If you’ve seen the movie or watched the clip, you know that Albert doesn’t listen to Hitch’s advice… and yes, it all works out in the end, bad dancing and all. But the takeaway for me, especially as it relates to Samwell Creative, is to not pretend that a certain project is in my field of expertise just because the potential client wants/needs it to be.

We need to know our strengths and stay within them, so as not to be distracted by well paid projects that don’t fall within our hedgehog. There are hundreds of projects out there that can help your bottom line, but beware, a lot of these are comet tail projects that distract you from your core strategy and company values… basically, these projects don’t offer vocational fulfillment or propel you forward toward your competitive advantage.

The problem with being picky… is that you are going to turn down some a bunch of potential high-paying customers. Which is very hard to do, especially as a start-up company that needs the cash flow to survive! But, don’t give in. Because in the end — ignoring these projects it is worth it — stay focused on your goals, on your vision for the company, and the projects that do fall within your expertise will be filled with everything you have… your entire creative passion.

This is what I’m telling myself today… After a meeting in which I told a potential client, “No, we actually don’t do that.”

What shouldn’t you be doing?

So. Today, I want to highlight a logo/branding project for Sam Mahlstadt’s new site Creative Theology, which is due to launch this week.

I’ve known Sam for about 9 months or so… he is a writer, church planter, and conversationalist on topics of church, theology, creativity, and writing. This project was for a logo and a sidebar profile pic that would tell the story of what the new site was about, namely creative theology. During our initial conversation Sam’s guidelines were vague at best… I came away knowing he wanted a simple and clean header logo and sidebar image. FTR: simple and clean the hardest design to pull off, as you have to constantly cut the design back.

To get some more direction on his preferences (and what he defined as “simple and clean”), I asked Sam to send me a few sites/logo’s that he likes — a perfect way to find out a person’s taste and narrow down the genre of logo he/she is looking for.

Having access to his design taste was helpful but not quite the story I was looking for… so I spent some time perusing his current site, trying to figure out his voice and interpretation of what “creative theology” meant. Taking this research — I journaled the following about creative theology:

Whenever we create we use basic elements to create something beautiful… graphite and stone for a drawing, wood and metal for a building, clay and water for a sculpture… just like God used dirt to create Adam. So a great depiction of the basic element of creation is dirt. Creative = Dirty.

Theology… conversations about God. So a creative theology is conversations that sprout from our most basic need… to create and grow. As Christ nourishes our flesh (made of the basic elements of dirt and water) we begin to sprout and grow, becoming a vessel in which God uses to nourish others… So a creative theology is just this… God using the seemingly mundane and dirty to produce something beautiful and impacting.

With this as the backdrop… my muse. I began formulating concepts and ideas based upon this storyline. What follows is the finish draft.
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[The basic iconic logo... I wanted a logo that was identifiable to the creative theology brand, something short and easy to integrate in some of the small spaces of the interwebs... this logo will translate well on twitter, facebook, as the favicon, et cetera.]

[The full typographic logo. For use in larger scale applications, banner ads, and print.]

[Side profile. This adds color to his site which is very modern in design, with not much color or snazz... which is great beause the eye is directed from the top left logo to the right sidebar as the color pops on the page, giving the reader a frame of reference using symbolism to set the expectations of the blog's perspective.]

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If you get the chance be sure to check out the conversations at Creative Theology, and thanks for stopping by to see some of our processes and musings.

In this post, I want to highlight the logo design process for Charming Beard, so you can get a glimpse behind the scenes at our creative process here at Samwell Creative. Especially how we embody our value of creative collaboration with other artists to arrive at a creatively inspired finished product or in this case a logo.

First and foremost is the inspiration. A year ago, some friends/coworkers at LifeChurch.tv were participating in a creative challenge in which they grabbed a adjective and noun out of a hat and then created a illustration/audio clip out of the newly formed phrase. You can find some of there creations at SchizoSketch. I loved this project and in conversations later, asked if I could use the Charming Beard combination in a future endeavor. So. Even from the get-go this subsidiary has collaboration at its roots.

