Ok, I’m just going to lead with it: in this piece, I leaned way too heavily on my inspiration from Pierre Michel (warning: some of his work contains artistic nudity). I was actually surprised (and embarrassed) by how much it looks like his “Fire Flower,” since certain ideas I thought were original were actually straight copies from my subconscious.  Give the credit to him on this one.

Having said all that, this is the promo for the LifeChurch.tv October message series. Our main goals were to capitalize on the feel of the fall season while capturing the power and awe of the Holy Spirit, all without getting too creepy.

Initially, we wanted to go with a stark white look (which, in hindsight, would have avoided the similarity issue), but it just didn’t feel “October.” The fire’s contrast with the black looked more powerful in the print art, so I changed direction.

All in all, thanks to an incredible script by Kevin Ely and casting by Beth Johnson, I think it succeeds in its objectives. I just wish I didn’t feel like a thief.

How about you? Have you ever created something, only to discover that it wasn’t nearly as original as you’d imagined?

Here’s the AtM’09 animated promo as promised.

It turns out that it’s pretty difficult to represent a lot of movie genres without using people. The result is that this ends up being a little sci-fi/action heavy (which is fine by my inner geek). I just can’t believe I didn’t add a Western element…

Had a lot of fun with this. Cinema4D has made the transition from Lightwave for 3D animation a smooth one. Here’s a quick capture of some of the process. As you can see, the whole project took about 2 minutes to complete. I’m that fast.

(Unfortunately, Previous Bryan didn’t think to start capturing until after a great deal had been done. Man, that guy’s an idiot sometimes.)

*edit: To see the print version of this art, LICK HERE. <–(This was a typo, but I found it way too funny to correct)

Here’s the finished artwork for LifeChurch.tv’s “At the Movies” series, in which we (legally) watch edits of Hollywood films to find Biblical truths in the stories.

This was a lot of fun and was my first full project since my recent switch to Cinema4D.

In addition to this, there is a fully-animated promo of these elements, which I’ll talk more about here soon.

We’re working on the development of a much-needed new stage at LifeChurch.tv and, though this is extremely preliminary, I thought it would be interesting to see the initial design (with my complete lack of construction knowledge), until we can see what our construction gurus are able to do with the idea. This is from a concept that Mark Dawson and I collaborated on.

My main focus was to create a stage that could be completely changed for a new series with the press of a few buttons (by changing a few light colors and uploading a new graphic).

Here’s the base idea (the blue squares would be large LCD TVs), followed by a few examples of application with various series art or elements. (Click any image for a larger version)

a “One Prayer” version:

an “At the Movies” possibility, illustrating that the stage doesn’t always have to contain the actual art:

and an older one, with art from “You Don’t Have What it Takes”:

Finally! Here it is. I’m just going to come out and say it, this was a beast of a project. A big, beautiful beast.

First, you can find out all about One Prayer, including what’s different this year, at oneprayer.com

Recognizing that each church is different, we’re offering three pieces this year so that each church can choose the art that best represents its style:

So why was it a beast? Well, here were some of my objectives:
- Visually represent God.
- Create 3 pieces that are different enough to work for a spectrum of possible church styles, but are not so different that they undermine the spirit of unity that defines One Prayer.
- Remain generic enough to support infinite possible answers to the “God is…” question, but descriptive enough to be provocative and interesting.
- Communicate both “One Prayer” and “God Is…” without being confusing.
- Please hundreds of churches at the same time.
- Visually represent God.

This is by no means a pity party. I’m thrilled to be a part of such an amazing collaboration in the Church. Complaining about having to design for One Prayer would be like complaining about winning a million dollars and not knowing what to buy. I just thought it might be interesting to know some of the obstacles I faced while working on it.

Now to start on all of the different version of animations…

Today, I finally packaged up the graphics for 2009’s upcoming One Prayer event, and sent them off to the web team. They’ll be dropping soon, and I’ll be the last one to ruin a surprise, but here’s a glimpse – well maybe a glimpse of a glimpse – at some of the art we’ll be using.

We’re handling things a bit differently this year. I’m excited to see how it all pans out. I’ll definitely have to give some backstory when it’s all out there, because this has been a very unique project.

It’s a question that I comes up from time to time, from people who don’t get it and sometimes even from myself. We designers can get a bit self-righteous, but sometimes I really step back and ask: is our job, as designers and media producers in the church, really all that necessary? In the grand scheme of things?

Here are some reasons why I think it is. 

1. It speaks to those who aren’t listening. Whether it’s right or not, many people will judge your (our) church without ever setting foot in it. A lot of those judgments, sadly, will be something along the lines of “there’s nothing for me there,” “those people are completely out of touch,” or “they can’t possibly have anything interesting to say.” A well-executed (notice I didn’t say “edgy” or “relevant”) design, though, can speak volumes to someone who won’t give you a chance to say anything else.

2. It’s way more than marketing. Yes, our job is to get people in the doors to hear the teaching, but it’s also more than that. Art can enhance the teaching by penetrating areas of consciousness and emotion that spoken word cannot, giving the message an even greater impact (and can even make that teaching resonate longer by providing a visual reminder of the feelings/thoughts experienced during the message).

3. It’s damage control. What we represent is important. Way more important than some product or company, and if those things warrant hours of energy devoted to protecting their image, why doesn’t the church? Frankly, there are plenty of people out there giving us bad PR. I consider it a personal goal to tear down misconceptions, and deliver an accurate representation of what it’s like to follow Christ. I can do that through design.

Those are just a few “off the top of my head” reasons. Do you have others?

I recently had the honor of being asked to do an interview for a blog at www.alreadybeenchewed.net and Collide magazine.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to say thanks to, and to point you toward, Barton Damer (if you’re not already familiar). He’s the one who asked the questions. He’s a stud, and does some pretty wicked stuff for Igniter media and others.

The title says it all. This kind of effect would be impressive enough in a 3D rendering program, but this Jedi Ninja Master Guru does it all in Adobe Illustrator. By hand. If you’ve ever used Illustrator, then you know how absolutely insane that is. If you’ve never used it, well, you should still be crazy impressed.

Check out his PORTFOLIO

I’m a little behind on this one, since it’s now week 2 of the series, but LifeChurch.tv is revisiting one of our most powerful series, called Kaleo.

Here is the artwork, which was meant to be reminiscent of the original artwork, mainly in color and feel.
Kaleo is a Greek word, meaning “called.”

It’s a great series, and just let me say that – though they’ll all be good – you HAVE to see week 3 (Oct 18-19), which will feature a guest message from Steven Furtick of Elevation Church. This dude is nothing short of anointed.