20090414.zombieBears

At work, I was recently given the task of creating a t-shirt design for our primary product, the Blue Letter Bible. The specifications of this particular thing were something as follows:

1. A youth-oriented logo for our site
2. For local youth to wear around
3. To advertise the site virally

This put me in something of a pickle. We don't have anything remotely like a youth-oriented logo design currently existing. We have one logo and it is what it is. I've said this before and I'll say it again now: I have no talent for logo design. I'm not trained in logo design and I don't feel particularly competent in this field of the graphic arts. Imagine the best artist you know. That person probably couldn't design a good logo if their salary depended on it. I know I'm glad mine doesn't.

Further compounding my trepidation for the project, I'm to put together a shirt design for high-school/college-aged peoples. I'm thirty-five. I don't work to keep abreast of what the age group in question thinks is hip and what is hopelessly lame. I do know that kids, like adults, hate being pandered to and can smell a phony. Well, the smart ones can smell one at any rate.

And then throw in the viral advertisement bit. This, surprisingly, may actually be my saving grace on this assignment. I know as well as any of you that viral advertising doesn't really work as well as we all thought it would four or nine years ago. Consumers, as ever, are a cynical breed. (By as ever, I mean since about 1989 or so.) They smell the fraud of so-called viral marketing schemes and recognize them for what they are: marketing schemes. Still, if a campaign is interesting enough, it can gain a small following. The real problem with viral marketing is that it never really penetrates beyond the savvy elite to which it is first introduced (cf. Snakes on a Plane).

But! The viral mandate means I can abandon some of the rules that would weigh too heavily on me to have fun on the project. At least, I'm interpreting it like so. I've come up with a good fistful of ideas, ranging from pretty design-focused obviousness to obscure amusements that have a little fun with the idea.

My favourite has to do with what I'm thinking of as zombie bears. Even if technically, they aren't really zombies. Though they might be. The design was frustrating because I realized that of all the things I could easily draw, bears (and especially zombie-like bears) are not among said things. I went through more bear designs than I imagined was possible. And once I settled on a general design, I had to go through a number of mouths and eyes before I was even mildly happy.

In any case, though this design is my personal favourite and even The Monk wants one to wear around town, I don't have particularly high hopes that it will ever see print. And I don't know whether the quote-unquote youth would think as highly of it as I do. So then, internet. What think ye? (p.s. click for a larger view.)

Ahem. You may also have noted that I sort of abandoned the whole create a logo idea. The bears were just too cool.

20070906

One of the benefits of ministry work are the comedic elements that slip in through the day. Because y'know. Just because two people share the same faith, doesn't mean they are on remotely the same wavelength.

Our receptionist-in-chief received a music CD recently from our Lord and Saviour, ostensibly. Need proof?

And yet, despite the overwhelming joy some of us might experience at the divine revelation of the music of heaven, others of us are suspicious of both heart and mind. Skeptics in sheep's clothing if you will. No, there were certain details that immediately leapt to mind and prompted us to think that this might not necessarily be the work of theophany or miracle, but of something far more mundane: a very human person of poor taste and spelling.

In the first place, it is virtually certain that the creator of all that is would know how to spell the receptionist's name correctly. So either the deliverer of this by-appearance didn't actually know her name, or perhaps Crysti doesn't know how to spell her own name. I'm open to either explanation at this point. So in the second place, the creative soul of the world would likely have better taste; the included music is the definition of schmaltz. And lastly, it is doubtful that a good and holy and just God would feel the need to pirate music in order that our receptionist might bask in the warmth of RIAA-thwarting pabulum masquerading as musical substance.

UPDATE: as it has been unveiled (as it was meant to be unveiled!), the disc was not the gift of the Messiah at all but instead the product of a really nice guy who is a touch over-eager in the realm of spiritual matters and for some reason really wants the receptionist to listen to Track #11. I suspect backwards masking. In any case, I'm troubled that she is the sole bearer of his gifting affections - as I believe myself to be at least as handsome as she.

Meeting Notes

I couldn't remember exactly what either a dart or a hand looked like, but it was a long meeting so I doodled around until I got something that somewhat resembled my target image - a hand lazily holding a dart. Man, I miss playing cricket on Johnny's old electronic dartboard. That was the best.

You gots to be kidding me!

I was talking with someone who wanted to learn Photoshop and this bomb was dropped into the conversation:

I've tried to sign up for a course at the community college, but couldn't. Now I've been paying taxes for thirty years... and these classes fill up like that. I've even tried petitioning to get in, but it was full. And you know what the worst thing was? Yeah, it was all minorities!

I was dying with laughter (inside) at shock of the sentiment. I was completely caught off-guard. Did she just say that?! For reals?! Holy cats.

Seriously. This isn't the kind of world I live in. I'm thirty-three and this is the first person I've ever known who is actively (though unconciously and, perhaps, innocently) racist. It's like someone from a movie in the '70s stepped into my world - the real world - a world in which racism is a foe defeated, something that was on its deathbed twenty years ago.

Some of you might think me hopelessly naive, but really, I promise: racism in any real form doesn't rear its head in the world as I live it.

Well, until now. It's one of those things that's so unbelievably wrong that to even acknowledge that this person harbours these sentiments is actively confusing for me. To come in contact with this strange sense of entitlement because she is Whitey boggles my mind. I don't even really know how to deal with it. I suppose I should say something, but the surreality of the whole thing is making my head swim.