Well on Sept 16, 2011. We found out, quite a lot.

The CreateAthon had a catchy name and the premise was good. 24 hours of creative blitz. What the heck? We’ve pulled all-nighters before, so let’s do this one for good.

So we did.

And the results have really been life-changing for us.  We realized that our talent does matter to the world.  As a “creative” in the business it’s easy to get burned out. Does it really matter how perfectly kerned that brochure is to the world? Does anybody really care that you crafted that just oh-so-perfect-turn-of-phrase for that quarter of a page magazine ad? Would the world still turn if advertising wasn’t around?

And then you take this talent that God gave you and you put it out there. And you present it to very deserving non-profits.  Then you look up from the work…and you see tears. Tears of relief that finally they have the materials they need to help their mission. And that mission, in one form or another, is about helping another.

We’re good at what we do. We should be, we’ve been doing this forever and have won a gazillion of awards. But that doesn’t motivate us.

What motivates us is bringing good into the world. And the way we get to do that is through our talent.

“Good” is a well-kerned brochure, because while someone may not know why, “it just feels right” to them that feeling translates into the fact they can trust this organization. (Kerning is a whole subconscious thing we can get into later) And that crafted turn-of-phrase may have just been the tipping point to make people take that call to action.

So while we continue this journey of bringing good into the world, in what ever form that takes, we are grateful and thankful we had the opportunity to help our community. We knew people would say thank you to us for doing it, but it truly has been the other way around.

We got a gift just when we needed it most. And for that we are humbled and more appreciative than we can explain without this blog post getting all touchy feely weird.



We recently made an “inspiration” trip to Minneapolis with two aspiring designers.  While we found many nuggets of awesomeness like this light made from spoons at an ice cream shop at the Mall of America, the real inspiration came from the fact that we were a group of creatives sharing both our joy and struggles when it comes to making design a life passion.  One of the young designers (who is only 20!) made the comment that she felt a little behind the curve and wished she would’ve realized she wanted to be a designer sooner in life. One reason was because she felt so insecure in class when she had to show her work alongside others who have already had internships.

Little does she know that while you do gain confidence through experience, every designer I know still has moments when that doubting naggy voice in your head tells you that you suck and everyone is more talented and better than you. When that voice gets in my head I remember this advice from Brenda Ueland in her book - If you want to write. (Even if you don't want to be a writer this is a great book about the creative process.) 

EVERYBODY IS ORIGINAL, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his true self and not from the self he thinks should be. Jennings at Johns Hopkins, who knows more about heredity and the genes and chromosomes than any man in the world, says that no individual is exactly like any other individual, that no two identical persons have ever existed. Consequently, if you speak or write from yourself you cannot help being original. 

EVERYBODY IS TALENTED because everybody who is human has something to express. Try not expressing anything for 24 hours and see what happens. You will nearly burst. You will want to write a long letter or draw a picture or sing, or make a dress or a garden. Religious men used to go into the wilderness and impose silence on themselves, but it was so that they would talk to God and nobody else. But they expressed something: that is to say they had thoughts welling up in them and the thoughts went out to someone, whether silently or aloud. 

Writing or designing or painting is putting these thoughts on paper. That is all there is to it. 

So remember these two things: you are talented and you are original. Be sure of that. I say this because self-trust is one of the very most important things in creating. 



If you can see the year, the shirt reads iLife ’06. So I guess it’s been a busy few years. While I never did have the time to create a bona-fide blog, I did write blog-type entries into my sketchbooks. You know, the everyday frustrations, realizations, learned tricks and tips of life in the advertising world. And I just discovered a whole box of these sketchbooks.

So here it goes, Day One of "Blogging through the Boxes".