by Ben Toalson | Feb 17, 2014 | In The Boat
A Musical Heritage
I come from a musical family. Both my mom and dad, and many of my uncles play and sing. My brother and I both inherited the itch to play and write and sing. One day, when I was a kid, my mom brought me over to the stereo, put in a cassette tape, and showed me some songs that she and her brothers had recorded when they were younger. I remember thinking how cool it was to hear my mom’s voice coming through the speakers and how good the music was. I asked her, “Mom, why didn’t you guys ever tour or become famous?” I don’t remember her answer, but it was something to the effect of, ‘we weren’t in the right circumstances’ or ‘we never really had the momentum to do that.’
The Musical Missionary Family
As I understand the story, my Grandfather was a missionary and traveled from church to church. As a part of his ministry, my mom and uncles would play a song they’d prepared. Over time they had written a handful of songs and had gotten pretty good at playing them together. One day they happen to have found themselves living in the same town as a family friend who owned a studio. He invited them to come to his studio and record some of their songs.
The Rest of the Story
This story has the makings of a rags to riches tale (wow, seriously I might want to write a book) about how a poor missionary family caught a break, got a song on the radio that became an instant hit, began touring and eventually got to share the stage with the Beatles. How romantic!
Out of my need to fill the holes in this story with something, I turned to the romanticized stories of those ordinary people who caught a big break and realized their dream. I fell in love with the idea of “getting discovered” and instant success.
The Comfortable Shelter of my Own Illusion
Along the way, no one really told me otherwise. Or if they did, I couldn’t hear it against the noise of my own illusion. I remember entering my band into contests and showcases, hoping for a chance to share the stage with a big name and slip them a demo so that they might listen to it and say, ‘this is the next big thing’ and strap us to a rocket headed for success. Looking back I realize that I fell in love with the wrong thing. A thing that doesn’t really exist.
I have always loved the “work” of music, but somewhere along the way my affection shifted from the work of it to a false idea of success. Though I’m happy with my accomplishments, I realize today that I robbed myself of some of the joy that I could have experienced in the work and of the things I might have been able to create had I fixed my eyes on the heart of my passion.
All of This is to Say…
Today I am a father and still a dreamer. I don’t imagine I will ever stop chasing my dreams. I’ve wrestled with the fear that I might chase my dreams at the expense of time or resources for my children, but have come to the conclusion that my children need to see me chasing and living out my dreams as a very close second to feeding, sheltering and protecting them. If my kids are going to have a shot at discovering and chasing their own dreams, they need to see the people they look up to most in this world following their passions. They need to see the wonder in our eyes as we realize and live out our dreams. But it has to go deeper than that. They need to see that sometimes it’s hard and uncomfortable. They need to see that it takes real work, commitment, and sacrifice.
The Wonder AND the Work
In a world where Hollywood does such a great job of romanticizing the wonder of chasing one’s dreams, where people love rags to riches stories and exalt false ideas of success and achievement, it’s hard for a young person to develop a healthy relationship to their dreams. My hope is that I will be able to exemplify for my kids the wonder AND the work of being a dream chaser, and that it is often right there in the middle of the work that you can discover the greatest wonder.
by Ben Toalson | Feb 10, 2014 | In The Boat
The Interruption
I’m working on something. I’m under deadline. I’ve worked into the “neutral zone” where anything can happen and I wasn’t prepared for nap-time to be over and then suddenly I hear it… “Daaddaayy! Daaddaayy!”
I just need five more minutes… pretend you don’t need me for just five more minutes! By that time it’s already too late. My concentration has been broken and I am no longer completely focused on what I am doing. But I don’t stop. I keep working because I need to meet that deadline, or because I am this close to solving this problem. And this is where everyone loses.
A Fool Proof (almost) Schedule
My wife and I have decided, at least for now, not to have our children in childcare. We do this for two reasons… one, we still have four pre-school aged children and the cost of childcare is impractical for our budget and time. And two, we are really enjoying the extra time that we get to spend with them because we know it won’t last long. This dynamic comes at a different kind of cost, and we have to be extra diligent about how we parse schedule our time. On a typical Monday, my wife is at home with the boys in the morning until they go down for their naps at 11am. They will generally nap until 2pm. So what I try to do is schedule 6am-1:30pm as regular work time and leave the last 30 minutes as kind of a “cleaning up” and “winding down” time before I get the boys up.
