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.

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.

7 Views of Economic Shortage

Why are some people stuck in the middle (or lower) class? Why are some business owners not selling as many widgets or billable hours they used to? Why is cash flow not flowing for so many? Here are seven views of economic shortage (illustrated with references to scripture and culture).

1. Randomness. This view suggests there are no discernible or predictable laws of economic success.

• Solomon said, “The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.”
• This is the premise of the Black Swan by economist Nassim Taleb, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow, and a host of mathematicians who study chance, luck, and lotteries.
  

2. Retribution. This view suggests moral or ethical failure is behind poverty.

• The disciples believed this (“who caused this man’s blindness—himself or his parents?”) as did Job’s comforters (“God repays a man for what he has done; he brings upon him what his conduct deserves”)
• It’s a favorite of health and wealth preachers.
• Richard Adams in his novel Shardik brilliantly described a superstitious tribe who read the random movements of a large bear as omens in response (retribution) for their undisciplined worship.

3. Good Products, Bad Capitalism. This view suggests an unregulated market squashes those without power.

• James warns against unscrupulous bosses (“Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter”).
• One can learn about this view from Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright Sided and Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story.

4. Good Capitalism, Bad products. This view suggests the struggling widget seller may not be selling widgets because they’re bad widgets.

• Jesus cleansed the temple because the products were being sold at exorbitant prices thus preventing worship, “In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.”
• Just as bad-singing contestants on American Idol need a Simon Cowell to tell them they stink, entrepreneurs need an objective reality check.
• Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations said the “invisible hand” of an unfettered market weeds out the bad products naturally.
• Think dangerous Toyotas, tainted Tylenol, and contaminated tuna.
  

5. Good Product, Bad Worker. Even businesses with great products can go belly up if the owner is shady, unethical, or morally impure.

• This is the message of Proverbs (“for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread, and the adulteress preys upon your very life”).
• Similar to the retribution view, this view suggests moral turpitude may lie behind economic failure.
• This caused doubts in Asaph who puzzled over the success of the unrighteous in Psalm 73; I wonder what he would have thought of oil rich Arab nations?
• Willy Lowman in Death of a Salesman exemplifies this view of immorality and income.
  

6. Divine Determinism. This view leaves little room for human influence. One’s economic fortunes (or lack thereof) are determined by God’s sovereignty.

• Deuteronomy states, “But remember the LORD for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.”
• James wrote, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."
• Economic shortfall is re-framed as divine discipline, character building, or opportunity to cast one’s self on the “frowning providence” of God.
• Paradoxically, according to Protestantism and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Webber, the Puritans believed that industriousness would earn God’s favor and could be measured in profit.

7. Passivity. This view suggests one’s earnings are commensurate to one’s faith and generosity.

• “Test me in your finances,” said Malachi.
• “If you’re not faithful in mammon, how will God entrust to you true riches?” said Jesus.
• Since there are so many scriptural references that imply one shouldn't be financially ambitious (“Be content with one’s wages.” “Love of money is the root of all evil.” “Consider the lilies and the birds…they don’t sweat earning a living”), one is left trying to find the balance between foolhardy Zen-like passivity on one hand and greedy accumulation on the other.
• Richard Foster, Phillip Yancey, Ron Blue, Larry Burkett, and others address this challenge.

What other views are there? How do you explain economic shortages?