Adventures in Logo Land

While recently upgrading my websites I was struck by how many business identities I've had over the years. Hansel and Gretel left crumbs on the trail marking their journey; I've scattered logos along mine.

Peacock Sign Co. Logo 1 (1974)

While walking around Woodland Park Zoo one day in 1974, wondering what to name my newly launched sign painting business, I heard peacocks calling in the distance. Voila! A new business name was born, Peacock Sign Company. Painting paper banners for grocery stores helped pay for school and supported my book buying habit.

Peacock Sign Co. Logo 2 (1977)

In 1977 I married Vicki and supplemented our youth pastor's income by painting . Here's logo #2 for Peacock Sign Co.

Magazine Cartoons and Illustration (1979)

In 1979 I sold my first cartoon to a national magazine (Sat. Eve. Post). Vicki and I danced around the living room like we'd won the lottery. 

Vicki turned her immense art skills into a commercial venture, too (1980)

One of the funnest activities Vicki and I have done over the years was taking art classes. We took a calligraphy class together in 1980. She combined her excellent penmanship with her crow quill pen skill and soon she was up to her elbows in India ink. This was before our five kids came along.  

Family Challenge Ministries (1998)

From 1976 to 1998 I worked with teenagers in a number of churches. In 1998 we "retired" from parish ministry, took the plunge, and started a counseling practice called Family Challenge Ministries. I got the idea for this logo while on a family trip to the Science Museum in BC.

Cartoon Faces Caricatures (2000)

When not counseling couples and families I indulged my interest in drawing by teaching drawing at WWU and WCC and doing live caricatures at fairs, fests, and business events starting in 2000. This self portrait appeared on my Cartoon Faces business cards during that eight year frolic.

Youth Pastor Coach (2002)

A short lived business venture included a stint as Youth Pastor Coach, mentoring young adults working with teens. This logo was drawn by artist Fred Harper.

Positive Turn Life Tools (2004)

The entrepreneurial bug bit me again in 2004 and I launched a business called Positive Turn Life Tools, creating and manufacturing volvelles (aka adjustable round charts or data wheels) on which appeared tons of info on a circular chart. Luke Markowski designed this.

Erik Johnson, LLC (2008) 

Our counseling practice grew and we changed the name to Erik Johnson, LLC. Luke Markowski designed this logo, too. 

Mediation Services (2009)

In 2009 our practice expanded to include peace making in areas beyond couples and families.Erin Sullivan designed the Conflict Mediation Coach logo.

St. Whimsy Publications (2012)

For many years I've been free lance writing under the business name St. Whimsy Publications (I was one of the religious humor writers for Christianity Today). I finally got around to giving that business an icon.  

Here's my take on this trail of logos.

1.  I'm probably ADD.

2.  Running businesses feeds my love of adrenaline. 

3.  I've got 89 businesses to go before reaching the Fortune 100.

4.  I used to ride my bike in Bill Gate's Medina neighborhood. While he was programming computers I was doodling. If our roles had been reversed he'd be posting his legacy of logos on computer software that made me the mega-billionaire. But I wouldn't trade him places.

When Will I Learn Misery Doesn't Sell?

In 1971 I tried to sell the following dismal gag cartoons to Boy’s Life. Somehow the editor’s felt poisoned campers and cliff hanging kids weren’t in a nine-year-old subscriber’s best interest.

"You see? I told you earth worm stew would taste good."

"Yes, they're moose tracks, Jimmy. Pretty fresh, too."

"Tell me again how much fun we're having. I keep forgetting."

In 1977 I wrote and illustrated a children’s’ book entitled The Miserable Life of a Sockeye Salmon. What was I thinking? Here are the illustrations; I’ve spared you the maudlin text.

In 1982 I began drawing a 64 page graphic novel wherein the parish of a country priest gets kidnapped and held for ransom. Click here for the world’s first gander at Parish Snatchers. Our now 27 year old son was born at that time and I never took Pastor Amos beyond the first 7 pages. The world’s probably a better place because of it.

I mention these stories because it appears I just don’t learn. I’m currently working on a marriage-building board game for couples set in the Middle Ages: famine, plague, Inquisition, rebellions, leeching, torture, wars, no universal health care. I’m putting the feud in feudalism. A real crowd pleaser, huh?


Somehow I never inherited the “I like paintings of kids with big eyes” gene. Too bad. A velvet Elvis sells. For better or (probably) worse, I’m of the Bambi Meets Godzilla school of entertainment. Irony over tidy, adversity (sometimes) over victory, ambiguity, chaos, and puzzlement over cute.