Once the initial website was in place and the business model was being worked out it seemed best to allow Charming Beard to marinate for a while, hence the lack of promotion and general hush-hush nature of the project… During this marination, I began ideating on a logo for the company, I needed an iconic logo, one that would do well on it’s own and represent the brand without needing any text… I wanted to be able to use the icon as a watermark, sticker, stencil, tag, t-shirt, hat… you name it. I also wanted it to convey a bearded fellow, who was a charming ‘ol chap — though not too buggered or burly.

Once I had the business model in place and the brand story firmly established (the story I wanted conveyed in the logo), I scheduled a brainstorming session with one of my favorite logo design creatives in Grant Hill of Hilco Creative. In this session we talked a lot about the brand, specifically the vision behind the company, it’s goals and it’s economic driver (basically, all the things that make it unique — it’s story). I then gave some loose parameters… “the icon’s gotta have/be a beard and give me a typographical element to go with it.”

Below is the sequence of logo’s that we went through, from first draft to final:

After each submission, Grant and I would collaborate via phone or email… For instance on the first iteration with 4 rather different looking logo’s I brought in Don Hogan, one of the Charming Beard photographers to get another viewpoint and in a conference called we discussed the merits of our favorites as well as the elements disliked. (side note: It’s always important in collaboration, to voice the dislikes, that way the designer has a clear understanding of what is working and what is definitely not.) After this genteel conversation, we landed on two versions we wanted to see in another round of concepts.

As you can see — the final draft is a combination of first and fourth logo from the initial brainstorm — taking the bearded fellow and combining it with the hand drawn Charming Beard typography. You can peruse the second and third iterations, as they are small tweaks and conceptual spins on the final draft… check out all the variations of beards, which one would you have chosen?

I love looking at these concept pieces as it reminds me of why I value collaboration — it brings out the best of all involved, as we focus on a solution that fits the project — pushing each other creatively and communicative-ly — finally landing on a finished product that tells a killer story.

For the most part I’ve been pretty silent on the ol’ musings because I’ve been hard at work for Pella Windows and Doors, working in their Retail Marketing department, handling some data analysis contract work!! It’s been a fun time getting to know the folks over at corporate and I have nothing but good things to say about that company and the direction they are headed. Fantastic people working their tails off to deliver an excellent product and top notch window installation service to the world!

With my time at Pella coming to a close late this month, it is becoming my focus to actually launch this business, with a proper grand opening… With that being said, I’m working hard on a September launch with some marketing pieces and maybe even a launch party at my new office — a shared space in GRAFX 2 a tee’s new location just west of Highway 163 in Pella, IA.

Below are a few things that Samwell Creative has launched since June 1st:

Website –> Koopman Roofing & Insulation
http://www.underthek.com

Videos –> Koopman Roofing & Insulation Videos

Now it’s your turn… if you have some extra time this week go and be creative… stop consuming and start producing, because the world needs your voice, invention, book, film, and talent.

iPhone: I’ve been an iPhone user for 3 years and I can’t find a reason to own a Blackberry, though the Android operating system is a great rival product (I’ve used all three as part of my job testing different YouVersion Bible apps when I worked as Project Manager on the Digerati Team). I still say the iPhone is the best smartphone on the market, especially when you embrace the efficiency-trio of the iPhone, iPad, and Macbook which has become a deadly combination at killing it!

iPad: I’m an early adopter… and have been stoked about the way the iPad has integrated in my workflow. It is like having a notebook at your fingertips, that also plays movies, researches blog posts, and keeps you socialized to the masses. It has become my primary device outside of the house for meetings and work, and allows my laptop to become my workhorse at home, where I do most of my heavy lifting (coding, design, writing, et cetera). Though it’s not a fun device to read for extended amounts of time on, see my thoughts on the Kindle below.

Macbook: I love this computer. And have been an Apple fanboy since I bought my first 13″ Powerbook, before Grad school in ’04… One of the reasons I love Apple is the operating system and it’s ease of use, I have multiple apps running on my current Macbook that are steriods for my productivity, for this reason alone it’s hard to go back to PC, even if Windows 7 promises a better user experience, it can’t beat the functionality of Apple’s OSX.

Kindle: The best pure book reader on the market right now… it doesn’t do social media for a reason. I love this device when traveling, as it gives my shoulders a rest from carrying around 3-4 books, and lessens my overweight checked bag. I’m finding myself reading mostly fiction and biography/memoirs, as I still like to scribble in the margins in my theology books.