Join me on a visual journey through time…
2011
October
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10.06 HellothisisJeff Design, LLC was officially born!
(SOS registration cost: $87.72)
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10.14 To get the creative juices flowing, I attended a small creative conference in western Michigan and silk screened my own design on a t-shirt.
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10.21 Just putting the finishing touches on my new logo.
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November
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11.07 I landed my first project: designing a collection of elements for a turnkey identity system for churches.
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2012
January
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01.05 My wife and I traveled to inner city Memphis, TN to live and work for 3 weeks. My wife learned more about underserved healthcare while I worked on this conference branding for Christian Community Health Fellowship:
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June
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06.02 Attended the CCHF conference I had branded and served as the event’s unofficial photographer. While there, I got connected with another of my long-standing clients, Lawndale Christian Health Center, in Chicago, IL.
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September
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09.04 We welcomed our first child into the world, a beautiful baby girl!
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November
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11.15 Sent my clients a folded paper Christmas ornament. It was a little complicated to get just right.
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2013
August
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08.13 We announced to everyone that we were expecting our second kiddo… a boy this time!
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September
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09.19 Got connected with Phoenix First, a large church in Arizona, to complete the key art for their annual Christmas production.
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2014
July
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07.14 Visited Lawndale’s Ogden Avenue campus to cap off a couple of street banner projects and begin a new branding project for their community café.
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October
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10.26 We welcomed Pastor David Cederquist as my church’s new senior pastor. In the years since, we’ve done a lot of work together as the church’s and the church-based non-profit’s brands have taken shape. (See more here.)
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December
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12.18 A whole lotta homemade lattes have helped me power through.
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2015
March
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03.19 Hustling to finish designing the Association for Applied Sport Psychology logo (right in the middle of March Madness).
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August
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08.30 My first big church rebrand project began with a trip out to Arizona to help Phoenix First rename to Dream City Church. Unfortunately for me, I was sick the entire time and felt absolutely miserable in the 110º heat. But the end result was well worth the initial suffering.
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2016
March
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03.07 The arrival of this third little nugget meant the home office would be switching locations to our new permanent address across town.
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November
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11.13 My first of many trips up to the Twin Cities to embark on church rebrand projects in partnership with my long-time client and friend, Brian Shoberg. (Pictured: First Lutheran rebranded to Community of Grace)
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11.30 Completed a brand refresh of HELLO THIS IS JEFF, including the launch of a new website and some (literally) shiny new business cards.
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2017
July
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07.14 Initial branding work for Brookside CDC, which has become a force for good on the Near Eastside of my home city of Indianapolis. Brookside CDC helps ex-offenders reenter society, kids struggling with trauma find hope and healing through the power of play, and individuals & families find stable housing… all through an intentional focus on building relationships and the restorative work of the Gospel.
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September
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09.09 Partnered with Brian and the good folks at Community of Grace to create a compelling set of sermon series graphics that would have the legs to span nine months. This is what we came up with (read more about it here)…
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2018
July
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07.01 Took a three-hour road trip over to Columbus, OH to begin a partnership with Vineyard Columbus, a multi-site church with incredible strength in diversity and representative of more than 130 nationalities. I’ve since had the privilege of updating their brand and helping them launch a modern new website.
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August
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08.03 I happened to catch our state fair’s iconic midway arch at magic hour with just my phone’s camera. The Indiana State Fair Instagram account has been reposting this image (with credit) leading up to the fair every year since!
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October
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10.31 Had fun with some spooky self promotion this particular Halloween.
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November
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11.11 Return trip to Minnesota, just outside St. Paul, to embark on another rebrand journey, this time with Rockpoint Church.
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2019
January
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01.12 Early on a snowy morning when I was supposed to head back up to Minneapolis to begin another church rebrand project, our fourth and final child Reuben came unexpectedly… nearly six weeks before his due date. However, God’s timing for his arrival was precisely perfect. Had my wife gone into labor any later that day, I could have easily been hundreds of miles away. Over the next 37 heart-wrenching days, little Roo fought hard for each breath in the NICU and slowly learned how to feed and breathe on his own. Many people prayed and rallied around us, and now, I’m happy to say that our little boy is strong, healthy, and a beautiful completion to our family!
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June
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06.04 Over the years, I’ve enjoyed partnering with my church to help brand their Summer Play in the Park outreach where every week during the summer months, they provide a safe space for kids from the surrounding neighborhoods to come out and play games, run around, and eat some good food. My family loves it too, and I’m proud to be part of something that is so life giving to our community.
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November
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11.11 Still traveling and getting new projects underway. Little did I know that this would be the last work trip for a long time…
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2020
April
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04.12 A Lent Season and Easter Sunday unlike any other… churches, schools, day cares, restaurants, major sporting events, all CLOSED. The Coronavirus pandemic had firmly taken hold by this point, and HellothisisJeff Design was no exception as I was forced to shut down during the months of March, April, and May. With four kids at home, two in virtual learning, and my wife in the medical field, my role changed to full-time dad overnight. Fortunately, after a brief pause, the projects started rolling in once again, and I was officially back to work in June.
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September
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09.04 I’ve been told I spend an inordinate amount of time making my kids’ birthday party decorations.
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2021
January & February
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April
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04.13 My niche is pretty squarely in redesigning brands and websites for churches and non-profits, so the opportunity to create a new consumer-facing brand in the food industry here in Indianapolis was an amazing opportunity to do something a little unique and different, and ultimately it was a blast to pull off. Brookside Burrito Co. not only served up some of the tastiest breakfast burritos I’ve ever experienced, their mission was a noble effort to employ at-risk individuals from the surrounding neighborhood. It quickly rose to local fame in the city and garnered a plethora of 5-star reviews on Google. Sadly, the dream ended, at least temporarily, when it shut down operations in the fall of this year. Gone, but hopefully not for good.
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September
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09.10 As you can probably tell, my church (and its non-profit) keep me busy! Here I had the pleasure of creating the key art, program, and screen graphics for our annual gala fundraiser.
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09.13 September also saw the redesign of a school website I had done five years earlier for Magnuson Christian School. As my business has grown and matured, so have the tools of the trade, and I’ve now helped several clients move their difficult-to-manage websites onto more user-friendly platforms like Squarespace.
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October
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10.06 Ten amazing years are now in the books, and I’m looking ahead to many more exciting opportunities on the horizon helping clients on a mission craft brand stories that speak.
Thank you for whatever role you have played in this journey. I am better for our paths having crossed.
A decade ago, I set out with a pretty simple business idea… that good design & branding could be a driving force to help mission-minded organizations reach and impact more people.