This being the case, I now put on hold all plans for: 1) an expository essay reflecting on Jean Paul Sartre’s essay On The Viscous, wherein I deal once and for all with my aversion to things sticky, 2) a comic book version of Kierkegaard’s Sickness Unto Death, and 3) a novella wherein Orthodox Priests launch a church in rural Ferndale and marauding iconoclasts wearing Carhartt disrupt the liturgy.

I better stick to cute; it sells, misery does not. Now if only I can make the middle ages cute. Stay tuned.

300+ Free Handouts on Counseling Topics

Follow this link to a library of free handouts used in my counseling/mediation practice which is informed by the values of historic Christianity. I've been selling these on line for a while and am now making them available for no charge. There’s still a charge for the data wheels and books but the handouts are gratis. After 30+ years of helping people work through difficult challenges our inventory of topics has grown. Here are the major headings. Use the site's search engine to track down specific topics of interest. Check ‘em out and load up that shopping cart with freebies!

Yours for better managed conflict, Erik


Addiction
Affair Recovery
Anger Management
Character Building
Conflict Resolution
Counseling Topics
Difficult People
Distancing/Pursuing
Emotions
Family of Origin Topics
Fear and Anxiety
Forgiveness
Marriage Topics
Miscellaneous Parenting Topics
Pastoral Topics
Personal Growth
Premarital Topics
Proverbs
Suffering
Teenager Topics
Theological Topics

Quick Mind Dump on Gaming

SPROUTS

Pieter Brueghel, Children's Games

I loved playing Stratego as a kid. We raised our kids on (among other things) Husker-Du. Vicki and I would play Scrabble till the wee hours of the morning. When I was a youth pastor I met fans of Dungeons and Dragons.  I joined a chess club once (and quit when 10-year-olds kept beating me). Our three sons (Mario, Luigi, and Bowser) play uber video games (especially Portal). I notice Facebook folk play a variety of games. My guy friends are enthralled with baseball. I've known guys absorbed in fantasy sport games. I tweak Solitaire on my computer once in a while. I've visited several mega game stores in recent weeks. I delight in game reviewers on YouTube. We live in a gaming culture. There are lots of games out there!  I want to invent a new game and am looking for ideas. What are you favorites?

Homage to the R. A. T.* Boys** of Bellingham***

Homage to the R. A. T.* Boys** of Bellingham***

C. S.  Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien had their Inklings, Joseph Priestly and Ben Franklin had their Club of Honest Whigs, Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley had their Algonquin Club, Dante Rossetti had his Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Picasso, Matisse, and Sartre had their Left Bank, Ken Kesey, Wavy Gravy and Stewart Brand had their Merry Pranksters, and Martin Luther had his Diet of Worms.

*R. A. T. = Readers and Thinkers group includes (from left to right): Marriage and Family Pastor in Cornwall Church of God, former CEO of mega food chain and current business consultant, baseball historian and senior pastor of Bellingham Covenant Church, flash fiction writer and head of the INN (college group at Western Washington University), baseball artist and senior pastor of Birchwood Presbyterian, counselor/mediator/erstwhile cartoonist, CEO of the NW's largest camping ministry (FIRS), and career coach and pastor of Christ the King.

** Not Pictured, Writer in Residence Second Baptist Church, Houston, TX

*** Best city in America

How Do You Say Moth?

Young Huck Finn calls his mother, “Hey Ma!”

Hear that “ah” sound in the word, “Ma?” Making an “ah” sound requires a wide-open mouth like when we say, “father,” “gaga,” or “Ali Baba.”

A sympathetic friend hears your tale of woe and says, “Aw!” This “awe” sound requires a circular mouth like when we say the words, “often,” “fawn,” or “shawl.”

There’s a subtle but important difference between these two sounds, “ah” and “awe.”

People on the east coast call the creature that flutters around porch lights, “mawth” (rhymes with “awe”) which is to me a richer, rounder, more manly way to identify this bug.

People on the west coast call these guys, “mahth” (rhymes with “ah”) which to me sounds smarmy, shallow, and insubstantial. It’s a wimpy way to identify a bug.

If you shouted at me, “Look out! Here comes a flying mahth,” I’d casually glance up with a disinterested air wondering what all the panic is all about.

But if you shouted, “Look out! Here comes a flying mawth,” I’d duck and cover and ask questions later.

