. They're like, nah, just do it in one line. That's quite possible for that to happen. Sherman: know anything. Yeah. Yeah, or something. Who knows? Who knows? Anything could anything could have happened. so to say it's not to take away from people from other countries, you know, 'cause they're just as brilliant as we are, sometimes the decision makers and the project managers may s write out a brief and it may just be interpreted differently because of just the culture. It's the culture of working with Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sherman: Americans versus somebody in Indonesia or somebody in North Korea or a developer in Latin America. culturally, sometimes some things can the miscommunication can happen, which will delay a project. So I get it. Let's be cheap. Send it down there. Let's go ahead and save thousands and thousands of dollars and hopefully it won't cost us more later if it needs to come back or if it needs to change. That's where I think the Agency world. I Saatchi, that's the direction that they went. And everybody that I know there is pretty much laid laid off and they have this PX studio now that they're building for that. And they're actually starting to hire Americans, which is ironic. Yeah, they're starting to slow they started the studio. It's called PX Studios. And I I know people s over there at Sachi and they're actually I'm looking on their little board just to see if they're looking for vendors and they're actually starting to look for Americans and not foreigners anymore. So it's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Let's go. America's coming back, baby. Sherman: It Yeah. So yeah, it it's it's it's gonna happen, but it's still gonna be a while because you have such an influx of people who are laid off and, you know, looking for work and jobs of that nature. And one thing I I do definitely wanna chat about, you know, even just as a challenge to my own self, even like even yourself, we've been in the industry for over twenty years. This is the first time I actually ever had to run a campaign just to bring awareness to my skill sets. Which is interesting. So now that not only am I a designer, and developer, I guess say I'm a creative production person too, because I'm not a make everything that I built. now I'm actually having to do marketing, which I've never had to do before ever in my whole career. I've never had to Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: market my portfolio as if it's a product. And that's key as if it's a product. Not just this looks good, but now what I Do actually serves a purpose for our capitalistic society, whether it's communicating an idea or if it's doing a sales explainer video for a product. I actually had to shift my mindset way things have been changing in order to stay relevant. Because a portfolio, when I would show people my portfolio, first of all, I got questioned if this was my work, which was kind of insulting. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's only gonna get worse too. Sherman: I've been asked that before on on the phone. is this your work? It wouldn't be on my website if it wasn't my work. But and that's a or Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You know what I'm saying? Sherman: they would ask you, Well, what part did you work on? Everything you see. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It Sherman: Everything you see a team of ten people didn't work on this and I just had this little quick ten second, five second clip. I built Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: everything, including the design, including the pace, including Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: the way it flows, and cute I made it and so I've been like deer in headlights, like wow, we didn't know this was possible. I'm not the only one that can do this. We're here. You just don't know where to find us. Most of us got gray hair in our beards, and we're not on TikTok. Talking about we can do this and do this and we're not on the Instagram doing reels and all that other showing showing myself and trying to show my computer screen. No, we're we we actually know how to make this stuff. We do Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): We do this. Yeah. Sherman: this. funny thing when I was when I went to Black Week, I got I was asked Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Tell people what Black Week is. Sherman: Okay, yeah, let me tell you what Black Week is. Let me mention this. So this is my first Black Week here in LA. They usually have in New York. What Black Week is, is ran by Walter I can't remember his last name, but he's a creative director and this other guy. It's basically it's a week of professional people of color that come together and it's like a networking event. it is the first networking event. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Let each other know we ain't out here alone. Yeah. Sherman: It lets us know that we are not by ourselves. I did not feel like a unicorn when I walked into this place. I met other men of color, black men. Yeah, I know, right? I met Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What a what a delightful feeling that must have been. Sherman: and people don't want to give it credit. Black women are really smart. I met a lot of smart sisters out there too doing their thing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hell yeah. Sherman: you're not alone. And when you start talking to these people, they actually understood what I did. When I have 'cause I have my little name badges, art director and let me see if I can find it over here. I still have yeah. Here's my my little badge. So they this audience, which was really shocking to me, had an idea of what I did for a living and they were all people of color. They all look like me. So I had it's probably gonna be it's gonna be backwards on here. But I had on my little badge I have an Earth R Studio senior art director and creative technologist. And they're like, They said, Are you just pretty much just an art? Are you just a creative director? And I said, No. I'm not a creative director. I d I could be, but I don't want to be, because I still like making sure that the work gets done. And I had actually explained to them the difference of what a creative director does and what an art director that's a creative technologist does. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: I was able to explain it and it clicked. And just being around a bunch of people of color in the marketing, advertising, and some other businesses as well. was very, very ref refreshing. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: I'd never experienced anything like that. I used to even live in Atlanta, going to networking events there, because of art industry, I really don't see a lot of people of color and meeting in just one place. Now that they they brought it New York and out of here in LA, it was just really, really fascinating meeting other creative directors who happened to be black. I was just like I was like, wow. You know? And I was able Yeah, I was just like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Shout out to each and every one of them. Sherman: whoa. Cause in LA I I really don't know. I don't know any. I I have to admit, I really don't know any. I know Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: somebody in Chicago and Atlanta, but I don't know hip anybody here. I may have just of course missed out, you know, they're probably here in studios or things that I just don't know about, but they didn't, they weren't there to event. So just Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: just seeing that was really refreshing. And not having the feeling that I can't be myself and speak a little speak some slang and people still get what I'm talking Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Code switching. Sherman: about. I ain't got a code switch. I don't have to put on the really is the code switching part of it. I had to kind of watch what I say to make sure you understand the language. I didn't Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: have to do any of that. And these were, of course, professional folks, which was interesting. So that's what Black Week's about. And they had that here out it just happened this past week. So if you ever get a chance in New York or LA, they probably have the one I'm not sure when they're gonna have it, but it's just something to look into and there were some allies there. And what I mean by allies, there were some white folks there. a friend of mine who I met and I know, right? To to our allies out there. To the Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Shout out allied white folks. Let's go. Not all white people. Sherman: good ones out there who are there. And I I I definitely wanna just I Culturally it was really interesting because, you know, they they support us and I met a creative director has to be she lives in Sacramento. She I met her at the Adobe Max conference in twenty nineteen. And again, Adobe Max there's not a lot of us there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): cool. I went to I went to the one in twenty eighteen. Sherman: 2018. So I went through one year afterwards. And I met her and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It was in the vag Vegas. Sherman: we we we kept in contact and she hit me up. She's like, Hey, I see you're going to Black Week and you blonde haired, blue eyed, you know, white woman. I'm Yeah, I'll be there. Happen to see her there, you know, and to catch up. And we are having some interesting conversations about the current political state and what's happening and what's happening inside her family. as a man of color, I have no MAGA people in my I maybe have one cousin that's Republican, but he's rich and he doesn't talk to a lot of us and he's which yeah, which is of known. I I think I have my I think I have his number Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Which yeah. All right. We see you, bitch. Sherman: in here. I I should just reach out to him and just be like, hey Jeffrey, how are you doing? but I haven't spoken to him in years. But we have one. but other than that, we don't have a lot of MAGA and Trump supporters in my family. And she was very frustrated. She was just No, we're talking about the economy because, you know, work is very there's not that many projects out there. right now we're being robbed by our federal government. So any federal funds that would go out to fund projects around this country is being put in his pockets and his friends' pockets. So there's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: really not investment going back on in America right now. The only investment Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: is AI. That's why when you see AI job out there, it's like for three hundred thousand dollars, because that's where it's all going in and that's really gonna I don't know about those sort of jobs, but that's a whole other topic again. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, for real. Sherman: so she was just venting to me basically how her there's a lot of conflicts within these Caucasian people's families. Those who are for Trump and for those who are not. And it causes Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: a lot of it's causing division in families that are happen to be white. And she's I mean she's referring to close, close relatives that she used to talk to. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: that it's that she just cannot it got to the point where they're they are not speaking to each other. And she always mentions this she was it's kind of funny these talking points, they don't understand why are you so furious over your politics. She like they don't understand why she is so angry about it. And she mentioned to this to me was important which wasn't important but was interesting. She was like, you know, I'm trying to tell you that you claim you're a Christian, but you don't even realize you're Christian white nationalist because of what you believe in. It's not about politics at this point. It's morals. You believe that other people can be hurt. And you're like, no, we don't. But yes, you do. You're you don't understand that Coral, the connection of your voting and the content that you're putting out there is against people that she was like that are my friends. 'Cause she's white and she has people color as her friends. She's like, these people are my friends that I've known for years, and you basically are bashing them, and you think that you're not. And we get all into she doesn't speak to like one of her uncles anymore. I mean, it's just like there's a the last time they spoke, they got into a huge they don't even get together for like family dinners anymore. And I have to say, Trump is the ultimate divider. I mean, he got to the point where he did a country, now it's down to the families. I'm Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: just like, wow, that's very deep ingrained stuff that's been culturally Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yes. Sherman: put into America, especially, you know, white Americans. Yeah, accepted for a long time. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It was culturally accepted. And again, going back to going back to the dynamic of you and I having to work over the weekend Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): while other people were able to just take the weekend off and spend time with their family and do all Sherman: Yeah, too. Mm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): live a normal fucking life. Sherman: Yeah, yeah. It really there's a whole huge dynamic that connects everything from politics down to the working people. And, you Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sherman: know, I even consider myself I consider myself working class. I mean, I I work for a living to make a dollar. Yeah, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: I made some been blessed to have made, you know, enough money to not really be sh stressed out like right now and homeless. But still I I still work. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. You can go to you can go to a concert and do groceries. It's not a either or. Sherman: Yeah, I c I still have that. I can after this Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: Yeah, I I have to go to Costco after this. But the fact is that I can still go to Costco and put food on my table. even though I would like it to be a lot better, but still Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hell yeah. Everybody would. Sherman: we're able to get through this, these tough times. And there are people right now who, of course, vote against some interests who are really hurting. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: it's just really the I guess that's the dissonance of thinking or cognitive dissonance, which is the word that everybody uses, that people just don't can't relate to what's happening in government that actually affects businesses even in our world. Because nobody's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: investing in America except for AI companies and that's it. But if that if you base your business model around that, when that blows up, then you're gonna just like the dot bomb, it's gonna crash and burn as well. So I thought that was really interesting because I haven't heard that perspective of, you know, talking to I have plenty of variety of friends and white friends, but she really was really just so angry and and I just did not know that it was like clashing within families of of white America. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sherman: which kind of gives me hope that there will be a change. And I'm hoping that it does happen because it affects the economy and how we all can just make things and be happy. but Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: I just wanted to just share that so to all the white allies out there who may be going through something similar to my Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): We see you. We see you. Yeah. Sherman: My friend, we see you, we understand you and we thank you and we support you for sticking behind us and realizing that Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): One hundred percent. Sherman: that that's it's all bullshit. You know, it is and it's it's hurting all of us. You Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. Right. Sherman: know, to s to support pretty much a crook that's stealing from all of us. He doesn't care how money the only thing he sees as green is his color. That's it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's it. Sherman: And the people around him, that's all they see is green. And that's and they're robbing us right now. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, because he's sold he's he's he's sold people out. It don't even matter the color, my guy. It doesn't matter. Sherman: Yeah. Yeah, I know, right? It doesn't even matter. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's not it's not that he's a racist against just like my guy didn't rent to black or Puerto Rican Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): folks. One hundred percent of this show is black and Puerto Rican folks. Sherman: Yeah. I know, right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): This dude gets but he he only hangs out with the Uber rich and Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): the and the and the sad part is is that some of these normal white folks think that they belong in that club. And you don't. And you don't. I get Sherman: Yeah, they're not particle. Yeah. Not at all. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): to hang out in those clubs. I get to go to those dinners. Sherman: Yeah, I've been with this parts. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I get to hang out with all those folks that have had generational wealth. Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I get to do that. They don't like you. You don't read books. You don't do you don't do math. You don't work. All you do, Sherman: Can't read. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): all you do is sit there and complain. That's all you Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): do. Sit there and complain about us. Sherman: Trying to get it. Yeah, and that's and it's it's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: it's it's a s it's the sense of entitlement was really interesting. And she actu my friend whose family, she screamed at them like you and I mean she she told me she called her uncle like a she even used a racial slur. She called him an entitled cracker. And I just looked at her and shook her my head, was like wow. She's like, I don't care anymore. I'm tired of it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Some of these folks are some of these folks are are are amped up more than you and I. Cause for us, I've been looking Sherman: Yes, they are. 'Cause we we know this. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): at this, I've been looking at this shit for 54 years. It's like, here comes another one. here comes another one. this shit. All right. For us is old hand. Sherman: Yeah, we we've seen this long. Yeah. Where you this isn't this is another Tuesday for us. This is not a Tuesday for us. We're like, it's this ain't nothing new. I'm just Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And now we got and now we got some of these younger white folks. They're looking at their parents, they're looking at their aunts and uncles, they're looking at their cousins, saying, like, what? Those are like you exactly what you said. These are Sherman: What? What what's going on? Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): my friends. None of that shit is true. These are my friends. I hang out with them. None of that shit is true. Changes here, baby. Sherman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah it that that that cultural shift is it's really I thought that was very interesting 'cause and that it's good to have a variety of friends so you can have these conversations with different people. And I have and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. Sherman: my friend who's a creative director, since she like she came to Blackweek, she has no fear about being a minority in a space that was pretty much for us. And that just shows Just shows you who she are because she's like, man, most talented people are here. Why would I not come here? You know? And that makes and that makes sense from her perspective because she's truly a creative woman. You know, and she thinks in creativity. And she's like, We we need diversity in these spaces so that we don't have mistakes that like Converse made, for example. Because anybody who was in that space told them, You don't do that. No, no. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Even up here, where g when Google first started coming out with these image generators, you would ask for a black person and it would serve you up gorillas and monkeys and dumb shit. Sherman: Yeah, I see I started playing with that. I've seen that. Nor isn't you somebody white when you don't actually specifically say what ethnicity Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Sherman: they are. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So now don't you think if we just had a couple colored folks in the office with you when you're taking a picture and identifying what that is to the computer, don't you think it Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): would be helpful to have more than just one or two black folks, one or two brown folks to be like, all right, hey. Sherman: That's not right. Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Can we can we you know? Like, come on, son. Like Sherman: It's it's it's ridiculous. That's like me trying to make decision, which is happening right now, on a woman's body. I have I have no Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): tell Tell him. Sherman: not one damn right as a man to even I would Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It don't even have to go that far. It don't even have to go that far. I have no right to tell Sherman Sherman: No. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Wellons what to do with Sherman Wellons bicep. I hey Sherman, Sherman: That's true. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): those biceps are you know, can you can you chill Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): out on the biceps? You're you're stretching out all the t shirts. You're you're fucking up Sherman: It's screen. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): the bell curve. Does that make any sense to you? Then how the fuck am I gonna do Sherman: Zero. Zero sense what you look. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): that to a woman? Sherman: That's where we are. It's crazy. It makes it makes no sense to me. Even when it comes to designing and even in our industry, as a as a male art director, when it comes to female or even just working on a project, I ask a woman her perception on how she feels or views something so I can put myself in her shoes to understand her. her thought process, even her Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: opinion, before I make a design decision. Because it actually matters. You have to talk to the the people because culturally we all have different views and perspectives. Now as a man, you know, Carlos, you can give me tips on maybe how I should health wise, if I wanted to you know get bigger or lose weight because you're a man, we have similar anatomy. We have testosterone and You know, you're taller than me, I may be a little shorter, whatever the case may be, but we're still like male. So yeah, you could give me advice because I can literally rate to it. But you can't I can't give a woman advice on her vagina. I don't have one. I mean hello. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I appreciate I appreciate what you got going on. Sherman: I love what you got, but I can't say anything about it. You know. You know, I yeah, I'm a fan, but I I have to just Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Please, yeah. Please take care of it because I'm a fan. Sherman: say I understand and I will listen to you because it's your body. You know, so even even in a design world, when you have these executives and these business leaders making decisions around their target Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: audience, but they don't have their audience in a room, bad shit happens like Converse, for example. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. And so folks that don't Sherman: Target for example. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): fully understand the Converse came out with this bullshit ad and it looked like it looked like clan members. It looked like Sherman: yeah yeah. Sorry, you know I I should pull I should pull that up. It was a clan ad. It was so bad. It it was so bad. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hey, did this speaking of speaking of branding and rebranding, did you see that the KKK is going through rebranding right now? Sherman: they're rebranding. The K K is rebranding. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. He's not gonna be called the Grand Wizard anymore. He's gonna be called one of these goofy ass titles at these CEOs and all this dumb shit, all these idiots. I am dead serious. Yeah. Sherman: Are you are you serious? Are you serious? No way. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Would you Sherman: That is insane. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yep, the Klan is going through a rebranding right now. they wanna they want to They want to position themselves more like the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation is a white Christian nationalist organization. They're the ones who Sherman: Yeah, naturally. Yeah, exactly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): came up with Project 2025, all that bullshit. All this bullshit Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): that we're that we're all this racist bullshit that we're living through right now is because Sherman: Wow. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): of the Heritage Foundation and the Klan. is trying to rebrand themselves to look more like the Heritage Foundation. Sherman: I can s you know what? From a design and marketing perspective, I hate to say it, but I understand what they're doing and it's but it's it's makes sense. They have a bad image. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah, I mean, creatively speaking, it makes sense because the clan, the clan, the KKK, the fucking those little pointy hat ignorant, ignorant ass dummies, white sheets, you know, they went Sherman: Point of yeah. In the white sheets. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): when they got all the the the the the white sale. They took advantage of the white sale at the fucking Walmart down there. And now they wanna and now they wanna Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): go and and and and Spread more hate, but with like a Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): a a better logo. Sherman: Better logo and brand better brand ID. that's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: just it's it's wild how you know, even how marketing and designers, you know, when you look, when you see job posting, you see marketing boards, and you see a creative director salary for like maybe fifty thousand dollars or something like that, which is extremely like low, right? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's cheap. Sherman: Which is ridiculous. I've seen before. Or they want you to be a career director, art director, and all these other titles and they only offer like eighty thousand dollars. So it looks like from a while there I was thinking, wow, is design being devalued? It is in the the eyes of maybe executives because it's like, we can just do this cheap and fast and we just not important. But if you look at like what the conservatives are doing, they're spending money on marketing and branding like crazy. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sherman: Because they know the power of messaging. It Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: may be propaganda, but it's still messaging. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: And that is so important in our society because visual communications, you know, are just from a human perspective, our eyes and our ears is what draws attention to something. And that Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: is actually a strategy and design. We do this for a living. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: the GOP. They're they are spending money on I mean, these salaries for some Heritage Foundation content creators, I mean they're paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for this stuff. 'Cause they know how strong it is. They know how strong that message is. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): One hundred percent. Yep. Yep. Sherman: And people don't read and use critical thinking skills. So it's easy to brand the KKK now as like say something like the Heritage Foundation, 'cause you have Peter Till in these white collared, very clean looking people now. And they're changing their image so that now it doesn't feel as bad. And it's gonna so that Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. And now look what they're doing. And now look what they're doing. You got you got Elon Musk putting up that little goofy ass hand signal, right? He did that. And then Sherman: Yeah. Normalizing. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yeah, and then you have Keg's breath. Sherman: Ha ha. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You have Keg's breath with the with the with the eagle in the back that looks Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): that looks very Sherman: Very Nazi Germany. Very Nazi Germany. I will I will say that is what what they're doing is nothing new. That's the thing that blows my mind. They're basic they're not even smart enough to come up with something original. They're going back in the archives, pulling Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): No. No. That's Sherman: this up and then tweaking a little bit. Which is mind blowing to me. Yeah, they Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. 'Cause they steal shit. They steal shit. Sherman: still Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Rock and roll isn't white, that's black. You stole that shit. Sherman: She stole that. Yeah, they they're stealing everything. And they're stealing now Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They stole everything. Sherman: now they're stealing Nazi Germany ideas. Mein Kampf, I mean Hitler Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: I mean, it's it's all in the playbook. It's right there. And the sad thing is the GOP has done so well of removing public education. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): my god. Sherman: that it's the the people that they spill this propaganda to, it's so easy for them to fall into it because they've not trained their minds to think. And that's where we are in society today, is it's very scary. It's even like that in the professional field as well, where the mind of not being trained to think because the younger generation, you know, you guys grew up on this device. So you expect to get things answers like that so fast. But you still gotta think. You still may have to do research. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): At least put that information through the filter. I don't trust Sherman: Fil put it through filters. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I don't trust You have to be an exquisite Sherman: Maybe. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): person for me to just to take your word for it. Sherman: Yeah, you shouldn't take anybody's word for it. I I mean even even our discussion now Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, research. Sherman: yeah, research it. Even our discussion, we've been in this industry for twenty years. Don't take our words for it. Go research and see how it was done years ago and Yeah, you'll see how Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. It'll be different. It'll be different because the times are different. Sherman: Yeah, a lot different. A lot different. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You guys you guys have AI now? Like we I'm telling you, we when I first Sherman: Yeah. You have AI now. We didn't have AI. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): started yeah, when I first started designing, we were literally cutting and pasting. One of my first Sherman: Yeah, old school. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): jobs, one of my first jobs was for the the the Spanish TV guide in Chicago. Sherman: yeah? Nice. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): We were literally cutting and pasting. Sherman: Cutting out old school? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I had to show them that they had a copy of Quark Express. I was like, we can do Sherman: Wow. I've heard in a while. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): all of this in Quark Express Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and we don't have to cut. We don't have to like, there's people with like band-aids on their fingers and shit. I'm like, all you have to do is click, click, click. Sherman: Yeah, I know. Click click and it's done. For those who are younger don't know what Quark Express is. That was the first I guess the WYSIWYG program. What you see is what you get program that I learned Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: in college a long time ago. Just imagine Adobe InDesign with just Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Long time ago. Yeah. Sherman: like half the features, or maybe a quarter of the features or something like that. That's what Quirk Express was back in the day. But again, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: one advantage that I would say our generation is we have the foundation of understanding how this works. That's why I can Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: I can basically walk into any agency or any client and lay out what they need to do from A to Z because we have that experience. Yeah. Yeah. They say we we we're Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Y yeah, exactly. You wanna talk about hit the ground running? Just throw me in. Just throw me in. It don't even matter. Sherman: looking for people when you hit the ground running. We're not only hitting the ground running, we've already smacked the ground, flipped it upside down and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And we're gonna be threatening because we know how to rush it. Sherman: Yeah. And not only we not only we run it, but we ran through it like multiple times already. And it's the same old story to us. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: Yeah, it's the sa and and when folks saying, Well we can't find anybody, that's where I've been Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You're not looking. Sherman: work they're not looking. But that's where I've been trying to change not so much myself, but that's where marketing comes in. That's where actually not only do you need to be a designer nowadays, you actually n need to understand not only foundation designing and branding, but actually really how to use these platforms to market yourself. Carlos, you do yours through like these sort of interviews and you know your podcasting. so far as pot I'm not the type of person that gets on camera to talk about things, but I like to do voiceovers and show my screen in that case. But marketing Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: and con marketing content in based off of what you do for a living so that a a project manager can really grasp and understand it is been like a challenge that I would say anybody who is young in this field as a designer needs to understand. Not only can you design it, but you also have to understand how to market it. So yeah, you're gonna have to get in MailChimp. You're gonna have to understand how to build a newsletter. You're gonna have understand how to actually run a campaign in MailChimp to target certain people off of a spreadsheet that you have to first find and build and make so that you can upload it. And segmented out to target people for specific emails to go to that audience. So now only are you having to be a designer, you're actually having to be a marketing and strategist. Those are the people that, in my view, are going to be valuable in the future, especially with this age of AI, because now people think you can just use AI and and make everything. My friend who was at Blackweek, who is an ally, she got laid on. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You keep thinking that shit gets expensive. Sherman: Yeah. She actually got laid off from her job because her management said we're gonna go in direction to AI and we no longer need designers anymore. That was told to her in a memo in a meeting. She's just like, Wow. You're gonna chat everything now and put together. And it's gonna fail because if somebody wants to change something to blue or change something, they're gonna realize they're gonna prompt some more. Ching ching, that's money. well that didn't come out right. Let me prompt it again. That's money. I didn't prompt that right. let me do it again. And that will start. Adding up and adding up and adding up and adding up, and then finally you're gonna get to the point where let me call a professional and fix this. And then they're gonna charge you to do it right the first time. Well, you could have just paid for it the first time. Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Because you just ruined their weekend. Sherman: Because you're trying to do this the Friday, late Friday, and the thing is due on Monday. And yeah, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ha ha ha ha. Sherman: and then they're gonna charge you out the wazoo to fix something, but you could have just gone to a professional in the first place. And even things about what blows my mind is this. You you think you can AI something, but you don't have experience with design and creatings in the first place. I will bet you that you or I can prompt a lot better than some project manager or operations manager on what they want to get at the end of the day because we know how to talk to a computer. We know how to actually put in this information to get what we want. We can pull up programs like Comfy UI or even with Even with Higgs Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Blender. Sherman: field, we're able to Blender, we're able to actually pull stuff from here and use AI for control. And that's really what I think all these Higgs fields and Geminis, what they're missing the point is that clients change their minds all the time. There I don't think there's ever been one project been on where I do it once and I don't get feedback on it and they want to do this. Let's tweak this Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: and let's do that. But that's part of the process. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. Sherman: That's okay. That's part of what we do. You know, I'm not a mind reader, so I have to visually present this to read your mind to see what you're thinking. I can't be like a Professor Xavier and be like, Got it. No, it doesn't work like that. You know? I gotta make it. Got it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yep. Yeah. And if and if it did, it'd be even more expensive than that. Cause now I'm like reading your mind. Like you don't have read your mind, you don't have read your mind budget. Sherman: be super rich right now if I yeah yeah exactly it's like boom there it's done but that's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: but that's what's what's coming around you know when it comes to like use the AI and it's it's gonna come back and I think bite some people because they just don't really because they've never been part of the process they don't know that like I Like if I went to go work for a science company, and I use this analogy all the time, even though I have engineering skills from coding and software, if I went to go work for a science company and they start talking about bioengineering, I don't care what I prompt, I don't care. I mean, I can try to learn about it as much as I can, but if I had to go hire somebody who is a biomechanical engineer that has that needed to work on some sort of human anatomy development that you gotta hook up to machines. I would have no clue where to start with that because I haven't studied the human anatomy for twenty plus years. I haven't s and studied biomechanics and chemistry for ten years. So how I'm not qualified to hire this person. And that's part of the you know, the problem in our industry is that, you know, the value of what we do doesn't seem to be like you have to have expertise. You can just hire anybody off the streets and then they can just come in and run the thing. And that's and that's part of the culture of the the advertising world. And I'm not saying it has to stop, but we there should be some guard where as you bring senior people in, we then should look at who to hire to bring in for the next generation because there's not gonna be any junior developers anymore when seniors are too old because AI. They're getting they're not even allowing them to even learn the basics. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So how are you gonna get your twenty years of experience at the age of twenty five if they continue to give those jobs to the computers? Sherman: Yeah, it's bad. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You see the backlog? Sherman: Yeah, they yeah. These the things about it, business leaders you would think who have the wealth, have money, have the vision to think far ahead like this. And obviously when you got the the musks and all these AI Google guys are selling that to the CEOs, we're gonna just help your profit margins and get rid of everybody. You would think they would be thinking longer term, like this company will last that long if they have nobody coming up to do these things. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They don't there's no long term vision. Sherman: There's no long term vision. And that's and that's kind of like where we are. So on the topic of AI, I want to definitely chat with just for younger artists and even people in our generation of where, you know, I see AI going. And that's workflows. AI is not a prompt your way out of it. Can't prompt your way out of things. Only thing I can probably honestly say I've prompted and got exactly what I want is when it comes to code. Code gives you exactly what you want. If you prompt it, right. But you have to know the fundamentals of code in order to get it to prompt what you want. It's structured. There's no bycoding. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And the structure. Yeah, and the structure. Stop being stop being a stupid one line long ass JavaScript file. Fuck outta here. That is hard to read. Sherman: Yeah. I know right. It's very artery. You know. So like when it comes to AI, like w building websites, building I still need to know the structure of how to put something together. You know, you still have Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: to know your your model view controller, which is your concept of programming. You still have to know all these things in order to even know what to tell the AI to write for you to use. The vibe coding. That is bullshit. I don't care who hears that. That's bullshit. You don't vibe coding is bullshit. If you don't understand the principles and concept of coding, you cannot vibe code your way into an application that will work well. You can't do it. You can say you can, but say if you have to change something. Say you have to modify something. You're gonna try and tell AI to do it and rewrite all your code again. And then you're gonna start getting where your iterations, your iterations, things don't work. You may get a bug. You can't find it because you didn't write it. You have no clue where Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: you want to. Look for it. and it these commercials kill me. Build a website, one click. That's what about your DNS? Do you even know what a DNS stands for? Domain name server. They don't mention anything like that. Nothing. So it's it's it's like we live in a world of propaganda now where everything's being propagandized, even down to the advertising world of how AI works. So just from a person who It's been an industry just like yourselves been using for many, many years. AI is going to be a tool to help over the workflows, but you still need to learn the basics and understand in Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: order to get the right output from what you're asking it to do. That's just my piece of advice on that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. You can you you can use a ruler and a compass. If you don't know Sherman: Exactly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): how to come you if you don't know how to use that compass, you might poke your eye out. Sherman: May poke your poke your eyeball out. It's the same thing where if you if you that's like you know people say well I just vibe code and application. Okay, what is the concept of the the application? Well I want it to do X, Y, and Z, A, B, and C and connect to this. All right, so you want to do A, B, and C. Why are you can why what's the why behind it? So then if I need to fix it, how are you gonna fix it? If I need to deploy it on a different platform, how am I gonna change that? when it comes down to the branding and the colors. How are you gonna tell it to just be able to change all of the code, not all the code all the colors throughout the whole website if you don't know the CSS, for example? You're not you're not gonna be able to tell it what to ask. And when I see all these little vibe coding you know commercials and we're just vibe coding this stuff and see how it writes, I'm just like, this is such a lie. I I had to call I I had to call out one Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: influencer because you know the MBC the the whole AI incorporating these applications now right it's called MCPs my model context protocols he was showing how he was prompting an unreal engine and he got it to render like a huge city in real time and I'm just like You know, and he's he's typing the stuff and then he then you cut and then you show it grow and all of the stuff. And I hit him up and I was like, Yo, you mean to tell me that from that little paragraph that you got that you were able to dictate not only the buildings but how many polygon accounts they were? were you able to unwrap and wrap those UVs so that you can actually add materials on there Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: as well? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): There's such a thing as retop retopology. Sherman: free typography. and then how how are you able just in that little prompt, how are you adding the lighting and actually the the textures and materials? He wrote me back and just said, No, I just edited that just to make it look Okay, so now you're getting false information on how AI is incorporated in these programs. Come on, people. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah, you just wanted you wanted a l you wanted a couple more views on Instagram. Come on, son. Sherman: Yeah, I'm like, come on, people, but that's that's the thing, that's where we are. And the problem is you'll get a decision maker who sees that and is like, Well, why don't you use AI just to make that thing? And you're just like, my god. It's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sherman: not the truth. And this is where we are in this industry. Actually in this the society period. And it's a pro Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Everything is the everything is the magic pill. Everything. Feeling a little heavy, here's a pill. Feel Sherman: Yeah, there is no magic pill. Yeah. It it's the here's a pill. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): feeling a little sore, here's a pill. You got a lazy eye? Here's a pill. Here's a pill. Yeah, here's a button to push. Pill shape button. Sherman: Yeah. Yeah. You want something done in a project? here's a button you push and it's done. Yeah, here's your pill. Here's your pill. And we can pill shape button. Exactly. Here's the button. And and that's where i i I think eventually, hopefully, people will start to see that and things will start to change and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sherman: see that it's it's to assist human beings. We have to just get past what's going on in our political climate to at least get to there first before I think the industry starts to really, really change, because you know, everything starts at the top and yeah, what happens in our federal government does trickle down to even Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: the private and advertising world. Which is which is really interesting. So we'll we'll see how how definitely how that works out in in the near future. But Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And it and and that's part of the adventure, but at Sherman: It's We don't know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's yeah, we don't. Sherman: We don't know. We don't know. And that's and that uncertainty can be scary. I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: mean, there's there's times I remember there was a few times actually I don't know I even put this in my head for like a brief second that I had to just really just slap myself out of it. I said, But this skill set that I how to do, is the art world really changing where design is really devalued? But then I get emails when people are trying to figure out how to do stuff. So Like who who's devaluing what we do for a living? But then in Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: the real world there's still problems. So that's where you get this conflict. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Cause everyone everyone keeps everyone keeps going for that magic pill, but no one understands that hey, maybe I should do maybe a class or two in Sherman: Yes. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): in color theory. Right? Why Sherman: Yes, yes, and turn some Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): why is it that McDonald's uses red and yellow? There's a theory behind that. There's a color theory behind that. They want you to act a Sherman: Exactly. There's a theory behind it. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): certain way. Sherman: Yeah. Colors and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Red and yellow keeps you amped up. They want you to come in, eat your food, and get out. Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Red and yellow will do that. Sherman: Yeah. Colors actually do affect human emotion. You know, if you notice just an example what he's saying, McDonald's uses red and yellow for that reason. Every horror movie that you usually see has red and black in it. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: with contrasting typography that Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: are kind of scary looking. It it evokes emotion. yeah, that's another one. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And typography is the other one. Like if you're what what font am I gonna use if it's an aggressive aggressive company is you know, the the word aggressive, you switch it out for whatever the hell word, but aggressive, what colors would I use? Or do I use something thin with the serifs when this company is like a an aggressive sports company, or do we use something that's blocky like that IA in the back? Sherman: yeah. You know these are decision and these are things that actually visual cues Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: that affect the way people respond to things and this is something AI can't teach you. This is a human thing. Has to be told. Has to be told. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. It has to be told that. Cause even like I've I've started playing with it just to see. And I'll explain something just to see what the capabilities are. Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And it uses a terrible font. Sherman: yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And the placement doesn't really make sense. And Sherman: Spacing is currently probably off. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): you know, and I'm like, you y you would do well by going to a goddamn design class. Sherman: Yeah. And learning about these things. And I want to also Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So now I have to sit here and explain to no, do like this, do like this, do like that. For that I just open up Photoshop and do it my damn self. Sherman: myself and just be done with it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: and there's there's a reason why graphic design has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years since the printing press. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: I went to school for graphic design. I learned a lot of graphic design history and a lot of art history. There's a history on the subject for a reason because it fits into society. You start taking that figure figures out Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): People have figured this stuff out earlier. Sherman: before the AI and the tech bros and all that stuff that came in just to think that There we're not needed anymore. It's part of our society. Ever since the first drawing that was done by human in the cave of w wherever that was, that's where design literally started. Right there in Cave. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sherman: It's a visual. Somebody told a story of stick figures Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: in Buffalo, whatever they were hunting Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: on a cave wall. That was before AI was around. That was before the printing press. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And I bet you that shit was like they drew a picture of a buffalo and said, Whatever you do, don't go in front of this thing. This thing hits like a bus. Sherman: Yep. Yep. Yep. Letting everybody know that this animal thing here, we had our spears at the thing. That that's bad. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): We'll get you. Yeah. Sherman: And I just just want to bring back that that foundation of design and visual communication is still relevant to this day. And you cannot I don't care what company you have, I don't care what you think you're product is without that communication in our society, it will fail without that. I mean, it's just it's been around for thousands of years for a reason and you just can't Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: get rid of design and that sort of thought process altogether and think that we still will be relevant. If that was the case Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: then Trump would have lost. But as you see he spent a lot of money on designers and propaganda to get a message out there to Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: seventy seven plus whatever amount of people and it worked and here we are so yeah Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. They keep convincing folks some silly shit. Sherman: they keep convincing folks very s very the GOP knows how to market they they are they know how to Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They do. They have enough money. They have enough money to to to pay good designers to do the work. No. Sherman: To do that. To do that. I remember I had got a job off I remember I got a offer at Daily Wire one time. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ooh, that would have been interesting. Sherman: I had to I had to say I wasn't available for that one. I was available, but I just couldn't from mo knowing that I would be behind what's happening. And then this is one of those things where I think as a society we have to take the selfishness out. Yeah, the money would Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: have good. It'd have paid some bills, you know, I could have maybe bought me another computer with it. I would have benefited that way. But long run, what damage would I have done? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. It would have been poisoning the water. Sherman: Why would I want to poison the water even more and it's already poisoned? I just Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: I I just couldn't I I just could not do it because I wouldn't be able to even believe what I was editing my own self. And that right there is just shows you how powerful design is 'cause of visual communication. So hopefully if any of your viewers who have companies or are thinking we don't need this designer or this creator, just think again, 'cause the person if they're really trained in design, they need to make sure they had a design history class. they took the shortcut, yeah, they can still work and still learn, but they still have a lot to get caught up because they don't know the history of how we got here. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. And they're going to end up going to take those lessons anyway. So you might as Sherman: Yes. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): well, you might as well just go ahead and knock those out. There was a lot of very Sherman: Yes, exactly. So said learn a heart remaining. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): smart people that sat around figuring this shit out. Sherman: Yes. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They've figured it out. And just Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): sitting and disconnecting from all of the lessons that we've learned and just handing Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): it to this machine, there's going to be a difference. There's a difference in work. Sherman: Huge difference. It's remember people, it's AI, it's a machine, and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: you still have to teach it. I'm still even I use Cloud, for example, for my coding stuff. I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: still teach it on how Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: to clean code and whatnot. There's times I've caught it, I read scripts that it wrote out to me. And I would literally go back and say, why did you create this function? It's redundant to the actually the first iteration. And it would just say, you're all right. Sorry. Let me clean that up for you. So Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: just to let you know, people, that it's like a little baby. It doesn't know everything. So you still have to train it. But just try not to train it to take away your job, like some of these job postings are out here. Like I refuse to take to do the one training for motion graphics. there's this one company in San Francisco that's hiring motion designers to actually train their AI models to do motion design. And I I just I mean they're paying like over two hundred thousand dollars. It's so tempting. I know. I know, right? It's so it's so tempting. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): for how long, but for how long? In about six months you're gonna be looking for another job. Sherman: Yeah, that's why when I looked at the the fine print, it said part-time. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: Part time and at your own leisure, but you can make up to have that you can make up Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: to a fine print up to two hundred thousand, depending upon how many hours work and or reviewing all their stuff is so I'm like, yeah. Mira, that's the name of the company, I R A. I see all the time on LinkedIn. I'm like, yeah, that's kind of that's that's suspect. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: i in a way. But yeah, it's it's really interesting, you know, where we are going as a society in design. I think AI will be used as a great tool. I use it all the time. It helps speed up my workflows. If you are on LinkedIn and you can actually see some of my posts that I do work on, I do post them on Instagram too. So if you're coming out of college, you see some of my stuff. But I really want to emphasize on how it can speed up workflows and help us just work faster and smarter so that because time is how we make our living, if we can shorten the time and still have the the cash there, that's ideal. And we're still getting great products. it's still working. people are paying us the service to make to make something to invest in. We can just shorten out the the tedious task that just will shorten our time from those from five hours down to one hour. That's where AI should be going. It should be assisting humans. Not saying it it can get rid of us altogether. and the people who don't have the experience she really should take the time out to go get that experience. And yeah, you can't be asking somebody who's 25 years old to have 20 years of experience. It's just not gonna it's not gonna work. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's it's Sherman: It's just not possible at all. Even if they're 30, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: it's still not possible. That means they were Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): For real. Sherman: even they started coding at eleven or twelve, that's cool and all. But still that's still not even long enough 'cause they don't even have the work experience. So I I I think that Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. You've never you've never been in a crunch. Sherman: Yeah, they've never been in a crunch before. So they they they still don't know. so it Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And it's tough. And it's tough to keep a smile on your face when you're working two, three days in a row. Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And that person next to you is starting to drive you crazy. Boah. Sherman: Yeah. Y you don't know what that's like. Those are those war stories back in the day that we used to do deal with when we were in the office. Yeah. But yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, I had one dude. I had one dude. I was eating lunch. I was busy and I was eating Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): lunch at my desk. You know, this mug walked up and grabbed my plate and I looked at him like, what are you doing? He said, You want me to take care of this for you? I like, What do you mean take care of it for me? I'm gonna go throw it away. I'm like, why are you gonna throw away my shit? I just don't like when people eat lunch at their desks. I'm like, if you don't put my lunch down, you're about to get smacked. Sherman: Yeah, you're about to get slapped up. That's like taking a Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I'm about to go to the office because I'm about to take you out. Like what are you doing? Sherman: Yeah. You don't do that. You ever take a try and take food away from a dog whilst eating, you get growled at. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Shit. Sherman: You know, you will get growled at so as much as I eat, yeah, I dunno bite no more. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. I don't care. I don't even care if you're like coming to my desk to take a pen. You didn't ask. Don't touch my shit. Sherman: Yeah, you didn't ask anything. Yeah. But those are work distractions that take away from what you were hired to do. And that's why working in an office sometimes can be challenging depending upon like said the environment that you're in. so now nowadays it looks like companies they may hire but don't expect it to work more than two or three years unless you're maybe military or something. That ha that hap that happens too. Then then then Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And even then, even then, don't go thinking that they hire veterans all crazy like that. They don't. I have that Sherman: Yeah, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I have that on my resume too, and it don't matter. Sherman: Yeah, it doesn't matter. So I I think even from just for like people coming up in the industry and even current ones that are our age, and I had to do this mind shift that to me in my views the whole portfolio resume thing is dead. because the people who are in charge are either it's an AI bot or it's a hiring manager who doesn't even understand the job position themselves who are making decisions. So in my view, now it's like you have to almost step past the hiring manager. Because the hiring manager, unless they actually been in the field, they don't know what to look for. They can't tell the difference between a creative director and an art director and a graphic designer. They think it's all lumped into three. It can be a creative director can have graphic design skills, an art director can have graphic design skills, but the art director has to have some sort of knowledge of the production process. Because they are delegating specific tasks to people. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yep. Sherman: And that right there is missed because, again, if you've never done it, you don't know these things. So, in in my view, we have to now start changing our value in the industry of how we present ourselves, not through the of the portfolio, that's very important, but also as a business strategist. and a Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: business person on how what you've created has value to that business. I had actually had to change my language in my posts, change my language on my website. even I'm running my first campaign using LinkedIn ads and navigator, I have a target audience who are producers. Have ads that are just for them for the language. Cause I had to Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm, mm-hmm. Sherman: think I had really had to think about this my own stuff. Cause usually when we would build things, we would build it and then we would pass it off to the marketing team. And then we're moving on to the next project. Now Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: when you as independent and the show your value, even if you have a job, I would still learn how to do these things. Because at the end of the day, you still may I end up end up having to learn how to do this regardless. Companies are not faithful to people like our parents were at all. There is no thirty years with one company anymore. There's no forty years you get a pension. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You get a watch? No. Sherman: Those days are gone. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): All the way gone. Sherman: Gone dead. So now the whole mentality is you have to be like an independent consultant and show value so somebody sees your worth so they invest in it. Cause it's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: I look at it as you know, the dollars as thank you notes, 'cause I like to help people. So the more thank you notes I get, the better. You know, those are dollars of course. But I I try and approach it from that perspective. So I'm not just thinking about just the money. The money does yeah, I of course I need that, but I look at it as thank you notes. Like that's why I couldn't do work for the Daily Wire because I would be thanking them to kill people that look like me. No, I can't do that. Just as a person, you know. But I think as this new age of generation, even us generation, folks were just getting laid off. I had this conversation with the career director. She's fifty one, she's my age, and she's realizing that she's having to change her shift now and become more of a a strategist in order for her to be valuable. And that's where I th I think the shift is is happening, even for my own self. It's about positioning yourself as a Positioning yourself and what it is that you do so that everybody understand it. Like the AI brother that we talked about, we're chatting about he needs to change his position and take AI even out of his whole formula just so that he cannot be asked to make a music video for $250. You know, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: it that's because that's the position of it. Like I don't even talk about AI in any of my work. I mean, I may talk about some of my posts, but I do not come off selling, hey, I use AI. You will not even see that on my website unless I talk about Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Cause there's Sherman: I integrated it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): There's a misunderstanding that we could do it super fast and it's gonna be good enough. you can go be Sherman: Exactly. Which doesn't work. it's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): fast and good enough all by yourself. Go trip up all over by yourself. Sherman: All by yourself. And you know what? It's not gonna be ex exactly. It's not gonna be good. One story I before I I do wanna mention this just from experience. I had got I got a call, ironically, from this company somewhere in the Middle East. I think they're actually Iranian. This was like last year. they seen my Chevy commercial that I built. It was a depth Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: that I put together. it was done in Unreal Engine, cinema four D and After Effects. it was a 30 Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Nice. Sherman: second 30-second commercial that I I put together and I was actually just learning Unreal and I just want to see the workflow between Cinema 4D and Unreal and After Effects just to see how to use all three of them to do 3D work. They saw one of my posts on LinkedIn about this thing and they thought that I did the commercial all in AI because I have a have a behind the scenes where I I use AI for mood boards and just kind of concepting it out. And I was curious what AI would spit out to me. I mean, these are new tools. We want to play with this stuff just so we can learn the R D behind it so we can implement it and process. so I came up this workflow b of all of them. And guy was like, Man, we saw your we saw your ad and we saw that you did it in AI, and I was like, wait a minute, what did you just say say no? We saw that you did it in AI, and we have a Chinese car company that we want to crank out ads for, but we want to crank out just listen to this. We want to crank out at least 20 of these ads within a week. And I said, okay, let me just give you some information. That car that you saw, that car commercial that you saw that I built, it took me a little over a month and a half just to build that commercial. And they were just like, they Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: were shocked that it took me that long. They said, Didn't you just prompt this? That's what I was asked. And I told a project manager, I said, You can't prompt this. You would there's no way you can prompt this accuracy of how I edited, put everything together, the sound effects, the voiceover, the music. That does not get prompted. You cannot build that in a week. And he just was shocked that I didn't that he thought it was all AI. And I was like, no, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: man. No. This you still this is not all AI. This was Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: not generated by AI. The only thing AI Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: in this whole commercial is the voiceover. That was the only thing that was AI. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: And he just didn't grasp it. So I had to break it down to him. I said, Look, the reason why this is not done purely in the AI, because anytime if you're really in the industry and when it comes to car products, the product department will ream you. If that car or that product is off by a pixel color or whatever the case may be, I told him I did work for Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: Toyota for over 10 years. They send you a file of that car in a 3D model. If that color, you better have your monitor calibrated right. Because if that car comes back in a slightly different tweak color, the brand product piece will be all on your ass like no tomorrow. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: They want their colors. Everything down to the T because in their eyes, in the consumer's eyes, they need to verify what they're gonna buy is a hundred percent accurate. That's how you build brand trust, brand Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: loyalty, and it makes your reputation that you can be trusted by the consumer. I had Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: to explain this to them. Now they are they were somewhere in the Middle East and he was a young guy. And I had to break this down to him. He was just like, Wow, I did not think about this. And he just asked me, Well, how much would you do a commercial like this? I said, starting at ten thousand dollars. And he was just like, What? We only have a budget of three hundred. Three hundred dollars. It's like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Three hundred Sherman: buddy, yeah. Three hundred dollars. And they wanted ten something. I just said, and I I didn't mean to I didn't I was still nice. I said, Hey, well, this is America. We're a little bit more pricey. If you can find somebody to do those many ads within AI within a week, I wish you the best of luck. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And then send them my contact information because I would love to have them on staff. I will charge $10,000 and give you $300 in a heartbeat. Sherman: I know right beat. But you're not gonna find that person. It's not gonna come out right. And I know this. They didn't know this. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah. Sherman: but I don't know what they decided to do, but that's the misconception of it. You know, that's why when people see the work, like, did you do this? What part? I'm like, we still have to build this stuff. AI is Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Sherman: just a tool just to get us They're faster when you use it properly. That's all. I was able just to literally Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. Sherman: prompt out my story and get back some mood boards Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: based off of what was in my idea. And that was my guide. Now that took me like maybe two hours, three hours to do, versus going online and finding this and finding that and sketching out. I was able to prompt that, but I still had to build it once I got my ideas and my mood boards. I had to go find the car model. I had to rig it up. I had to program it. I had to make the if you see the commercial, these things called VDBs which makes things look like dust and smoke. I actually had to create that. I had to create the the tire rotation to burn off the the dust from the Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: you know the car. That you can't generate that in AI. I mean, you maybe now you can, but I don't know how well it's gonna look. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You can try, but there's a lot of generations that gets you up to that point. Sherman: yeah, and you're gonna have to be like ching, cha ching, spending money, cha ching, more money, more money, more money and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, right. Yeah. And that's where like if you if you're a young if you're a young designer Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and you're excited, I understand you need money and you're willing to do whatever it takes for that Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): money. And that's not a bad thought process, but three hundred dollars, for example. When I was talking to Dutch, Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): he makes strange fruit. His his series, one of his series is called Strange Fruit, right? Sherman: Yeah, I've seen. Yeah, I've seen that. It's pretty good. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So Strange Fruit, I said, if everything goes good after you plan your after you write your story and you plan everything and you brainstorm and everything, Sherman: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): how much does it cost you? To render these out. And he said, it depends. You sometimes you get lucky, la la la, but on the cheap end, it's 600 bucks. Sherman: Yep. Damn. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You're getting three hundred dollars. Sherman: Do the math. Yeah, you're gonna be in a hole. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's gonna cost you three hundred dollars to work on this project. For Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): what? To have something cool on your on your on your portfolio? Do it on your own. Sherman: And cool doesn't Yeah, and cool doesn't even cut it. You have to have a value behind it. Just because it looks cool, marketers aren't buying that. We are an attention yeah, we are in attention economy. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You can have some really cool things that just don't move product. And these folks are trying to Sherman: That'll move products. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): move product. Sherman: Yep, exactly. The business wants to move products. And that's why when I see these AI clips of, you know, how how you know you get these visual beautiful renders or where whatever it might be in their marketing is like Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ha ha ha. Sherman: we don't need artists anymore. But what's the value of that? What that does not move the needle on a product at all. A marketing person is gonna be like, Okay, so what's your target demo and who is buying this? And you're just like, well, it just looks cool because I can prompt it. That doesn't move product. That doesn't move needle. That doesn't fit in the capitalism part of our society. It it has to communicate Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: that. And that's where it's where it's really being missed in the marketing and the AI space. Like Dutch, for example, you know, if yeah, if you continue down that road, I'm glad I had a chance to talk to him. Yeah, you'll lose money because you're trying to generate something that you notice that he says some sometimes he gets lucky. