In the early 1990’s, my wife and I visited her sister at the University of Washington’s main campus in Seattle. While there we were struck by the vibrant community life around the campus. I wondered what was powering this electric atmosphere. Some of it may have been the school’s large size. Some may have been the crescendo of the grunge culture. But what grabbed my attention was the hole in the wall coffee houses. They were everywhere—like ticks on a hound dog. These coffee houses hummed with artistic expression, authentic conversations and of course the stimulant of some pretty wicked caffeine. The scene I remember most vividly was walking from street level down a long staircase and looking into a large room crowded with students engaged in conversations, singing ballads, laughing with friends, playing a game of chess, and experiencing life in the raw. Most interestingly, there was no advertising anywhere. Nothing had been designed by professionals. The floors were wooden, slightly dirty and creaked excessively. The signage and menus looked like they were done on the fly by a bad doodler. There were no logos to be seen. No beautifully designed packaging of coffee products. No branded music playing through a high end sound system. Just some poor 5-year student, strumming out of tune grunge ballads on his scratched up guitar. But what life that place had!

Almost 15 years later I’m standing in Starbucks, the world fa...... Keep reading

While on vacation last week in Birmingham, I had to rush my wife to the emergency room at the local hospital. Although I am somewhat familiar with the area, I had not visited this particular hospital in several years.
Driving at night, trying to find a hospital in a town you don’t know with someone who’s having a medical emergency is no easy task. To make matters worse, we almost missed the hospital entrance due to do poor typography on their entrance sign. I’m not kidding. Bad typography could cost some folks their lives finding this hospital. The architect (couldn’t have been a designer!) chose a narrow, serif typeface lit from the inside of each letter. In the daytime, the sign’s typeface is legible from a distance, but at night, the width and weight of the letterforms didn’t allow sufficient light to shine through for legibility. A wider, sans serif display typeface would have made all the difference for drivers at night. I can’t imagine how out-of-town folks find the hospital in the rain.

Even more interesting is the road sign I saw a mile away from the hospital with a large “H” in a blue field. I understood what the sign meant, b...... Keep reading

I don’t often come across a presentation like this one by Belief that delves so deeply into the heart and soul of creativity and design.This Quicktime video is a live enactment of Belief’s inspiration session presented in New York City at Promax/BDA 2004. Belief’s Mike Goedecke and Kane Roberts are the voices. If you have an hour for lunch (and you’ll need it for this 45 min session) and a broadband connection (massive streaming download), then I’d suggest that you watch it. I got a lot out of it and will watch it again to really understand what they are saying. There are a few commercials they use as examples that are obscene (like two chairs and then two robots having a sexual encounter) and some very dark video clips. But buried in this presentation are some nuggets on the heart and soul of design. Can you help me dig them out?...... Keep reading

What a pleasant surprise. MSNBC is running a large series online and on television on faith and the workplace. Seems designers are not the only ones trying to understand and close the gap between passion and profession. There are some interesting examples of how other folks are integrating their passion and their work. The breadth of the articles and coverage is worth a readYou might also want to check out the discussion on the FastCompany blogs on branding and religion and branding and leadership....... Keep reading

Designer’s are afraid. And I can’t really blame us. The wolf lures us in with nice salaries, the latest technology, the promise of big name clients and cool digs. In fact, the wolf has all the money and security we would want as long as we give him our Creative lives. And the wolf has disguised himself so well, that he sometimes forgets he’s a wolf. But deep down, we know something’s not kosher. We were supposed to experience joy and passion serving at grandma’s house—serving her in her sickness, and bringing her beauty and nourishing food. But something dreadful happened.

Somewhere along our creative journey the wolf met us—maybe in design school or at our first job or even in our youth when dad said “How are you going to earn a living with that degree?” And we started listening. Not too much at first because the wolf disappeared, and we were skipping happily along the path picking flowers to give to grandma. But when we knocked at grandma’s door, a stranger’s voice answered. Although not what we expected, we wrote off our uneasiness. Maybe grandma has a bad cold. Surely she’ll get better. “Come in” the voice enticed. We went in and stayed.

We’ve been in grandma’s house for quite some time now, but are beginning to notice some very peculiar things about her. She talks too us sweetly, but there’s a veiled tone in her voice that she might eat us if...... Keep reading

All of us have ideas from time to time and some of them actually matter. Ideas that matter could affect change for Good in the world if we took a few steps of faith and a little time to do something with them.
Ideas are often born from questions burning within us: questions we ask ourselves, and questions God asks us. The search for understanding in answering these questions leads us to unexpected places with unforeseen consequences. Let me tell you my story.

In my senior year of college I had the crazy idea to apply for a Fulbright Scholarship. Rather than apply for a Fulbright to obtain a master’s degree, I wanted to research a question I was really interested in learning more about (a novel thought I know). I studied Chinese and majored in East Asian studies, so I had a natural interest in things Chinese. I’d always wanted to see if there was a connection between the growth the Chinese underground Christian house church movement and the spread democratic ideology. This question became my Fulbright application thesis. My college’s application review board thought I was nuts and urged me to remove the Christian stuff in my application and broaden the scope of the research. I said thanks, but it stays. Long story short, by a miraculous Hand of intervention, I was awarded a Fulbright grant to research the underground house church movement and the spread of democracy in 1993...... Keep reading