If we’re going to talk about these critters, we have to get our dialects in sync. For practice, please repeat after me, “I often put a shawl around my fawn to protect it from moths.”

Do not say, “Ali Baba goes gaga when his father swats moths.”

So please, west coast folk, stop calling them “mahths” and start calling them “mawths.” It’s the right thing to do.

And think of the lives you’ll save.

These Games Don't Work

For years I've tried to create the next Rubik's Cube, Master Mind, and Scrabble game. I've failed but keep trying. Here are some old rejects.

Exhibit #1: Strained Glass. Arrange the colored circles into shapes that are both pleasing to the eye and useful for calculating simple math functions. Dismal failure.

Exhibit # 2: Scramble Face. Players splay the discs from the grommet and then carefully rearrange them to make a face. Since the discs are connected the level of difficulty is brain-numbingly easy. Grade? F-!

Exhibit #3: Spin Field! Games are supposed to entertain and challenge; this game bores to tears. Even with dice, movable score board, and running batters, it's a cross between Strat-O-Matic and a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.  

Exhibit #4: Holzendatz. A solitaire game wherein one turns the many discs in an attempt to align 7 datz of the same color in a row. The trick is--some datz must be aligned with holz strategically hidden throughout, thus leading the unwary player down fruitless dead ends. It's so complicated I failed to jot down the solution key, couldn't align the datz, and gave up.

Exhibit #5: Dice Line. Players scramble the rings then take turns rotating one ring at a time attempting to align five dice in a row, in order.  Part Stadium Checkers, part Yahtzee, part sleeping pill.

Exhibit #6: Dot Face. If you squint and tilt your head to the side you'll see behind the holes a caricature face. On the actual game one can rotate the acetate on which is printed the black background and see the face clearly through the holes. This game is for the easily amused.  Would make a nice coaster, actually.

There are many more to display but a wave of sleepiness is coming over me. Hey, maybe I should market these as sleep inducing devices!

Motor Psycho Madness

Almost 30 years ago we moved to rural Whatcom County from Seattle. One of the first differences we noticed between city life and rural life was locals’ attitudes toward noise. After years of urban chaos—blaring sirens, honking horns, buses with air brakes, disturbed pedestrians shouting to themselves, and the ubiquitous jackhammer—we found the silence in Ferndale pleasantly deafening.

Not long after arriving, I visited a man who lived in the very heart of Whatcom County farmland. I found the guy riding his lawn mower in the middle of the biggest field I’d ever visited. During our brief conversation, he lamented, “Hear that noise? I hate it that civilization is encroaching on our privacy!” I strained my ears to hear what he heard. Bees buzzed. Crickets chirped. Clouds silently glided by. The sun beat down on us. Then, in the far off distance, I heard a faint train engine whistle, a mere whisper. And this guy was appalled at the noise!


Thirty years later and now I’m appalled at civilization encroaching on our privacy. While leisurely watering plants in our front yard last week three motorcycles raced past our house clearly NOT following the 25 MPH speed limit. What really got me, though, was the noise. The combined decibel levels of an amped up Jethro Tull concert, the deafening racket of diesel ferryboat engines, and misguided firecrackers going off next to my ear, couldn’t match the jarring pandemonium of these motorcycles. My ligaments disconnected from my bones, my blood pressure spiked, and my bladder beheld the garden hose with longing. Death by motorcycle noise? It’s possible.


Transforming sources of irritation is one of the skills I teach clients so here is my attempt at cognitive self-therapy. What possible reasons could these bikers have besides an evil attempt at murder by two-stroke engine for polluting airwaves with such disquietude?


1. They attended so many rock concerts in their youth that they, like Pete Townsend, have hearing loss. What I experienced as cacophonous bedlam they experience as purring kittens.


2. They’ve lived lives of powerlessness and this is their attempt at regaining a voice. As children, adults squelched their tantrums and this is an attention-getting payback.


3. Broken mufflers; perhaps they couldn’t help the noise and they were rushing to mechanic friends for beers and emergency repairs.


4. They are bumbling undercover agents infiltrating the Banditos and totally blowing it because even Banditos’ bikes aren’t that loud.


5. They're from PR trying to overcome the biker stereotype of being “dirty, leather clad men with shaggy beards covered in road dust riding around the country wreaking havoc and getting into barroom brawls” (taken from a website, Top 10 Notorious American Biker Gangs). If their campaign is successful, we’ll consider them nothing more than a bunch of noisy but happy-go-lucky guys out for a summer ride.


