Earlier this week a couple of ladies emailed me who are starting a ministry and wanted me to design a Wordpress-powered site for them. I emailed them back with the next available opening in my schedule and the price range that my projects typically fall within. Within minutes of sending the email to them I received an email back that had only two words:

Holy Crap!

My price range was obviously way higher than they had expected. I later found out that the email I received was intended to be sent to the other partner instead of me. We had a good laugh about it. I told them that it was refreshing to get a “Holy Crap!” email once in a while since I knew a lot of people think it but don’t say it.

Then I started to think about where God has brought me. 18 months ago we sold our home in Fort Wayne, drove 2,300 miles to end up in Indianapolis where our house fell through and we lived out of a hotel for 3 months. There were plenty of times I felt sorry for myself and wondered why life had to be so hard. And yet through it all God remained faithful.

There were times during the last year-and-a-half where I thought I was going to have to stand out on a street-corner holding a sign that said “Will Design For Food” and now I have more work than I can handle?

Holy Crap!

I don’t deserve the blessings that God has given me and yet he gives them anyway. There are times in our life where we stop and look back at where we’ve been and where we are now. In those times I think that Holy Crap, although theologically questionable, is quite fitting nonetheless.

Take a moment and share your Holy Crap reflection about where you are and where you’ve been.

A German book company, Eichborn, decided to create an advertising campaign for their booth at the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair that, uh, flies in the face of convention (sorry, I’m a sucker for bad puns). Eichborn’s “smallest commercial gimmick in the world” campaign was simple: attach physical banner ads to actual flies. Yes, they somehow tied small red Eichborn banner ads to flies and let them loose in the Frankfurt Book Fair. The result was flying advertising that nobody could miss.

(ht: @MichaelForsberg)

What do you think of the flyvertising campaign? Creative? Gross?

This was her ideas of a rural home. It ain’t country until you have a horse and a red barn.

The suburbs…well, she pretty much nailed it. A bunch of houses that look exactly alike, a person walking her dog and a blue Hybrid jelly-bean car driving down the road.

When I saw her definition of urban living I realized that she might be just a little sheltered. According to her, if you don’t have a Justice, The Children’s Place, Bath & Body Works or Claires next to you, you’re not urban. Turns out you need to live in an Outlet mall to qualify as urban.

So tell me…where do you live?

Kicking it in the country?
Rocking the suburbs?
Or keepin’ it real under the city lights?

The Hello Kitty “Anatomy” series features the iconic mouthless cute cat character showing off her internal organs – which as it happens, are also…umm, cute? I mean, how can you not love a spleen with a bow on it?

(ht: JasonRuggles)

So what do you think? Cute or Creepy?

***by this point in my post I have already used the word “penis” three time (a new record for my blog) and have now doomed myself to showing up in the gutter of search engine results***

I immediately sent out a Tweet apologizing for my Twypo – a new word I coined by combining Twitter + Typo. That’s when I realized that there are tons of great word combinations out there just waiting to be made. Like Twam (Twitter + Spam – those stupid DMs you get on Twitter about teeth whitening) or Tweemail (Twitter + Email – for those annoying people who use Twitter like email).

What’s your favorite word combination that you’ve heard or made up?

Share your wordbination (word + combination) here…maybe we’ll help your fandamtastic word around!

Ever wonder where the term SPAM came from? I mean, we all know that there’s a canned meat with the same name but what’s the connection? According to the Internet Society and other sources, the term spam is derived from the 1970 SPAM sketch on the comedy series “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”

The sketch is set in a cafe where nearly every item on the menu includes SPAM canned luncheon meat. As the waiter recites the SPAM-filled menu, a chorus of Viking patrons drowns out all conversations with a song repeating “SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM… lovely SPAM! wonderful SPAM!”, hence “SPAMming” the dialogue. The basic concept of being “spammed” (receiving tons of unwanted email) owes it’s origin to the couple in the cafe who couldn’t order anything on the menu without getting varying amounts of the unwanted canned meat along with their order.

The 1970 Monty Python SPAM Sketch

So the next time you open your inbox and see 239 emails you didn’t ask for, you’ll be hearing those Vikings singing their spam song as you delete away.

How much spam do you get in your email inbox on an average day?

• writing scathing emails to our boss or client and then later deleting them
• screaming obscenities as we struggle to force every creative muscle in our body to use that font
• sticking pins in little voodoo dolls that curiously resemble our boss
• scheduling emergency phone appointments with our psychologist…3 times….in one day
• Curling up and rocking slowly on the floor in the corner of our office while trying to convince ourselves to get back up and finish that project

Creatives are known for having very thin skin. We have a difficult time taking any criticism, let alone the stupid kind you get from people who wouldn’t recognize something creative if it were screen-printed in neon Pantone colors on their face.

I’d like to share a few stories during out sessions at Cultivate tomorrow so this is where you come in.

Tell me the story of your biggest creative confrontation with your boss, co-worker or client and how did you end up resolving it?

I recognize that you may need to post your comment under creative anonymous names such as “Confused Creative” or “$#@%$ Frustrated Designer” in order to protect your identity. So go ahead and get that story off your chest.

[photo by xgravity23]

I’ve gotten to know some pretty awesome people and taken part in some amazing opportunities because of this community. We’ve discussed some pretty deep topics, spotlighted some great social justice issues and had a little fun along the way.

This Is Where You Come In

Occasionally opportunities arise to help grow this community. Recently this blog was nominated as one of the Top 50 Blogs in Indiana (and yes, Indiana does have some pretty amazing bloggers in case you were wondering). This year the top blogs are chosen by how many votes they receive. If you enjoy reading this blog, would you consider voting for it?

After you’ve voted, I’d love to know why you’re a reader! What makes you keep coming back for more?

Will your family be doing Halloween costumes this year? If so, what characters do you have planned?

I’ll be at the Cultivate conference in Chicago on October 27. This event could probably better be described as “organized conversations” rather than conference since the discussions will be driven by the groups in the various breakout sessions. These sessions will be facilitated by some of the best and brightest minds in church creativity including Kem Meyer, Carlos Whittaker, Jon Acuff, Brad Abare, Terry Storch, Cynthia Ware and Bobby Gruenwald among others.

Myself and fellow designer Michael Buckingham will be leading a discussion for one of the Cultivate sessions on creativity. Here’s the Twitter-style description of our session in 160 characters:

Jesus hates Papyrus and so do you…join other creatives as we talk about overcoming creative blocks, pitching ideas and dealing with criticism without going postal.

It’s going to be a great session with some fun stories and, hopefully, great ideas you can learn from other creatives. I’m looking forward to an amazing event and tons of creative conversations.

As an added creative-shot-in-the-arm, immediately following the Cultivate conference is STORY (previously posted about here). This promises to be another amazing event examining stories and how we, as communicators, can tell them better.

Will you be at Cultivate or STORY? If so let me know so I can look for you while I’m there.