Sometimes you just can’t find the image you’re looking for. I figured it wouldn’t be that hard to find a decent stock photo of a chef or lunch lady dishing up a ladle of glop. I mean, what else is the internet for? No dice, however, and I ended up having to shoot this background photo myself. Oh, and the grubby stains on the shirt? Nothing more than a decorative spattering of flour and water.

I seem to be in a rut lately, posting nothing but these sermon series posters. I’ll mix it up a bit more, I promise!

I have just what you’ve been waiting for… Another sermon series design! I started out wanting to do a photo-driven layout, but couldn’t find images I was happy with. This is the first design I’ve drawn entirely on my Wacom tablet without working from a literal pencil sketch as a template. It worked great for the style I was shooting for, although any tighter line work would be hard to achieve this way.

Another sermon series poster for Hillcrest Church. Seems like I’ve got some kind of color gradient thing going on these. I wonder where that came from…

We’re doing a month long series at church on “Things Christians Fight About”. It is always good to stick with the safe topics like this. I did some supporting graphics, including the spicy title screen above.

In all my “free time” I’ve started volunteering over at Hillcrest, doing the graphics for each upcoming sermon series. It is a fun excuse to try some new things, and small enough projects that they aren’t too much to squeeze in edgewise some evening. This Grave Consequences poster is the first one I did. It introduces the series leading up to Easter this year.

However, simply handing people a pile chocolate dust doesn’t work very well:

Merry ChristmaaaAchoo! …oh, sorry about that. Don’t worry, it will melt into the carpet, and disappear in no time…

We needed packaging for our “awesome hot chocolate.” I didn’t want to resort to the classic, but not very classy, canning-jar-with-label technique. After some goose chasing, we were able to supply ourselves with plastic bags from a candy-making supply store that looked perfect. Of course a zip-lock bag full of powder isn’t exactly decorative. Dress it up with some shiny foil wrapping paper, however, add a whimsical custom label, and you’ve got something nearly presentable.

You’ll notice we’re still transporting plastic bags full of a fine powdered substance… across state lines… so look for us on the news this Christmas Eve.

Below is how the final product turned out:

For more photos:

Each baggie holds enough mix to make two cups of hot chocolate.

The labels were laser printed and trimmed from a 8.5×11 sheet of self-adhesive label paper.

Hmmm… I might need to do some more research…

After several months of effort and a lot of continent shuffling, we are pleased to announce the launch of the Web2.0Summit Points of Control Map!

This is really a first iteration of the map, with additional functionality to be added in upcoming releases. We hope you enjoy!

Here are a few behind-the-scenes notes:

The team at Blend included and Joe, Nate on the development side. Karla and I did the design and illustration. We worked primarily with John Battelle and Janetti Chon from the web2.0 team. Their vision and broad knowledge of the current state of the web is what really enabled this map to become what it is.

Deciding on the relative size and placement of the companies was a challenge. There are a lot of diverse players. So much so that an apples-to-apples comparison of any one data point seemed to miss the full picture. Instead we took a hybrid approach, considering things like revenue, number of active users, and relative influence. In the end it is all an estimate, but hopefully a reasonably defensible one.

Visually there were a number of influences. We were inspired by old explorers maps, with their vague details and exotic inset illustrations. To help underscore the game-like fun that we were going for, we looked to strategy board games like Risk or Age of Empires. The chiclet icons were obvious game pieces that nod to the web-centric nature of the map. In the end we blended a whimsical hand-drawn style with interactive elements in a way that encourages exploring the state of the web for fun.

Obviously, we are not the first ones to try and visualize the web in some way. Here are a few other interesting takes on things:

Web Trend Map – Both a cool interactive map of the latest trends and a subway map style poster.

2007 Online Communities – How things have changed!

2010 Social Networking Map – A recent “tribute” map in a similar style to the 2007 version above.

Apparently I am an edge case. Greeting card manufacturers know what sells. A quick look down the card aisle reveals that women make the bulk of the buying decisions here (glitter seems to be a strong deciding factor). Any attempt to expand the appeal quickly devolves to “beer and bodily functions” style humor. Not really what I had in mind.

But I did want to send my brother something tangible to supplement his birthday gift…

When in doubt, break out the sketch pad, right? I seem to be on some kind of hand-drawn typography kick lately. I came up with this seal, surrounded it with the names of a few cold weather explorers, and tucked it behind the formidable silhouette of Mt. McKinley. The perfect fit for a guy getting ready for a month of fun in the Alaskan back-country. I can’t imagine why Walgreen’s doesn’t carry something like this… Maybe right next to the section with the sparkly pony cards.

Here is a closer look:

Although it really makes perfect sense as is, you could always delve further into the colorful back-story, and see how it came to this.

Karla designed the old version of our site nearly four years ago. I think that’s about 127 in web years. I always thought it aged very well. However, we have been growing and changing as fast as web technology. It was time for a refresh. We hope our new site can better communicate all we have been up to, and give visitors a better understanding of what Blend is capable of. Just like moving into a new house, we are still unpacking, shuffling content around, and getting things situated where we want them. Check in often to see what is new at Blend!

Blend’s new site: http://www.blendinteractive.com