Well, it’s a new week and as such, we have a new med­i­ta­tion focus. Fol­low­ing the com­mands of Christ given through the ser­mon on the mount, this week we high­light Matthew 5:29 – 30 and the issue of lust.

In our cul­ture today, lust has taken claim to most prod­ucts in adver­tis­ing. If it isn’t sex­ual, then it’s other form, cov­etous­ness, takes it’s place. It would make you believe life isn’t the same unless you have this, eat that, take this or enjoy what­ever. While you can­not con­trol the heart responses that tran­si­tion from a legit­i­mate need to cov­etous­ness, it’s my per­sonal goal to never adver­tise with the spirit of lust as an asset. Cre­at­ing desire for a prod­uct where there is a need is one thing. Stir­ring up dark­ness within peo­ple is some­thing com­pletely different.

So, with that in mind, I have these two desk­tops avail­able if you want — 2560 x 1600 (desk­tops) and 1920 x 1200 (lap­tops). In this design, I did not want to illus­trate a spirit of lust to then cre­ate a ten­sion to fight it. If I can find another image that would relate but not ensnare, I may alter the design. But for now, here we go. Let’s fight the good fight and keep the charge in front of us.

Med­i­tat­ing on God’s word is one of the keys to trans­form­ing our spir­its. Not only was it a com­mand of the LORD for the kings of Israel, but it is vital to keep our minds on things above.

In order to facil­i­tate this desire, Liz and I started get­ting emails from Bill Gothard from his Daily Suc­cess email cam­paign. Each week, a new char­ac­ter qual­ity and med­i­ta­tion verse are issued. And each day, we receive a lit­tle devo­tional sup­port­ing that char­ac­ter qual­ity from the Bible. So at the begin­ning of the week, we write down every­thing on the glass plate boards so we keep it in mind.

Well, that worked for a lit­tle while but I end up look­ing at my com­puter screen more than star­ing off across the room at the board. So, I decided to start mak­ing desk­top images so I have them on my com­puter while I work. They key for me is to make them look good. If it looks good, you want to look at it. And when you encounter text, you auto­mat­i­cally begin to read it — well, that’s my theory.

I’ll attach my desk­tops from time to time. I don’t know if any­one who reads this will want to do this too but, if so, here’s the one for this week. The char­ac­ter qual­ity is “Respon­si­bil­ity.” Here’s one for the big screen and one for the lap­top. Enjoy.

So, yes­ter­day Liz and I met some­one who was sell­ing some exer­cise equip­ment on craigslist. While review­ing the equip­ment, we began some small talk. He said he went to our web­site, dcpos​i​tive​.com, and asked if we were mainly print-​​based. When I said “yes,” he said, “Yeah, I could tell.”

I’m not 100% how I feel about that but I feel the burn. I’ve known that my web­site isn’t up to par for a long time. Fur­ther­more, I haven’t made efforts to learn the web design field. As more and more projects go to the web, and clients want them­selves rep­re­sented online. I want to design and code for the web. (Sigh) It seems impos­si­ble to start now but who knows? Maybe not. Maybe not.

Cre­atives seem to thrive in com­mu­ni­ties. Maybe it’s the nature of the cre­ative spirit to want com­pan­ion­ship; to be inspired and pushed beyond your com­fort level to grow. At Grace, I enjoyed the being a part of a group who were all push­ing to com­plete an assign­ment from dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives. Sub­mis­sions would be due and we would share our work and dis­cuss how we arrived at that point. But after grad­u­a­tion, your com­mu­nity reduces into an office /​ stu­dio envi­ron­ment. Edu­ca­tion now comes on the job from 9 – 5 ( or longer ) and the project focus can be very nar­row. Expand­ing your com­mu­nity of cre­atives out­side your stu­dio helps keep per­spec­tive fresh. Cue dribb​ble​.com

Matt Gra­ham sent me an email one day ask­ing me if I wanted to join dribb​ble​.com to share some project screen shots with other cre­atives. Sounded good but when I got there, the site was chalked full of amaz­ing designs. I didn’t know if my qual­ity of work would be high enough to fit with any­thing there but I accepted none the less. Two weeks later, I put up my first shot and it was received pretty well. Now, I feel like one of the the cre­atives in the community.

I have some shots here on this page if you want to check them out. As a note: If you are vis­it­ing this page sooner rather than later, you’ll notice I’ve been crush­ing on the water­color tex­tures lately. They’re not iden­ti­cal but I love how uncon­trolled and expres­sive they can be. Ok. Now with that dis­claimer voiced, enjoy. :)

It’s strange to think my iPhone, with it’s mul­ti­ple alerts and chimes, may be inhibit­ing my abil­ity to con­cen­trate, think deeply and be cre­ative. At least, that’s what the New York Times recently reported.