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sherman: Lucky is not control. There is no luck in design really. It's you should be able to control every Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: frame, every second, every pixel Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: before you spit it out for any changes or any Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: edits that needs to happen. You just simply can't do that in some instances of AI. It's gotten a lot better now because now they're implementing the the AI that I showed you before workflow with LTX, they're making just products for creators just to do that sort of thing. So at the end of the day, you don't want to say AI is defined the output. AI is just assisted by helping me be able to fine tune certain aspects of the workflow and just make it a lot faster. So yeah, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. And even I can see I can even see where like where it would be handy if you are brainstorming something. Sherman: it's perfect for brainstorming. AI is great for mood boards and brainstorming. I use Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: that all the time. I can literally just kind of write out my story and what I'm thinking about and if I want to do some testing, you know, I I mix I use Adobe Firefly sometimes do some testing and put Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: ideas together. I actually have a concept that I'm working on now that trying to shoot it and film it would be way too much. But if I can Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: use references Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: And hold on, this thing said just I got a heads up. Says your connection is unstable. Move closer to your router, which is have you ever gotten those before? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-mm. Sherman: I know why. Cause that's because I forgot to put my thing on the 5G. But if I put it on there now, it will probably I don't know if it will disconnect our connection. Should I do that or leave le okay, you what? I'm gonna leave it alone. Yeah, because I just gotta notice I'm like, wait Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Okay. Sherman: a minute. I didn't put on my 5G network. router's like right there. Anyway. Edit this part out. But anyway, what I was saying is that yeah mood boards just come up with concepts. AI is great for it. It's perfect for that. But the final output should not be AI. The final output should be a final piece that you can control because you can always go back and change your mood boards. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Like I tell people, you can draw, you can use a ruler, you can use your stencils, you can use a compass, but don't nobody come to see the ruler. Sherman: Yeah, exactly. Nobody comes to sees the yeah, the tools. They just want to find out what. Exactly. So I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They don't come to see the two. They come to see the finished art piece. Yeah. Sherman: I don't mention AI like whenever I talk to clients. It's not even in the it's not even my speech vocabulary. Like I don't tell pe I don't I don't Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): No. Doesn't need have to doesn't have to be. Sherman: sell I don't sell that 'cause that's not what I'm selling. I'm selling the actual Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. Sherman: final product and the outcome. You sell the outcome what it does and that's where Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): 'Cause at the end of the day, look at Photoshop. Photoshop is a wonderful tool. Sherman: Exactly. It's just a tool. How you use it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): But they're not one but they don't ask you, hey, do you use Photoshop? Sherman: Yeah, I know, right? I've actually been Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): No they don't. Sherman: asked. No, the clients will not ask you that. Clients who really are are concerned about the end product will not ask you that. Most clients don't ask you only time they may ask you what tools you use is like if you're doing work for agency and their in-house team may be using Figma or in-house team may be using XD. And I've Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Right. Sherman: been asked that before because I have to take those files and have to, you know, bring them to life. but pretty much a clients like your own direct clients, which I have, they don't ask you what tools you're building it for. They just want make sure that they can't get sued and that everything is legal at the end of the day. That's it. When I build websites, I don't have to tell them what I'm building it in. But I give them the courtesy of what I'm building it in. I use WordPress because I usually end up building them a a CMS. For those who don't know what CMS is is a content management system that allows a non-developer person to like change out certain areas on the website. That's actually something that's requested a lot nowadays because people want to save money so don't have to bother you every month to change out some text or something of that nature. and that's just kind of part of just the business side of things. but nobody nobody cares how the cake is made. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Not for anything, but I'm not trying to work on your website for the rest of my days either. I'll I'll Sherman: Yeah, exactly. Nobody should Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): let I have no problem empowering people to do their whatever Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): it is that they need to do. Sherman: Yeah, exactly. So it's just it's just one of those things where just so far as just the industry, finding the tools or workflows and using AI for that I think will be more better for just speed of how you get things done. So 'cause now you don't really Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: don't even have to change your deadline. If something stills you know it will take you two months to build it and you use AI, you still let them know it's still gonna take me two months. Just so that you can give yourself enough time to actually go through iterations so you can make the product better. Versus just saying, I can do it in a week, just and then you're rushing, it's getting sloppy and then it defeats the purpose of somebody coming to you to solve the problem, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. I would rather underpromise and overdeliver than Sherman: Exactly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): overpromise and underdeliver. Sherman: Exactly. Anything. That's just like the fundamentals of oops. Yeah, that's just the fundamentals of just design. Hold on one second. Let me put this my PC likes to trip out every once in a while. There you go. And come up and start pulling stuff up on screen. but yeah, but getting back to that, you know, those fundamentals are are really, really important. So I think the the last thing I know we're probably going over time. The last thing I I think I definitely just wanted to just chat about was For the I think we pretty much covered everything, pretty much, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: in this in this speech. we talk about AI workflows, marketing content, and how the designers nowadays need to be very skill set in just Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: understanding the value besides pretty pictures. I think Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): This is where this is where Jack of all trades come in handy. Boy, it's time to eat. It's time to eat. Sherman: Yeah, it does. 'Cause before I understand it you need to be s yeah, I know. Before before, you know, I I watch on LinkedIn folks like, Well should I just specialize in something in just one thing? And the answer is like no man, you shouldn't Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I mean, if you want to, sure, like Sherman: You can. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): but at the same time, you have the ability to do so many different things. Expose yourself to the all the things. Sherman: So much more. Long it's in the same industry. Yes. Exactly. Long as it's to me it's in the same industry. Like I'm not I'm not hopping in the the medical field. I just don't know about medical. But if it has to do with design and technology and now marketing, I didn't add marketing to my stuff at all. On my website, I Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: really don't even talk about marketing. I'm actually positioning myself as a Create a studio who fixes visual problems on time. You know, my my motto is visual communications delivered on no visual having a brain fart, visual solutions delivered on time. That's my headline. That it took me a while to come up with that visual solutions delivered on time, because I wanted to communicate that I time is very important to owners. That's why I got money, because they can buy time. They can pay and then go on vacation and do whatever they want. So time, I wanted to put that in my slogan and visual solutions, because visual and solutions is solving a problem and delivering it on time. So the point is, besides that being my header, is that as a designer nowadays, even young ones, my advice is to study. Don't think about shortcuts. Don't think you can just get to a creative director position because the title sounds great. Don't think you can just be Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: an art director, you know, just because it it sounds good. You don't have to necessarily go to college. College helps you think and lets you understand how to do research for life. That's one benefit I got out of going to a four year university. you don't have to. It's because it's expensive nowadays and I don't blame you. I don't blame you. It Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): For real. YouTube university is just fine. Sherman: it's just it's just too expensive. when I was going to school I had to pay that much. But it's like I don't have any debt from school loans or anything. I was very fortunate to make a nice living to pay those off. But still study and be a master of the craft. You have to master. 'Cause if you don't master the craft, you try and take shortcuts, you will fail once you get into that actual situation. That's like, you know, you that's like you just being basically you just do basic training in the army and then you get thrown on the front lines in a war. You're gonna get shot and probably die. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: You know, without proper training. Same thing Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Sherman: with design. You'll get thrown in the wolves and you may not die, but you may not get hired ever again. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: So that that would be, you know, for all your listeners and anybody young who's coming up in the field, just study and study and study and study. I did for a very long time. happened Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. I still do. Sherman: I still do to this day, I still study and do R and D work because we have to because Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: we are in a business that is constantly evolving and changing all the time. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: And I know some dinosaurs I know some folks who are older designers and there's still there's nothing wrong with print, but they're seeing there's not that much demand for a lot of print. There's still demand for, but not as high as digital, because print it can reach many of people, but it costs more. Versus digital, you can reach millions of thousands and it doesn't cost as much. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And pay attention to pay attention to how many flyers, how many things you get in the mail. Are you do you sit Sherman: Yeah, do that versus what you see it ads. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): there? Do you sit there and like look at it or do you just put it in the recycling bin? Sherman: Exactly. I put mine in the recycling. It doesn't it doesn't grab my Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's what I do. It it Sherman: attention. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): if I'm checking the mail and I see all that those things, all right. We good. We good. No. Sherman: Yeah, we good. Yeah, we so print is I mean, even though it's it's a a touch point, I had to learn this through marketing, it's it's a on the channel touch point, you know, direct Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: mail. It's still there, but it's kinda like on a bottle. And everything else, social and digital, CTV, they're all on top. Streaming, they're a lot on top because you can reach massive audience with these platforms. So From a designer perspective, start thinking from a business perspective as well. How can you reach your audience? Who is your target audience? And that's what you help clients, advertising agencies, people that you work for help understand that aspect of the of the design. It's more than just having a skill set to build it. Now you actually have to consult, strategize, and utilize that tool. Still master it because you gotta know you're talking about. Because you got to be able to execute it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And you got to be able to Sherman: And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): talk that talk. Sherman: yeah, talk that and talk that talk. So that's just my advice to the the young if I was coming up now I'm glad I'm not because it ha it's rough out there. But if it oof it's so rough out there for you young guys. but if I was coming up in this wild age, I you know, I can't really say that because I didn't grow up on this phone, so I'm not used to instant gratify Gratification of information. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ratification, yeah. Sherman: I know I back then I had to look it up, and that's what made me learn more. So but I still suggest the young generation do that. But I know it's so tempting for them just to get on the phone and just to get the answer. Because you don't know how you got to the answer. If Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: you don't know how you got to the answer, then even when it comes to this business world, how are you gonna help somebody solve a problem? You don't even know how they even got to that. That's where the music Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: and critical thinking comes in as a creative kicks in. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And you just have more tools in your toolbox, right? It's you're not you're just Sherman: Yeah, we got also too though. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): you're not just an AI artist because what if you don't know your clients? You don't know what hasn't happened yet. Sherman: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And there's gonna be some people that are like, nah, I want this look. And if you don't know how to accomplish that look, you're you're going to be lost. Sherman: you're gonna be very lost. They're not gonna wanna hire you no more. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Or or if someone's just like, Yeah, we did this thing and that why doesn't it work? And you're like, Well, okay, well your color treatment is off. Maybe that's why. Sherman: Yeah, the the why is the important. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: just on a last note, this from my my wife is a media buyer and she deals with this all the time where she'll buy ads and she'll place them. And they're I'm learning this too. Thing called ad spend. People want to spend X amount of dollars and they want to see X amount of output. So that means that if I spend X amount of dollars, I expect to see X amount of clicks. Clicks Doesn't mean that somebody's going to close and buy. But the ad buy's job is to get somebody to that landing page or to that ad so they can see it and interact with it. What happens with on her client side, they'll do the media buy and they'll get plenty of clicks, plenty of traffic. But then the person sells down, they're like, We're not closing anything. And they'll blame it on the media buy. And she then she comes back and says, No, our buy worked. Look at all this traffic. Look at all these clicks. You may Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: want to think that you may have a messaging problem internally with your product. And that just goes over their head. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: And that's where she has to s basically say, This is a design problem. This is a messaging problem. Who is who are you using as your source to do your creative? And then that and then that's where they're like, Well, we didn't think that mattered. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And here we are. Sherman: And here we are. I'm just gonna leave it on that note. So the buy for all those media buyers and project managers and marketing directors, your buy can be great. You can hit every single point, your target audience, but if your message is failing, ain't nobody gonna buy a damn thing. That's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: where design still matters. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yes. Sherman: So I wanna leave it at that. That's where design matters. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Reach. Sherman Wellins, damn it. Tell everybody where they can find you. Sherman: So here's where you can find me, folks. you can see it's spelled inertia art just put.com. You can just Google that right there, and it will pull up. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: so that's the simple way to go see all my work that I've done for a long time over the years. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, buddy. Sherman: and everything, and everything that you see on the site I've worked on, these Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: hands and this what I call Wacom pen in this Wacom tablet. My tool. I he Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yeah, look at right there. Bye ya, baby. Sherman: got one. He got an expense he got a nice one. So you know he balling over here with the nice one you draw on the screen. Okay. So I ain't Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): no, no, no, no. I didn't I got this on Facebook Marketplace. Sherman: there. I ain't I ain't drawing on my screen yet, but you see I got nice one. But I ain't there yet. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: But that's where you you can go see all my work and everything I've been doing for the last past ten to twenty years. you'll Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: see some old work on there, you'll see some new stuff. constantly updating it as well because you gotta keep up with the times. and I try not to let my my website kind of lag. You know, it it's hard when you have to Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: market it, build it, and you have to do work on client work, work on trying to keep homework. Yeah. You're independent, there there's a lot to do. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): When you're an independent, what? That's the other thing. That's the other thing. When you're when you're independent, you do it all. Sherman: Yeah, you do everything. You do you do you do it all. You do it all in Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It all. I don't care if you went to school for this one thing. If you're independent and you're trying to push, you do it all. Billing, sales, accounts Sherman: Yeah. You you do it all. And that's the Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): payable, accounts receivable, all of it. Sherman: It's tough. I I very fortun I I'm very fortunate I have an accountant that handles the financial part. I was smart enough to deal Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Nice. Sherman: with that so I don't have to deal with the taxes and that side of a business. But the whole marketing Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Good move. Sherman: the whole marketing aspect of it, the whole design, you know, yeah, I programmed my own website. I wrote all the content. I've been putting my portfolio pieces up there together. you know, everything you've seen up there, I I built it. So I just wanna put that out there so nobody asks me what part of the website you built The the only thing I will say that I did not do, when you see my Toyota work, the actual car models, they had a department, just strict a department just for their 3D cars. And Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yeah. Sherman: they just provided those assets for me and then I did my thing with them. And that's why I got into the I had to find out the hard way when it came to the color tweaking. My monitor was off one time and I tweaked the color and product literally screamed, they didn't scream at me, but they're like, red flag, woo, color's off. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Colours off. Colours off. Sherman: I had to go there and retreat my week. I was like, what's your monitor calibrated to? And I had to calibrate my monitor to the design team, to the product team. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Sherman: Once I once they sent me a screenshot of how they calibrated it, I set my monitor exactly to it just to make sure it nothing off. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): yeah. And that's the other thing. There's so many things that go into this that folks just don't you're not gonna AI yourself out of calibrating and monitor. Sherman: Yeah, I know, right? But but just to let young folks know, that is that is part of it. That's a thing. I mean that is a thing. Yeah, on mm hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's a thing. That's a thing. Colors look different. You could be looking at your screen. I can turn all these lights off and it changes the color of the screen. Sherman: Yep, and that's just color theory. Things you have to just learn about and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yep. Yep. Sherman: understand. And product everybody has a different computer and their monitors calibrated differently. If you have to make sure Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: I would suggest if you do any product, say, hey, send me a screenshot of your your calibration or your monitor. Just do it, just get it out the way first. Just so you prevent anything having to come back. fortunately I mean it wasn't a big deal, but you know, when you go through reviews, you know, when it things go up the ladder, they they literally go up the ladder. Everybody in your mama looks at it. Their cousin, their grandma, their brother, the product, the operation looks at it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Everybody's gotta prove that their job is important. Sherman: Yeah, man. So that that's very important. But yeah, but Carlos, I I wanna thank you for for doing this and help me, you know, get on the spot and share some of my knowledge with your audience as well. And let them know Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hell yeah, man. Of course. Sherman: that we exist out here. There are a lot of young there are yellow black men who've been doing this for a very, very, very long time. We've been behind the scenes. I I've won my awards. To me that The war is just an opinion. I just like to help people and just make sure that my artwork impacts somebody emotionally and that that's what my calling is. Even Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: when it comes to politics, I'm not really a political I am a very political person. but I like to do my politics through art and through my music videos. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: You know, and that's where I like to basically make my stamp. and my express Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You express yourself. Yeah. Sherman: myself that way, you know, 'cause I'm You know, you gotta be woke or aware of what's happening in our society. I hate that and you know the thing I hate that they stole that word and made it a boogeyman and and I remember old school it it is it just made me so Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They did that on per they did that on purpose, but we're bringing that shit back. Cause all these people, all these people are asleep at the wheel. We're like, okay, okay. Sherman: Yeah. It well one thing why it dri it drove it drove me crazy and this is why I hate Aaron Rodgers, for example. And if anybody hears this, I'm a Pittsburgh Steeler fan, but I hate Aaron Rodgers because he made a statement about all this woke miss woke crap. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: And growing up in the inner city, when I was twelve or eleven years old, I had a lot of older guys tell me, Hey man, stay woke. I was eleven. I'm fifty now. So that before this generation even thought or Republican used that as a scary word. I was being told that at eleven and twelve years old by older men Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: in my neighborhood, stay woke, don't fall into the trap. And that and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Sherman: what they meant by this is that all this cis the systematic racism where all the drugs, the crack, the guns, all that stuff, and no opportunity is flooded in our neighborhood. Find a different way, stay woke, understand what's happening so don't become a statistic in the system. I was told at 11 and Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Exactly. Sherman: 12 years old. It's not a boogeyman. So just to put that out there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): They'll learn. They'll learn. Go back, go back, go go back probably couple weeks now where it's an Aaron Rodgers conversation and he's just like he's like, Sherman: he's changed now. he changed his two. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): just Trump, I can't believe what he's been doing. Like they'll they'll they they all wake up. They all wake up. Sherman: Yeah, he changes too. Yeah, and he Yeah. He's younger than me, but still, you know, it it's one of those things where I'm just like, that's just it was like, stop recycling our stuff. I mean, stop stealing it and then making it bad. Stop stealing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Bastardizing it, yeah. Sherman: Stop stealing from our culture and then making it a boogeyman. Just but anyway, that's Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, exactly. Sherman: again, that's a design and that's propaganda and that's messaging. So How do you want to use your superpower is the question. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's it. Sherman: That's it, that's superpower. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And with that, everybody, we're out.