Breakout Session: Between Heaven & Helvetica

“[A]n art work has value as a creation because man is made in the image of God, and therefore man not only can love and think and feel emotion, but also has the capacity to create. Being in the image of the Creator, we are called upon to have creativity.… We never find men anywhere in the world or in any culture in the world who do not produce art. Creativity is a part of the distinction between man and non-man. All people are to some degree creative. Creativity is intrinsic to our mannishness.” — Francis Schaeffer

Yesterday I gave an hour-and-a-half design breakout session for participants at the 2009 Baptist Media Forum at Camp Buckner, up near Inks Lake. The seminar was entitled Between Heaven & Helvetica: How Good Design Can Energize Your Existing Communications.  I hadn't delivered a talk that long before, so I was a little nervous to say the least. I figured I'd leave a half-hour for Q&A and prepared what I thought was an hour's worth of content.

My stated purpose was to "embark upon an interactive, multi-sensory conversation among 
designers, self-proclaimed non-creatives, quasi-creatives, and people who have 
to work with creatives in order to sketch at the intersection(s) of good design, good theology, and our role 
as culture creators." True to form, it was meandering and quirky — a soupçon of  history, theology of the Imago Dei, a little design philosophy and advice, and visual inspiration/stimulation (I hope).

About 15 minutes into it, I realized I had too much content, but pressed forward, and we ended up getting through most of it without much compromise. Before I went on, my friend Marcus Goodyear gave a great presentation on online community building; I knew he was going to skew his content heavily (actually completely) online, so I weighted my presentation toward traditional media and channel-neutral branding design.

The preso was a mashup featuring three youth media case studies tied to some theological points I made at the presentation's "history unlesson" ... as well as a gallery of twenty logos I had designed, which I will glom together and present to you below. I also re-fashioned and re-presented my "six design nuggets for non-creatives" talk as a 10-minute overview.

I was really pleased with the mix of people — I asked the group of media professionals (I assumed I'd be getting mostly PR folks, writers and editors) to classify themselves (how modern of me): almost a third of the room comprised designers and creatives. Another third considered themselves quasi-creative, and only one guy thought he was a non-creative.

My friend Tim Snyder made the trip out to the hill country with his visiting friend (my new friend) Josh. They audited the whole session and Josh participated in the interactive [Playdoh sculpting!] portion of the talk as well. With them and Marcus and my friend Brad Russell from The Baptist Standard there in the room, I was more at ease than I would've been.

After the presentation, Tim and Josh and I spent the rest of the day together. On the drive back to San Antonio, we stopped in the Blue Bonnet Café in Marble Falls, TX. That's Josh and his chocolate meringue pie. After that we crashed at my house for a bit ( I really needed a nap) before heading to Alamo Drafthouse Theater to see Slumdog Millionaire.

It was a nice break in the middle of the week.

I leave you with an excerpt from an essay by Leland Ryken that I published in Communiqué back in the day, and dredged up for the conversation yesterday (but didn't have time to share with the group):

"What does the image of God in people say about the arts? It affirms human creativity as something good in principle, since it is an imitation of one of God's own acts and perfections. Someone once wrote, "As image-bearer of God, [people possess] the possibility both to create something beautiful, and to delight in it (Kuyper 142). Christian poet Chad Walsh once wrote that the artist "can honestly see himself as a kind of earthly assistant to God..., carrying on the delegated work of creation, making the fullness of creation fuller" (308). This applies equally to those who are not themselves creative artists but who delight to enter into the creativity of others. And it stands as a rebuke to those who disparage God's gift of creativity in people."

Here's a handful of the logos I've designed* — I used these in the presentation:

 

*the All Saints logo was a collaboration between myself and Von Glitschka, whose work also made it into the presentation.

Comments

[Kent Kingery]

Blue Bonnet Cafe... Lovely. My only gripe about them is that they are closed right after Christmas so I can't stop there on the way back from Denton during the holidays. :)

[brad russell]

Paul,
Your catalytic presentation sent our imaginations spinning like pinwheels.
Thanks again for your generosity of spirit to invest some time and energy with our eclectic group of Christian communicators.

Hope to connect again with you soon . . . and maybe there will be pie.

Brad

[Cynthia Huddleston]

There's this bottom left to top right aesthetic going. Is that a design thing or is that just you?

[Paul Soupiset]

wow, yeah. i see what you mean. i've never noticed that before. i think it's
just me. diagonal oeuvre guy.