Was that a blast… Note sarcasm. I came down with tonsillitis a couple of weeks ago and decided to fight it with some herbal treatments and good ol’ fashioned self medication. Well that didn’t work. A week later my tonsils got worse. I went to urgent care and saw a doctor. I was hoping to just get a prescription for some antibiotics and be done with it. Well so much for hoping. He examined me and informed me that I needed a trip down to the ER. I had an abscess on my throat and it needed to be drained. For those of you not familiar with an throat abscess, its when your throat fills up with puss. Sounds fun huh? Well it wasn’t. Since I am deathly afraid of needles there was no painkillers for my mouth, just a morphine drip. I brought a tennis ball to squeeze as the doctor used clamps to squeeze the puss out of my tonsils. My screams of agonizing pain could be heard through out the hospital. 2 Morphine drips later and a trip to the Drug store for codeine and antibiotics and I was home sleeping soundly like a new born baby for the first time in weeks.
These are some sketches I did of monsters representing the seven deadly sins in response to someone asking for help in CFCCLabs marketing workshop on Flickr.com. Can you tell which sin each monster delights in?
Posted in Church Marketing, Sketch of the Day | Tagged Cartoons, Drawings, Kids, Monsters, Sketches | No Comments »
You guys can check out Kiko’s website at Rhombus Entertainment. Cruise the site, play the game, watch the animatic, read the book. Let me know what you think here. Have fun!
Posted in Books, Life's Journal | Tagged Books, Entertainment, Kids | No Comments »
Lesson 1 of 5: Creating an appealing brand for a target audience.
Often I read in online forums people asking for help about how to design a brand identity for a certain audience. Then I ask, why are you asking us? Why not ask them? Which I do understand isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Unfortunately for us designers and marketing gurus people just think we dream this stuff up under a tree on our lunch break. Well, you know and I know we don’t.
I thought I’d start my series on “marketing Made Easy” with the sometimes very difficult process of branding.
What is branding? I’ve never really been able to answer that very simply, but I’ll try. Branding is the visual identity of your entity or property (this can also apply to your church or your ministry.)
One simple way to get the ball rolling on your brand is to create a focus group. You can start a focus group by first determining the “who.” Answer some simple questions like: What is their sex? What is their age range? What do they do for a living? After you determine some basic parameters ask some people in your church to volunteer some of their time. Give each person a large foam core board and ask them to fill it with pictures of things that interest them. They can find them in magazines, books, and newspapers. They can be anything from an article to an advertisement. Just as long as they cut it out and paste it on the board. Give them a set deadline to do this, and then have them all come in for a meeting. Ask people to tell you why he or she chose what they chose and what sticks out to them the most.
Now, take your notes, take your boards and hit the ground running! We’ll discuss the next step in lesson 2. See ya then!
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Whoever heard of a bat being afraid of the dark?
Well Kiko is that bat! He is a little bat growing up in an abandon old house with his bat Mommy and his bat daddy. He has 3 friends: Gato a mischievous and ornery cat, Freddy a quaint and kind little quail, and Old Willie an old and sleepy willow tree. Together they discover that sometimes what scares us most is just in our own imaginations!
This is the premise for my new book that I wrote and illustrated with the help of a good friend Allen Rhodes. We are looking for publicity, exposure, but most importantly a publisher! Check out the book here, read it, look at the illustrations, and let me know what you think by leaving a comment or emailing me.
Posted in Books, Life's Journal | Tagged Books, Entertainment, Kids | No Comments »
Each couple of days I am going to try and post a sketch of some kind. Whether it’s a napkin sketch or a detailed sketch, I’m going to post them here with a brief description. Feel free to comment with your thoughts, or even your own sketches.
Today’s sketch was just a random drawing of a guy with a gun and a pin saying vote. I am not sure what I am trying to convey other than voting can be hazardous to your mental health hehehe. Although, I do encourage everyone to vote.
Posted in Sketch of the Day | No Comments »