Most days I actually have to wake them up. It’s wonderful! But every once in a while they wake up in that last half hour before 2pm. Now if I follow my own schedule, this shouldn’t be a problem, but sometimes I get so engrossed in a project that I let myself fudge on the time a little bit.
Here’s what I imagine will happen…
“Hey boys,” I say. “I see that you are up from your nap. Daddy just needs five more minutes to finish up this one thing. Why don’t you guys go up to the library and look at some books quietly until I finish and come get you. Then, we’ll all have a snack.”
In unison, my boys reply, “Okay daddy. You won’t hear a peep from us. Come get us when you’re done.”
They walk quietly up the stairs and out of sight, and I spend exactly five minutes in deep focus, finishing my project.
Here’s what actually happens…
“Hey boys,” I say, “I see that you are up from– hey boys, listen to daddy. I just need five more–”
“DaddyDaddy,” the oldest interrupts. “Can I please have a snack? I’m staaarrving!”
“Yes,” I reply, “but first let me just finish this one thing. You guys, go upstairs and look at some books– BOYS NO, don’t dump out the toy bin! Y’know, nap time technically isn’t supposed to be over yet.”
In unison, “Daaaddy. Give us a snack!”
The back and forth continues with me splitting my attention between the computer screen and my children, neither getting the amount of attention they require.
Bending Time and Space
In reality, when I put myself in this position, I will almost always spend longer trying to finish what I am doing than if I were to do it at a later time, distraction free. When my stated five minutes becomes more like ten or fifteen minutes (earlier today it was about an hour), I am exemplifying a poor sense of time for my children. My kids and I both feel frustrated and shortchanged and, most of the time, the work that I’ve done was done poorly anyway.
Five Tips
If you’ve also experienced this problem, here are some ideas that, though I am far from being a pro at implementing, are worth giving a try…
1. Don’t carry false expectations into the “neutral zone”
It’s a good idea, for starters, to define your own neutral zone, and treat it as such. This is a time when you may be able to get some stuff done, but also a time when your concentration could likely be broken at any moment. Don’t expect to be able to do really brain intensive stuff during this time. The closer your expectations are to reality, the less frustrated or caught off guard you’ll be when reality comes tromping down the stairs.
2. Talk to your kids about what to expect from you when you’re working
I find that the best time to have this conversation is ANY TIME OTHER THAN when you’ve been interrupted. You may have to remind them often, but it’s a great idea to help your children understand what it looks like when you’re working, what hours you normally work and how you’d best like to be approached when you’re working. Putting it out there keeps them and you accountable to those guidelines, and can help them see that your boundaries are there not to keep them out, but to protect your relationship with them.
3. Be consistent with your stated and actual working time
This goes for schedule as well as duration. For example, if you say that you will not work later than 5pm, stop at 5pm. If you say you’re going to need five more minutes, take no more than five extra minutes. As they say, ‘it’s simple, not easy,’ but this serves, not only to help your children gain a healthy sense of time, but deepens their trust that you’ll be their to meet their needs when you say you will.
4. If you absolutely have to take five more minutes, buy yourself some time
Sometimes I just need to press pause on my project for a few moments so that I can take care of some immediate needs. Getting a snack and taking out some toys or coloring books can buy me just enough time to sit down and finish what I was doing. Sometimes, when desperate times call for desperate measures, I might even put on a cartoon or a movie for them. No, a little TV will not rot their brains. No, this does not make you a bad parent.
5. Be okay with re-negotiating deadlines
Let meeting your deadlines be more about the value you place in offering timely and quality work and less about trying to beat out the competition. If this is your approach, then your family life is a valuable part of the equation. The truth is, your ability to solve your clients’ problems, or the value that you share in your work is a sum of many parts. One of those parts IS your family life. A professional understands this dynamic and uses it to communicate, not make an excuse for, the value of clear work/personal boundaries and what this sometimes means for deadlines. Open communication about new timeline expectations is almost always favorable to diminished quality due to blurry boundaries and hurried work. If you’ve communicated clearly, your client or audience should be understanding and appreciative, and everyone will be happier.
