Here Yeti, Yeti, Yeti.

07/06 2012

Check out this faux press release I wrote on behalf of the incomparable XYZ Studios. You can also read it (and see a bonafide yeti photo) here.

XYZ Graphics Hires Yeti
No-longer-mythical creature comes on board to spearhead creative development and beer making at Boulder, Colorado’s XYZ Studios.

Boulder, CO – June 11, 2012 – CGI, photography and retouching dynamo XYZ Studios announced today that it has hired a real-life yeti—yeah, seriously—as Creative Director and Brewmaster of its Boulder, Colorado studio. The Yeti will be tasked with managing and expanding the organization’s creative department; contributing unworldly executional grace; homebrewing fine pale ales, lagers and craft beers; and insuring that the company continues to produce the most awe-inspiring graphic genius this side of the Mississippi (the side to the west, just to be clear).

The yeti comes to XYZ after a two-year sabbatical prompted by his dropping out of Miami Ad School just three weeks before graduation. Throughout his scholastic career, the yeti struggled immensely to uncover his own creative identity. His desperation for digital excellence (and the fact that Miami’s tropical weather made his long, lustrous fur difficult to manage) drowned the yeti in a deep depression. He longed for the frosty winters of his Himalayan upbringing, and after a traumatic haircutting incident, he finally fled the Florida coast for the closet high-altitude peaks he could find: the Rocky Mountains. There, he began a solitary life in one of Boulder’s hidden backwoods caves.

During his two years tucked away in the Colorado wilderness, the yeti worked all hours of the day and night to perfect his portfolio. He worked his giant, triple-jointed fingers to the bone, but could only achieve mediocre results. All the while, he had to find sustenance to fuel his monstrous drive for success. So the yeti trained himself to become a skilled organic chef using only the natural resources that surrounded him. From pinecone-crusted trout to homebrewed beer, the yeti learned to conquer his healthy appetite.

One day, after throwing back what some might call “one too many bottles” of homemade brewsky, something changed in the yeti. He felt a spark…a firework…an explosion of creative energy surge through his veins. He quickly put mouse to mousepad and within just 45 minutes, had reached the epitome of creative enlightenment. He credits this pivotal turning point not only to his years of unremitting effort, but also to his borderline-drunken state. In its honor, he dubbed his top secret beer recipe Ballmer Peak Beer, an homage to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s belief that computer developers are at their most creative when their blood alcohol concentration reaches somewhere between 0.129% and 0.138%.

The yeti now joins XYZ’s Boulder studio after showing up one day dressed as a hipster—somehow he thought thick-rimmed glasses and a skinny tie were prerequisites for creative directors, imagine that—and submitting his portfolio for review. XYZ hired him shortly after he served a mandatory 30 days in Boulder County Jail for back taxes he failed to pay during his time in the wild.

“I am thrilled with the yeti’s contributions thus far,” XYZ Managing Director M.C. Pfeiffer commented. “I admire his exceptional creative enthusiasm and look forward to seeing what he’ll churn out next. Oh, and I have to tell you, I’m not even a beer drinker, but I really love his beer. Like, seriously…I really, really love it. I don’t know what he puts in there but I could drink that stuff with every meal. Wait…you’re not going to print that last part in my quote, right? Okay, good.”

In response to an interview request, the yeti was unavailable for comment. A colleague at XYZ said something about him being on a photo shoot in the Arctic and refusing to answer his cell phone because it interfered with his creative vision.