6. They are daring philosophers, ethicists, and politicians to weigh their individual rights against society’s collective rights. Do indeed others' rights end where our eardrums begin? It’s debatable, but who’s nervy enough to launch the debate?


7. This is an effort to promote fuel-efficient transportation. Their message? “We will woo you into giving up your gas guzzlers by destroying your hearing.”


8. They are existential nihilists bent on terrorizing peace-loving citizens who pay their taxes and water their lawns. Oh wait, that option doesn’t calm me down one tiny bit.


9. They are earplug manufacturers exercising First Amendment rights to free speech and are simply drumming up business.


10. They are noise junkies who've made huge strides in recovery. They used to fly fighter jets with the windows open, groove on 727s taking off, and use airraid sirens for an alarm clock. They’re working their way down to electric cars, mopeds, then the soothing sound of mountain bike derailleurs.

11. It’s a reenactment of family of origin issues. Like the Woody Allen character raised under a roller coaster, the noisier the better.


I’m still trying to get over it but I do feel better. Thanks for listening.

A Bug's Life

I inherited from my dad a powerful reading lens. I used it today to draw small stuff; I attacked the world of bugs with my markers.  Just think what one could do with a powerful microscope. I could draw bee's knees.

Free Book

I've always wanted to write a book wherein I quote Sartre, Solomon, and Simon Cowell. Well, here it is: Stealth Drawings: The Existential Quandary of Being Stared At.  29 pages of miscellaneous quotes from philosophers, psychologists, and theologians illustrated with over 100 clips from 30 years of sketching. Follow this link and type "stealth" in the search menu. During check out make up your own password. Let me know if you hit glitches.

Fountain Pen as Mediator

I lost my favorite pen last week, looked for it feverishly without success despite this great web site: how to find lost things. For seven long days I had a sour attitude while taking client notes, writing in my journal, and making lists using inferior and off putting writing implements. I couldn't take it anymore and in a panic finally ordered two more similar pens off the web. Yesterday I pulled a shirt from my closet and in the pocket was the missing pen! Birds chirped, the sun came out, and my funk was lifted. I even spotted rainbows and unicorns in the back yard.

Why the obsession with this favorite pen? For 50+ years I've been an obsessive doodler, scribbler, and note taker and have tried hundreds, maybe thousands of different tools for writing—from crayons to key boards, from easy to smear crow quill and Speedball dip pens to Design Markers loaded with toxic xylene for quick drying, from maddening Rapidographs that clog to exotic grades of graphite sticks and felt tip markers. Nothing beats the fountain pen I discovered two years ago (Lamy details to come). Here’s why I’m a dedicated fan.

It’s comforting to hold a pen. Like a security blanket I find holding a pen oddly soothing. I type like the wind but the keys clatter, my sentences bump into each other, and important rough drafts disappear thanks to the too-easy-to-use delete button. A fountain pen makes me slow down and think.

A fountain pen is a low tech device, operable in dim light. Computer screens emit serotonin-boosting light and journaling at night by hand in dusky lumens has a calming effect. Plus, when I change the ink cartridge there’s a gradual appearance of the new color—turquoise, red, purple, blue or green (see photo). One takes one’s entertainments where one finds them.

Most importantly, fountain pens glide over paper surfaces effortlessly. Years ago I was a sign painter who dreaded jobs where I had to apply lettering to rough surfaces—splintered wood, untreated boards, and gritty cement walls. It’s like these surfaces resisted my artistic efforts. I know we shouldn't personify paper surfaces; they hate it when we do that. But I still get the feeling that writing surfaces are fussy; I believe that paper resents intrusive pencils, bossy ball point pens, and demanding gel pens.

But the fountain pen! Ahhh. A smooth flow of rich, opaque ink is one of life’s finer pleasures. You know those electronic devices we see on TV with several needles wobbling back and forth—seismographs, lie detectors, EKGs? I believe the rolls of paper on which those wavy lines appear welcome ink with pleasure because the data is applied with grace, delicacy, and finesse. Fountain pen ink is applied the same way. It is not imposed or forced upon reluctant paper; it flows, it glides, it is laid down with grace. And the paper cooperates! It’s the difference between plowing furrows in hard clay and gently planting seeds in prepared soil.