Family and Work are good for each other
It’s a work in progress for me. Honestly, I’m looking at these words and thinking, ‘yea, I should try that.’ I don’t want my work and my family to be fighting over five of my minutes, or any of my minutes. The more I can clarify and uphold the boundary between the two, the truer it becomes that each minute I spend focusing on one doesn’t detract from, but enriches the other.
by Ben Toalson | Feb 3, 2014 | In The Boat
Increments
Today my life happens in small segments. Though my wife and I have put a great deal of thought into how our schedule is structured to maximize our ability to work distraction free, there’s only so much we can do without taking time away from our children and each other and the many things that need to be done to keep the house running smoothly. It feels like I’m in this mode of constantly jumping from one thing to the next. This is a problem for me because I thrive when I see great progress made on whatever project I’m working on, and I become discouraged when it seems like I haven’t really made a dent.
Little Ben Builds a Fence
When I was 11 years old I lived in Southwestern Colorado on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. It was so remote that when it snowed a lot, sometimes the snow plow wouldn’t make it out to us and we had to shovel out a 1/4 mile stretch of road that led out to the main road. During the warmer months we ALWAYS had some project to work on. One particular spring we were preparing to get some cattle and we had to install a fence that would stretch from near our house to the edge of our property (about 3/4 mile). We had about an hour to work on it each day after school before dinner time. I remember digging the first post hole. It was really hard work and took longer than I thought it should. When I finally finished digging we put in the post, packed in the dirt, and attached the barbed wire. Then we put in the second post, attached the barbed wire and for a brief moment I felt very accomplished and reveled in my work, for what stood before me slightly resembled a fence… then I looked over at the stack of posts and rolled barbed wire, and at the far edge of our property and my heart sank a little. We worked at a pace of about 1 post every 10 minutes, so when it was time to finish up for the day, it didn’t look like we had done much. By the end of that week we were about halfway there. When we got to the weekend, we were able to knock out the last half in about 5 hours. That’s the kind of progress I like to see. It was so exciting to see such great progress in one day after having been subjected to such slow progress during the previous week… but without the incremental progress we had made during the week that got us halfway there, there’s no way we would have been able to finish the fence that day.
Same Problem, Different Mind
What I learned (and am still learning) from that experience is that even small progress is progress. Every step, small as it is, brings me closer to the finish line. Now in circumstances where I rarely get to experience the charge that comes from making a huge dent on a project, I am faced with a choice: I can feel discouraged and mope about how I never have enough time to see the results I want to see, or I can change my mindset and my expectations. I can’t change my reality, but I can re-frame my mental approach to working on projects. I’m finding that I am able to get a lot done when I allow myself to feel the accomplishment of completing each of those small, incremental portions, knowing that all of those small steps will eventually lead me to a finished project.
Projects and Tasks
On a practical note, something that has been extremely helpful for me is to break my project down into several tasks and sub-tasks and put a time expectation on each one… So on Fridays, when I’ve finally gotten the twins down for their nap and I have exactly 15 minutes before I need to start the next load of laundry, I can find one of my “15 minute tasks” and work on that one. Or maybe I have a 30 minute task that I can break down even further to fit a portion of it into the time I have available. Then when I’ve finished a task (and this is important) I cross it off. Every time I cross something off it feels like progress… it IS progress.
A Reason to Succeed
This is still hard for me… honestly there are weeks when I do really well and weeks when I don’t. I am committed to the process though, because I find that when I’m not trying things and testing out new ideas for my work flow, I too easily allow the people in the boat with me to become an excuse. I don’t want them to be an excuse. I want them to be an inspiration… a reason to succeed. I hope this finds you wherever you are along the fence, and gives you the encouragement you need to work and finish your project, post by post.
by Ben Toalson | Jan 20, 2014 | Case Studies, Featured Work, In The Boat, portfolio
I had been looking into getting a full-time job as a graphic designer at First Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, TX. The initial interview went well enough that they asked me back for a second interview. For the second interview they asked the remaining candidates to design a logo and showcase our skills for “Loaves & Fishes”, a ministry of First Presbyterian that provides a monthly meal for the homeless and hungry in their community. The final presentation would be due at the second interview which gave us one week to complete the project.
To be honest, initially I was a little hesitant to move forward. This felt a little like spec work and I had already had a few bad experiences with spec work in the past. As I thought on it more, however, I decided that I would treat it like a pro-bono piece and make it, at the very least, a useful portfolio piece and case study for my website, and at best, a piece that would afford me an opportunity to take a cool job. I also decided that I would do a hand lettering piece to accompany and possibly include the logo.