In route to Ten­nessee we stopped at a Star­bucks. No sur­prise. What was sur­pris­ing was the New York Time’s front page arti­cle enti­tled, “Hooked on Gad­gets and Pay­ing a Men­tal Price: Con­stant Use Takes Toll on Con­cen­tra­tion and Fam­ily Life.” The photo showed this cou­ple, both on their iPads at the kitchen table enthralled in their own activ­i­ties. Of course, I added this to the bill and while Liz drove, I read aloud.

While this may bore some of you, hang on. It get’s inter­est­ing. Accord­ing to sev­eral stud­ies from respected aca­d­e­mic and medial insti­tu­tions, our gad­gets are frac­tur­ing our minds abil­ity to pri­or­i­tize infor­ma­tion, con­cen­trate and be cre­ative. The var­ied, infor­ma­tion bar­rage gives your brain a dose of dopamine, the stim­u­la­tion that pro­vokes excite­ment, which encour­ages impul­sive­ness. In this case, impul­sive­ness leads to drop­ping the cur­rent item for the imme­di­ate. As such, you never stay on one thing for very long. The New York Times explains it more in depth here.

So what does this look like? You’re play­ing catch with your kids and your iPhone chimes. Now, you have this thought in your head, “I won­der who that was. Was that work? Did he answer my ques­tions from this morn­ing?” And you tell your kids to hold on while you check your phone. What may start as a sim­ple glance turns into a “quick response” leav­ing your kids stand­ing there. Sev­eral more emails to check and your kids have started pass­ing the ball among themselves.

While I don’t have kids ( yet ), the con­stant dis­trac­tions do com­mand frac­tured atten­tion away from my work. I’ve even dubbed some Friday’s as “cre­ative day”, which is really a time for me to leave my dis­trac­tions and try to think and cre­ate in a dif­fer­ent envi­ron­ment. But for all my efforts, I can tell my once-​​a-​​month excur­sion isn’t enough. I need more delib­er­ate separation.

Recently, my the­ory was put into prac­tice. Dur­ing a strong thun­der­storm, we lost power in the stu­dio. I made my way to the com­puter back-​​ups, saved every­thing and shut down the com­put­ers /​ server. The storm thun­dered and I had enough day­light to work at the con­fer­ence table in another part of the stu­dio. Time for cre­ative devel­op­ment. For the next two hours I came up with sev­eral design ideas for music projects, thought through type solu­tions and font choices and made head­way into a sec­ond job before the power flipped back on.

What if the power didn’t go off? Would I have had the time to sit and think? Would I have been dis­tracted by email, Twit­ter, Face­book or iPhone noti­fi­ca­tions? Prob­a­bly. I doubt I would have made as much progress, but like any exper­i­ment, I’ll have to try it again and again to see the results. We’ll see…

To Beard or Not to Beard

As long as Liz and I have been mar­ried, I have not grown a beard. Pri­mar­ily, Liz hates beards— well, on younger guys. Once you become a grandpa or of a ripe old age, then beards are accept­able. I guess it’s the rite of pas­sage to become the wise sage. Since I am nei­ther a grandpa or very old, I don’t fit the cri­te­ria. But I decided to give it a try any­way. It’s almost two weeks old and I’m hav­ing some doubts. It’s not very itchy but it doesn’t seem to lie down like other beards. My beard seems to stick straight out like a por­cu­pine. See what I mean? In the begin­ning, I was plan­ning on grow­ing it out for 30 days while Liz and I par­tic­i­pate in the raw-​​food-​​only diet with her dad and step-​​mom. If you’re going gra­nola, then go all the way, right? We’ll see.

Bridge­Builders + Prayer Sat­u­rated Logos

For over 26 years, Bridge­Builders Inter­na­tional have not has a cor­po­rate iden­tity. 26 years. Some attempts have been made over the years but noth­ing has really cap­tured the essence of who they are. Hal and Cheryl Sacks have been very cau­tious for their brand but, as a result, the orga­ni­za­tion is more known to not have a con­sis­tent iden­tity than to have one at all. Well, we were given a shot to sub­mit designs for a new brand mark this win­ter. In set­ting some ideas down on paper, this is the strongest can­di­date. This is what they have cho­sen for their Prayer Sat­u­rated Series.

With the dead­line three weeks away, Adam McArthur from Lion Mar­ket­ing is in Ari­zona now meet­ing with Hal and Cheryl to dis­cuss the logo and other busi­ness mat­ters. Adam is head­ing up the project and is doing a fan­tas­tic job of cast­ing the vision of the new brand mark to them. More will fol­low after these meet­ings. Hope­fully we found a visual solu­tion that res­onates with them and they adopt our new image for their brand.