Beach Freak On Screen Identity – Motion Graphics from Morgan Stone on Vimeo.

Beach Freak is not your average youth camp held every year in PC. This motion graphic was placed on the projection screens before and after services.. Funny story though… they had to stop using it after the second night because it was too distracting….

http://www.beachfreakonline.com

Opening Credits for Church Play/Musical: The Gospel According to Scrooge from Morgan Stone on Vimeo.

Unfinished opening credits for Kingwood Church that I am developing.
Based on the designs of Jason Hughes @ Kingwood Church

Epoch OnScreen Fall Identity from Morgan Stone on Vimeo.

Just something I cooked with AfterEffects & Photoshop.
We put this on the screens before worship & after services.

check out the epoch website here: epochlife.com

I had an idea this morning when I was listening to the audiobook version of Seth Godin’s Tribes.

What if there was an organization of web developers & graphic designers that donated time to develop free church websites!

So far I can see two different ways that this organization could work.
1) Donation based funding. Donations go to web developers who work at discount to develop free church websites
2) Developers & Designers donate time

Just a thought

Tonight I was blessed with the 2008 Birmingham Ad Fed’s Interactive Programmer of the Year. This came in part for my work done at Zeekee Interactive.

A recent article from Harvard Business School shows the balances between using internal vs. external creative forces. This brought to my attention a long debate I have seen in creative ministry.

While many media driven churches have hired internally for creative staff, there are a few that outsource different elements of their ministries. Some of the more common outsourcing includes:

• Church Website
• Television Commercials
• Television Broadcast
• A/V Setup

Week to week tasks are commonly handled in house while long term goals are outsourced to other industry experts. While many of the common problems with hiring internally are addressed in this article by far the most significant is the lack of creative auditing.

Creative auditing insures that church communication stays brand consistent while continually evolving for today’s consumers. External industry experts have the knowledge and experience of common industry practices. This especially lends them the upper hand in creative technological fields. Is it any surprise that churches most commonly outsource tech heavy creative communications?

Many of you might know that I have been taking some accounting courses in college. I have found them quite useful for a better understanding of how large businesses work. One of the concepts I have picked up, that could be applied to design business is the audit trail. While I am no expert when it comes to understanding the full workings of the audit trail, I have seen enough to apply some principles to the design business.
The concept of the audit trail comes for companies need to stay accountable (no pun intended) internally and externally. The design audit trail for many design companies comes in the form of a “creative brief” although I would argue that contradictory what the name implies many “creative briefs” are not creative at all. Instead when executed correctly they are strategic. What I see wrong in many businesses is the simple fact that the brief stops with the creative team. This is problematic because the development team never sees the goals of the design. I propose that there be a document that follows the project from concept to fulfillment. This will create a design “audit trail” that ensures accountability internally.