Spending quality time with the content and goals
My process began with reading the church’s very thorough description of their goals and content. Feeling confident that I had all of the information I needed, I simply wrote the words “Loaves & Fishes” on a blank page in my composition notebook. I let the words sit there on the page and in my mind for a little bit. As I thought on it, an idea popped into my head for the hand-lettering piece… “Let my hands & my heart be like loaves & fishes for the world.” I thought this phrase really captured the nature of the Loaves & Fishes ministry and, though at the time I didn’t know it, would later become a springboard for the direction I would take with the graphic representation of the logo.
With a few words hanging out on a page and in my head, I continued to dig a little deeper into the goals of the project, allowing some research to confirm what my experience and expertise told me would be a good style direction for the logo. Then I went back to the paper.
Sketching out some ideas
This opened up the sketch phase of my process which is one of my favorites. Here I let my pencil loose on the page, exploring different ideas and concepts.
I worked first on the hand lettering piece and as I was working out word arrangements, I kept getting an image of slab serifs for the “Loaves & Fishes” part of the phrase. The audience is very diverse in this case, but communication efforts in church are often geared toward drawing generations together toward a common purpose. I knew the design needed to appeal to younger and older generations, but not just to be an appeal, but a strong call to action. The slab serif has an air of traditional style, but has also recently taken on modern associations. It is a strong typeface that grabs attention, which I later underscored with a thin line shadow to make the words slightly more assertive. I like that the little imperfections in the hand-drawn style pull it in a more tactile direction and draw out the human, hands-on nature of the Loaves & Fishes ministry. I decided that this would be a great direction for the actual logo which meant that my hand lettering piece would actually include the final logo.
When a fish is not a fish
For the graphic representation I sketched out several different ideas before, almost by accident, I made a connection between the five loaves and five fingers of a hand, and how the fish, if arranged in the right way, could resemble a heart. This ministry is about offering hands and hearts (and food) so that Jesus can multiply those gifts in others.
I really liked the idea, but knew that making it overly obvious would highlight the cleverness of the idea more than the ministry itself. I opted to go with a more subtle representation of the idea, with a solid filled illustration outlined by negative space and nestled in the shape of a circle. A solid fill is generally more pleasing to the eye and also makes shapes and forms more memorable. The simplicity of the lines by way of negative space give just enough visual information for the viewer to discern what it is, without cluttering up the illustration. The circle has long been a strong relational symbol and is more recently being widely adopted by social network applications as a standard avatar frame. The association between the circle and the human face continues to grow stronger and further relates this shape to the human experience, which I believe is very applicable to this logo. I decided to maintain the hand-drawn style to be consistent with the typeface which lends further to its humanness.
Once I arrived at a brainstormed solution, I took what I sketched out in various places all over my composition notebook and began to do a final draft of the piece in my artist’s notebook.
An in depth look at how I took this piece from a sketch concept, to a completed digital design
I begin by penciling the piece:
1. Quick Sketch: First I sketch out each word very lightly, focusing on the layout rather than the more detailed elements.
2. Guidelines: After I’ve erased and made adjustments and every word is where I want it to be, I draw guide lines, often using a ruler, to give the piece more structure.
3. Detail Sketch: I go back over each word and sketch out the letter forms, focusing this time on the detail and character of each letter. I erase and make adjustments until every letter is perfect.
4. Zoom Out: I find that when working in detail, I hover very close to the page. Funny as it sounds, my eyes miss things up close that I can see very clearly from far away. It may be something to do with the balance, tracking or kerning, line height, etc. If I need to make adjustments here I will, even though I could fix it digitally, because this is the last opportunity I have to make it perfect before I seal it in ink. I will often use this as an opportunity to make adjustments based on design decisions, bringing the piece into further alignment with the goals of the project.
After the penciling stage is finished I begin to ink the piece. Here’s how that goes:
1. Outlining: I go over the outline of each letter very carefully with a very thin pen (micron 001). I find it best during this phase to not even think of the letters as letters, but to regard each line and stroke. If I make a mistake I may zoom out to see if it’s something I can compensate for somewhere else. If it’s not something I can fix, I get over it and get back down to outlining. This is, for me, the most stressful part of the process. I often put on some headphones and listen to a podcast or some music, which helps me focus more on the lines and less on the content.
2. Erasing: I erase the pencil lines that I no longer need and an outlined version of the piece is revealed. I take a deep breath and enjoy the fact that the stressful part is over.