Writing instruments bring together two disparate entities that need help connecting: synapses and stationery. The fountain pen is the perfect media—from which we get the word mediator—accurately mediating between what brains think and what paper receives. By presenting with clarity and gentleness a writer’s thoughts, and representing to the brain how the writing surface is responding, a symbiosis takes place. Whether the surface is a note card, onion skin, or cheap note pad, a fountain pen does the job with artfulness, class, and elegance. It’s a marriage made in heaven.

Lamy details. One need not—but could—spend $10,000 for a collectible fountain pen. After years of experimenting my favorite fountain pens are made by Lamy, $26 - $235 each (ink is extra). I buy the $30 models and love them.

Rejection at the Speed of Light

Today at 8:04 AM I submitted another humor piece to The New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs column, this time via email and a .pdf. They replied with this chatty and upbeat note:

Thank you for submitting your work to The New Yorker magazine. Your message has been forwarded to the Shouts & Murmurs department. You should receive a reply within three months.

Forty four minutes later (8:48 AM) I received this rejection notice.

Dear Erik, We’re sorry to say that your piece, “Love Tests,” wasn’t right for us, despite its evident merit. Thank you for allowing us to consider your work. Best regards, The Shouts Dept.

Using the latest techniques of cognitive therapy I imagine several possible explanations for this swift sucker punch.

1. Susan Orlean, Woody Allen, and David Sedaris all submitted the exact same article just moments before me and editors are squabbling over which of these luminaries gets the by-line.

2. The unsolicited manuscript rejection committee saw Toy Story 3 over the weekend and now nothing is funny by comparison.

3. The New Yorker staff accidentally left their "automatic rejection" switch on and no one actually read the 760 words I slaved over this weekend; I've been sabotaged by technology.

4. By fantastic oversight on my part I forgot to tell them I was born in New York.

5. By fantastic oversight on their part they assumed nothing funny could come from a town whose tallest building is Ferndale Grain.

6. God wants me to have empathy for the rejects on American Idol.

7. Garrison Keillor's prediction is true, "The future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75."

8. The Shouts Dept. received 18 million unsolicited email submissions this morning and due to budgetary cut backs neither reader had time to savor my scintillating and witty prose.

9. In a science fictiony twist of fate someday New Yorker rejection notices will command big bucks on eBay rendering today's lost royalties a mere trifle.

10. Maybe my piece was so disagreeable they bent the three month rule and immediately rid their offices of my loathsome submission like it was anthrax. Meaning, it wasn't funny. Enough. For. Humor. Connoisseurs.

Ouch.

Creativity in 5 Minutes

Jeff Warren's Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness includes a brief but nifty summary of the skills of the creative (p. 50). I list them here with elaboration.

1. Spontaneity: While contemplation and reflection are rare in our speed-of-light lives, one can think too much and too long. Fear of mistakes often paralyses creativity. Homework: try doing something impulsive this week (that isn't immoral, illegal, or fattening).
2. Effortlessness: I once wrote a letter to (and got an answer from) Kurt Vonnegut telling him how hard I laughed at his description of a woman, "whose greatest act of creativity was squishing old slivers of soap onto a new bar of soap." Creative acts need not be rocket science. Homework: Pay attention this week to all those tiny acts of creativity you do in the normal course of a day. If you can't find any, squish slivers of soap together.
3. Expressiveness: Social networking is fueled by expressiveness. Once I answered the question, "What do I care about people's daily breakfast menu?" I began to appreciate micro blogs as tiny acts of creative expression. Homework: post something on line this week; it lets your fans know you're alive and kicking.
4. Innocence: Creative people are typically too naive to know that something can't be done so they try it anyway. The result? The Wright brothers flying machine, Edison's incandescent light, Salk's vaccine, Dean Kamen's Segway, and Chuck Hoberman's sphere. Homework: don't let naysayers, party-poopers, or pessimistic drudges rain on your parade. Keep believing you are capable of creating new ways of doing things.
5. A lack of fear for the uncertain, ambiguous, or unknown: Control freaks, black and white thinkers, and the "highly certain" are generally not too creative. Homework: Instead of looking at the gray areas of life as threatening, see them as opportunities for creativity. A whole genre of Biblical literature is dedicated to ambiguity: wisdom literature (Job and Ecclesiastes in particular).
6. An ability to tolerate bi-polarities and to integrate opposites: Juxtaposing two different things unleashes all sorts of new ideas. Creativity is stifled when, for the sake of harmony, one polarity is ignored, eliminated, or discounted. Homework: this week list all the things apples and oranges have in common.