Design Ministry

Kirk Creek Campground - biking in, originally uploaded by DesignMinistry.

The trickle of spring break photos continues … Gosh, now that it’s week seven in the quarter and finals are a lot closer than I’d like to admit, I feel like I could use this type of escape again.

Thank goodness summer follows finals. If these unseasonal clouds here in LA ever clear up, I can resume being a beach bum.

I have a serious weakness for … type. An ad flashed across my facebook page for this tank. Click, click (sale!) … yes please. Love it.

I’m eager to see what else this Typography Shop comes out with. Right now it’s just this decending Helevetica Neue homage. And let’s face it, the Neue is just better than regular.

Have you heard of Twitter? It’s a web based service that gives you a feed and 140 characters to share (or “tweet”) a short update, message, or link with your friends who follow you. The beauty of Twitter is it’s flexibility. You can send and receive updates from your cell phone as well as the web. My own feed is linked into the sidebar on the right, and also shows up as my Facebook status.

Apparently it is more than just nerdy - it can be just plain useful. A journalism grad student was detained by Egyptians authorities for photographing a labor rally. By texting “Arrested” from his cell phone to his twitter account, his friends instantly saw the update and made calls to the US Embassy to get involved. The story is here from the Washington Post.

(ht to social design notes)

Waves and gull, originally uploaded by DesignMinistry.

More Big Sur spring break pics are on their way! Things have been slightly busy as yet another quarter is rapidly coming to the end.

These few shots are from Limekiln State park, which had the best of both worlds … redwoods and the beach. Not to mention a slice of history with limekilns used in the 19th century to “cook” limestone for building materials.

I’m reading Nouwen’s Compassion for a book review due tomorrow, and there’s a quote that caught my eye:

There appears to be a general assumption that it is good for people to be exposed to the pain and suffering of the world. Not only do newspapers and news broadcasts seem to act on this assumption but also most organizations whose main concern is to help suffering people. Charitable institutions often send letters describing the miserable conditions in different parts of the world and enclose photographs of people whose humanity is hardly recognizable. In so doing, they hope to motivate the receiver to send money for relief projects.

We might ask, however, whether mass communication directed to millions of people who experience themselves as small, insignificant , powerless individuals does not in fact do more harm than good. When there is no community that can mediate between world needs and personal responses, the burden of the world can only be a crushing burden. When the pains of the world are presented to the people who are already overwhelmed by the problems in their small circle of family or friends, how can we hope for a creative response? (51)

I can see how mass communications are actually making us numb to suffering in the world. But I am struck with the thought that something like direct mail from relief organizations are playing a part in this. Yikes. Aren’t they supposed to be that mediating community? These letters and images are seen as effective from an organizational point of view because they can raise quite a bit of money. Nouwen raises a good point here … are they raising compassion or just guilt and numbness?

I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water. It’s not that mass communication and media can’t stir compassion towards human suffering and these agencies aren’t mediating, but the approach is critical. Nouwen himself goes on to say:

…It is therefore no wonder the diary of Anne Frank did more for the understanding of human misery than many of the films showing long lines of hungry faces, dark buildings with ominous chimneys, and heaps of naked, emaciated human corpses. Anne Frank we can understand; piles of human flesh only make us sick. (52)

I love this example. Granted, Anne Frank didn’t know her diary would become such a major work of non-fiction literature, nor did she write it to become such. It’s a gracious gift and glimpse into a life innocently caught in a world war. Yet it is a stark contrast to how direct mail pieces and the news only add to the numbness. While not all communications can (or should) strive to stir compassion, such a contextualized metanarrative emerging from a group’s consciousness can evoke such emotion. If so, there is a space for communicators not just to just design, film or write information for the masses, but to be that mediator (with a larger community) between the suffering and the divine.

Hmm … I should probably put this in my review …

Being involved with the Arts Concerns Committee since I’ve been at Fuller has given me a great design opportunity to promote their spring arts fests. I wanted to share the process of this year’s design from sketch to implementation really because I’ve seen other designers do so online, and I’ve always learned from it or been grateful for the peek into someone else’s work. So … in the spirit of this online community and arts fest week, here we go… !

Every year the committee comes up with events and happenings for one week in spring to spotlight the arts within the campus community. In choosing a theme for this year, we kept in mind Fuller’s 60th anniversary and wanted to bring a sense of this history in a subtle way into the materials. As we brainstormed, our suggestions seemed to take an organic direction, and we ended up settling on “From The Soil” which encompassed both a sense of past and present. Here is the theme verbiage:

All things grow. Plants. Animals. People. Growing is the most natural phenomenon in any form of life. We start off small. Weak. Vulnerable. Dependent. Soon we take on a life of our own. We speak. We learn. We do. Growing up, and growing old, life passes by. We help. We hurt. We love. All life ends just as all life began. Life to life. Dust to dust. Soil to soil. “From the soil” means a common genesis to a shared life. It means growing; growing from, growing towards, growing in. “From the soil” is a question, a way to discover where we have been, where we are, and where we are going. “From the soil” is a declaration, a statement of who we are, what we are, and why we are. “From the soil” is a proclamation, a vision of the past, present, and future. We look back. We reflect. We learn new ways to grow. Join us as we celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Fuller Seminary, artistically portraying the cycle of life and growth.

