The reason it has been an issue for designers in particular is that after a designer has finished their work, the client would reject it not liking something and the designer is then out of their time/effort/money. While the concept of spec work does exist on large scale (competitions for major building designs). Unless you are holding a competition for your new church building, don’t do spec work. Even with volunteers.

The newly appointed president of AIGA (the international designers association), Debbie Millman, on Spec Work.

I am personally vigorously, passionately and fundamentally AGAINST designers being asked to do work on spec and neither I nor my firm will ever participate in speculative work. I have said it before and I will say it again: Speculative work denigrates both the agencies and the designers that participate. If we give away our work for free, if we give away our talent and our expertise, we give away more than the work. We give away our souls.

Read the full interview over at NO!SPEC.

For more information on the NO!SPEC movement.

In another article about the Debbie Millman, the author referenced these great articles. The top three are particularly helpful for how the church is most likely to cross the SPEC boundary line.

• Spec Work Is Evil / Why I Hate CrowdSpring, by Andrew Hyde
• More logo design contest nonsense, on The Logo Factor
• Spec Watch on design contests, on Logo Design Love
• Don’t design on spec, by Jeffrey Zeldman
• Spec Work Arithmetic, from the Speak Up Archive
• An interview with SpecWatch, on Web Designer Depot
• Pay the Designer, on 8164
• The Personal Cost of Designing on Spec, by Mark Boulton

Hat Nod: swissmiss

One of the interesting points that wasn’t mentioned in our previous post was the effect that the current economic situation might have had on this re-branding effort. It was referenced to during a CNN interview back in February and felt its premise relevant to share here.

Consumers Wanting Control

They had a consumer guru on who made the interesting comment that in a time of turmoil the consumer was looking for something they could affect. When something comfortable to them changed, someone realized they could rally people against this change to stop it. Since they couldn’t stop what is going on economically this was the best they could do.

How valid is that statement? Psychologically I believe there to be merit to it. For us in the church this is valuable because it tells us that when there is harsh resistance to a change (even if it is actually very healthy and needed) that the resistance might not be to that change, but to something the congregation is experiencing as a whole that is out of their control.

If we can recognize that issue, then we can minister there and help them process their lack of control over it. This awareness and understanding will not only help them to experience more of Gods grace, but also help your church and ministry keep moving forward.

More packaging below:

(The re-Brand on the left | Un-re-Branded on the right)

via: theDieLine

Communicating the meaning and value of an idea (and the Gospel) has been a goal for as long as civilization has existed. This video takes a look at some of the physiological factors that cause our brains to create meaning. Understanding this can help us create more impacting messages and better forms of communication.

Watch the 6 minute video for all the details

Keys to help the brain understand meaning are:

1. Use Images to Clarify Ideas
2. Interact with images to create engagement
3. Augment Memory with Persistent & Evolving Views

If you have been reading here for a while you’ll know that I love the TED conference (Technology Education and Design). I love even more that I don’t have to shell out thousands of dollars to attend plus the cost of room+board and can instead watch video of the talks online or through iTunes.

Often we create mental images using other things that we can understand. How many times around the world can ____ go is a common one. In reference to the trillion mentioned earlier I read in the BBC a couple weeks back that:

A million seconds is 11 days.
A billion seconds is around 32 years.
And a trillion therefore is 32,000 years.

By far my favorite is when people visualize data graphically. I’m not talking about a pie charts and line graphs (which both have their place) but into innovative and visually striking representations. The steam graph to the right is a great example. This particular graph is visualizing the news from 2008. I think that it’s presentation and visual appearance clearly illustrates my point.

If this has peaked your interests, make sure you check out ‘The first sketches of history.’

If it is helping people to understand the budget of the church, the regular giving, or any number of other administrative details graphing is a vital way to accomplish this.

nod: Ned Wright

Sources: I Shot the Sherrif Graph, niemanlab.org

Hope - Obama by Steve Rhodes

Just about two weeks ago we wrote about the legal case around the image the iconic Obama hope poster was created from. It is an issue of what constitutes fair use, and what is copyright infringement.

This issue alone could cost a church millions of dollars if ignored. Thankfully fellow bloggers over at Church Marketing Sucks came out with a three part series on fair use, from a Copyright Lawyer Richard Byrd.

Check out each of the three parts:

• Part 1 – Defining Fair Use
• Part 2 – Understanding Intent
• Part 3 – Use of the material

via (quotesondesign.com)

55 Great Websites To Download Free Sound Effects

Note: Some of these sound effects have limited rights. That means they are not allowed for commercial usage. We urge that you check the rights before using them for business purposes.

HatNod (swissmiss)

This video has just astounded me by the brilliant colors and how well the kaleidoscope effect worked. If you have ever been to a fair/carnival after dark you gotta check out this video. It’s a bit long, but just visually stunning.

Imagine asking someone in your church to make a promo video for a church night out and getting this back. I love it (though I do realize it’s a bit abstract and flashy for some tastes/settings).

Visual by: Sai
Music by: Wanderlust -Björk (Ratatat Remix)

hat not (Fubiz)

I hope seeing this work will inspire you to think twice about how you use type in your work for your church. It can have a very dynamic and powerful impact on the final presentation of your project.

via VisualCulture

It is stunning how many brands we interact with on a daily basis. Former ASU under-grad student Tanner Woodford wrote about how he logged all 1,035 brand identities he interacted with during one day the last October.

Incredible how many brands we see, use, experience on a daily basis. The image to the left is from his post where he laid the brands out for a 24 hr clock. Its an intuitive way to display the brands even without the clock arms spinning away on it.

With so many brands being experienced on a daily basis from the commercial segment of society I would contend that as a church as a whole we need to do a better job at:

1. Developing stronger brand identity where needed
2. Exposing that brand broadly in the public arena

Until we make these concerted focal points we should expect people to maintain the priorities that the currently have. The more frequently we as a church interact with the culture (in a positive light) we will only be helping them to make positive decisions on a regular basis.

I have to share one last image of this clock as a more finished product, so beautifully done.

Make sure you check his post out over at fillslashstroke.com