3. Filling in: I zoom in again and fill in each letter, backing out every so often to see if there are any minute adjustments I need to make. I have to remind myself to slow down here because I get excited being so close to seeing the finished inked piece.
4. Final erase and adjustment: I erase any remaining guidelines and outlines and zoom out to see if there are any other minute adjustments that need to be made. If it’s done I stare at it for no less than 60 seconds with absolute silence.
When the inked piece is completed I work on a final digital draft:
1. Bringing it into digital world: I either scan or take a high res photo of the piece and send it to myself
2. Cleaning up: I first bring it into Photoshop where I add contrast where necessary and isolate the inked portion of the page.
3. Preparing the image for vectoring: I make small adjustments if needed and add a layer of solid black to cover the letters and design elements in the piece so that there is absolute contrast between black and white.
4. Vectorizing: I bring the layer into Illustrator and run a live trace on the piece using the options to find the best representation of the words and forms.
5. Cleaning it up: Still in Illustrator I go through letter by letter and shape by shape to make line adjustments and to clean up the vector. With really precise pieces I may take a great deal more time to make all of the lines and shapes perfect, whereas with pieces that will maintain more of the “hand-lettered” look I will allow many of the imperfections to stay, only making adjustments to serve the piece as a whole.
6. Final Arrangement: I bring it back into Photoshop as a single shape layer and will often break the piece up word by word so that I can make any necessary adjustments to spacing or size. This also helps if I want to apply different colors to different words.
7. Coloring: I make color selections and take care in applying colors to different elements, keeping in mind the project goals and target audience.
8. Texture and image overlays: This is for use mostly in my personal pieces, but can be a fun exercise to include in presentations. Sometimes I will add texture to the words or the background or both. Sometimes I will allow the words to sit over an image. Whatever I do, I always make sure that the artistry does not take away from the readability of the words in the piece.
That’s it!
The finishing touches, or as I like to call it, the last 40% of the project
After scanning the piece, outlining it for vector and making final line adjustments, the piece was more or less done for black and white… Here I began the process of adding color and, where applicable, texture and image.
For the colors I went with a bold, yet natural palette. Bold to support the strength of the statement and natural to support the human element. It was somewhat important for the fish and the loaves not to have bizarre colors. I went with a muted dark reddish-brown for the fish/heart and a muted yellowish brown for the loaves/hand. The red serves as a great attention grabber and can be used for a main heading while the yellow can be used for pulling out highlighted content in body text. I brought in a couple of blues for the circle/plate to give a feeling of comfort and authority and also to tie it into First Presbyterian’s main logo. The darker blue can be used in the other headings and in paragraph text because of its high contrast against white. As a side note, red and yellow are widely used in the food industry to create feelings of hunger, so when people see this logo they may actually have a physical empathetic hunger response, making it more likely that they would want to commit to participating.
I decided to add some texture distressing to the logo to make it a little edgier and appealing to a younger audience, but was careful not to go overboard with it in order to keep it well within reach of a diverse audience.
For accompanying fonts I went with fonts that were already widely used on their website to create a sense of familiarity and belonging for the new logo. The two fonts chosen are sans serif fonts which accompany the slab serif in the logo very nicely as if to say “alright, now here is some information.” FjallaOne is a strong condensed font that shows nicely for headings. It is naturally bold and does a great job of creating visual hierarchy. Myriad Pro is very easy to read and makes for natural looking paragraph blocks, allowing the reader’s eyes to glide easily through the content.
Packaging it up
The final package delivered to First Presbyterian included the following:
-process shots
-the final hand lettered piece
-the logo in simple form (black and white, no texture)
-the logo in its finished, full color form
-pantone guide including numeric values
-type rules including hierarchy, font and color
-a two page document detailing my process and design decisions (which included much of the content found in this case study)
As is true with many ministry titles that find their origins in Biblical accounts, there are many “Loaves & Fishes” out their. Because many churches are working toward the same purpose, it is not surprising that different churches would share many similarities. However, though there are many churches who have similar ministry titles, church names etc., each church is unique and has a unique expression of ministry. I believe this logo captures the unique identity of First Presbyterian Church and expresses their unique ministry through Loaves & Fishes. I believe it will serve as an encouragement for many of those who call First Presbyterian their home to share their loaves/hands and fishes/heart with the homeless and hungry in their community.
by Ben Toalson | Jan 15, 2014 | Featured Work, portfolio
