Pimp my design.

Normally I keep all my ideas to myself and only share them with a select few. Protecting them until I can roll them out. But I recently watched an interview with Philip Rosedale who created Second Life and was inspired by his openness to not hold on so tightly to all my ideas. So I have an idea swimming around in my brain that I wanted to share and see if it has merit.

Since we first started the Church Marketing Lab, my heart always went out for the person that was on a church staff and handle the torch of design. I could tell they were really trying but they just have a really long road ahead of them, learning as they go and struggling to put it all together.

Now, we’re all on different parts of that road. We all started somewhere. For some they just need a push or clear and constructive critique. Others need definite art direction, and others need someone to take their idea and design file and bring some polish to it and bring it up a notch. They need their design pimped out a bit.

I’m considering offering those last two as a service of Holy Cow: art direction and next level design assistance.

Art Direction would be like a critique but much more hands on and continuous through a project.

Next Level (or whatever I end up calling it) would be hands on with the actual files but also instruction of what and why we did what we did. This produces a better end product so that the church can communicate to its best and fosters a better artist connected to the project.

I don’t know what I’d charge or even specifically how it would all work, but it’s something rolling around and I thought I’d listen to what you thought.

So, what do you think of this idea?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 31st, 2011 at 6:46 pm and is filed under creativity, growth . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://twitter.com/AdamCErickson Adam C. Erickson

    Overall I love the idea. Sometimes people are working alone and don’t have that creative group to bounce ideas off of. The slight downfall there is that often, people are working alone due to very limited budgets. So, it’s certainly something that may not yield a large response from a financial standpoint, but could very well have some merit.

  • http://twitter.com/cmdiggs Chris Diggs

    I’m with Adam. I know in my company, I am the lone creative. Having someone for church leaders to bounce ideas off of can do nothing but help them. You’re right on budgets. I get a lot of churches that want me to work my tail off for ‘the glory of God.’ Booooo.

  • http://twitter.com/eyesaydesign eyesaydesign

    Throw it against the wall and see what sticks :) Letting folks know the thought process behind design decisions allows them to see you as a business professional instead of a page decorator.

  • http://twitter.com/gospelpimp Cyril Scott Jones

    Michael this sounds like an excellent opportunity for yourself to organically move into a mentorship role in many young designers or those that are stuck.  This would great opportunity for you to share your experience and amazing talent and bring others up around you. From my professional experience running design teams and more projects than I can remember, I know that from time to time the best designers get stuck or produce a dud. Offering creative oversight and direction from an ace in the hole would/could be outstanding. 
    If I had a prayer to ever be as talented as so many of my friends I would be using this to get inside the genius of the “Cow”. 

    Love it! Move forward with it.

  • Anonymous

    Cost is always an issue when working with church budgets. My favorite way of pricing is monthly, as it builds ongoing relationship, but of course sometimes you just need help on one project. 

    So let me ask, what sort of price do you think a church could grab ahold of? 

  • http://muntz.me Mitch Bolton

    I love the idea of pimping a design. That’s honestly how I started in my design career. I couldn’t create a concept from anything, but my boss would start a design, then pass it on to me to polish it up.

    Go for it man! It’ll just take some trial and error to figure out how to price them.

  • http://twitter.com/joesindorf JoeSindorf

    I love the idea – in fact I just spent the last 45 mins or so watching the entire interview with Philip Rosedale which really got the entrepreneural juices flowing.

    Back to your idea – love both areas: pimping and overall creative direction.  (i just got a great idea that combines your concept with the new cafe that Philip is working on…)

    Let’s revisit the conversations we had a few years ago in GR.  How about creating a team to provide a one-stop shop for all areas of church creativity (design, graphics, writing, photography, video, signage, sermons, branding, web, social etc) so we could scale our services based on need.?

  • Anonymous

    You know I’d love to work together again. Let’s talk for sure.

    I’m hoping to get to GR sometime to check out Art Prize, maybe we can coordinate something.

  • Gdowd

    I like it. It’s a great way for creatives to share knowledge and experience, as well as help mentor, others in the body of Christ. We’re not in this alone.

  • http://twitter.com/AdamCErickson Adam C. Erickson

    Sorry it took me so long to respond! That’s a very good question, one I honestly don’t know that I am qualified to answer. My current “position” is one of volunteer videographer for our church, heading up the ministry on my own. As is such, our budget is non-existent. So I’m honestly not sure what realistically is a fair price that would be doable for a church.