As I went away to design the poster and promotional materials, I desperately wanted to stay away from literal images of soil or plants. Such imagery is very current, but becoming cliche as we become more environmentally aware as a society. Most “green” products from books, to food and cleaning supplies seem to have squeaky clean images of fruit, grass, the earth, etc. In addition, my own radar is tired of Christian imagery over using idealistic nature images on book covers, nic-knacks and worship backgrounds. So … pictures of soil/nature were out.

In addition, to support the theme’s meaning, I wanted to find a way to point (subtly) back to the founding year/era around 1947 while still remaining contemporary and fresh. Meaning … I didn’t want to simply recreate and ad or design from the 1940s, but rather include hints of such nostalgia into a new design. To me, this cross pollination of the old and the new is the very core of the theme and the message of this year’s fest.

When I got out my sketchbook, I realized I had a few muses I was thinking about for this project before I even sat down to start. I had a copy of Taschen’s Matisse book sitting out in my apartment for a few months, and love the cut out forms on the cover. His shapes and colors are simple and sophisticated at the same time. I soon found out how much just having this out in my visual realm had influenced my ideas as I started to sketch shapes.

I also turned to my favorite illustrator, Craig Frazier (who’s a Chico State Alum … wOOt!) for inspiration. He is well renown for his clever plays on form, color and shape to create witty imagery. His work is not only easy to look at, but upon a second glance, illustrates complex concepts with simple grace.

With these two worthy muses in mind, I started sketching out concepts and ideas. I headed in the direction a simplistic figure on top of a slice of ground. I wanted to keep the forms simple as the Matisse work, but integrate some clever element to it. I started to develop a connection between the ground and the figure by repeating the same shape in both. By contrasting the colors, I sought to imply that this figure might not have just come from the soil, but also had a piece of the soil within them. This fit quite well into the theme: “From The Soil”. I also kept the color of the entire poster simple and muted to not detract from these shapes and this message.

When I took the concept to the computer to start creating the files, I eagerly looked over my font list. I was very purposeful in finding typefaces that would have been used in the mid 20th century when Fuller was just getting going. One of my recent finds, a font called Hitchcock (used at right), It became a perfect pick to give an organic feel but a sense of the time period as well. (In fact, you can download the font yourself for free here and learn more about the amazing film title designer Saul Bass who pioneered the genre of motion design with typography that inspired this font).

I created two versions of the poster, a very simple version with limited text, and another that listed all the scheduled events for the week with the relevant info. As I looked at the amount of information that needed to be included on the schedule poster, and visions of stacked type start dancing in my head. I pulled up the fun selection of type at Font Brothers, and was happy to see they categorize some of their fonts by era. I browsed their Retro (1936-1964) section to end up with Refrigerator Heavy. I also pulled in my trusty backup Futura with a splash of class with Didot when layering the information and creating a hierarchy that would help viewers quickly scan the information, yet be able to find details upon a closer look. The design is also repeated in a brochure with the events, and this years offerings literary jounral.

Suddenly, a few weeks later I have the surreal experience of walking by images on campus that used to be floating around in my head. It is also all over facebook and in everyone’s hands on the back of the school newspaper. It’s funny to me that even the best theology paper I write will never get that type of exposure …

The Sold Project is “a grassroots movement dedicated to exposing the truth behind child prostitution through multi-media and the collaborative response of individuals striving to make a change.” Dan Portnoy has been working hard to get their web presence up and running, and has created a hub of social justice action with the team including founder Rachel Sparks and fellow Fuller student Rachel Goble. These folks are all very encouraging and inspiring as the confront the issue that is much closer to home that we’d like to admit.

Just recently, they’ve asked folks to put the sold logo on a picture of themselves in their facebook/myspace profiles until 4/22 to raise awareness. More info and the logo file are here if you want to “get sold” yourself. There is also a growing pool of these pictures here in a flickr group, including mine. It’s a great way to get people involved and spread the word in your own little circles on the internet.

Also, if you’re in Pasadena or LA, there is a benefit concert featuring local bands including Leap Year as well as an art auction this Friday 6pm at Levitt Pavilion.

Sunlight, originally uploaded by DesignMinistry.

I don’t know why I haven’t spent much time in Big Sur. Perhaps northern Californians tend to go … north. I’ve spent much time around the coast in Mendocino/Fort Brag and the redwoods up towards Garberville. Yet Big Sur is just as amazing if not more so (dare I say it…).

I hope you enjoy these pics of Julia Pfeiffer Burns and Limeklin State Parks - they are some of my favorites from the trip. And, worth a note, in posting these 10 or so images … I passed the 3000th image on my flickr account! Whoa!

Sand Dollars, alive, originally uploaded by DesignMinistry.

Since my friend Kristin hadn’t been north of Santa Barbara in California before (she comes from the land of Minnesota), the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the 17 Mile Drive was a must see before driving down to Big Sur for three days of camping and hiking.

I never seem to get tired of the aquarium, I think I’ve been there three times this year. Yet every time I go, there is something new and fascinating. These sand dollars caught my eye this time. They look strange and furry because they are actually alive. Not white and smooth (and dead) as I’ve seen them on the shore.