Collide Magazine

In this post, new COLLIDE blog contributor Barton Damer interviews LifeChurch.tv designer Bryan Clark about his work and the creative process at LifeChuch. Enjoy.

BARTON DAMER: What is your role at LifeChurch?

BRYAN CLARK: My title is “Senior Graphic Designer,” which is Spanish for “Mr. Graphic Designer.” It basically means I head up the team in charge of the printed side of things, and the aesthetic for the church overall. My motion graphics experience, though, means that I also fit into a spot between print and video, so I sort of merge those two sides of production.

DAMER: And where were you working before LifeChurch?

CLARK: I came from a history of corporate marketing, where I worked for a production house that focused mostly on post-production. Our client base was pretty diverse, so my job ranged from making TV spots for Firestone to doing various video/animation work for local clients. I was even involved with a hunting and fishing show, but I don’t do blood.

DAMER: Your portfolio is full of everything from painting to graphic design to 3d stuff. That is partly what caught my attention. We have a very similar skill set in that way. For me, there was a clear progression from print into motion graphics. Did you start out doing video or how have all these pieces come together for you?

CLARK: My experience has been a bit of a hodgepodge. I’ve always dabbled in way too many things – music, video, design, illustration, etc. In school I studied fine art, but then switched to multimedia. When I got my first position as a video editor, I couldn’t help but incorporate my other passions into my work, so video developed into motion graphics which developed into 3D. Other than the bit we did in school, print was actually the last thing I added to my repertoire, so I’m kind of like your Bizarro doppelganger.

DAMER: At LifeChurch, what is the creative staffing structure (i.e., some churches have a video department for High School, a separate one for main services, etc.)? Are you guys one department or several? Do you have any thoughts on the advantages or disadvantages of either?

CLARK: We have two teams–graphics and video–that work together to form one team called the Media Design team (or the “Bling” team, internally).  On the video side, producers specialize in specific ministries (i.e. one for youth, others for kids, another for internet campus, etc) and the weekend message is done entirely by our Senior Video Producer, Mark Dawson, who works directly with Craig, the senior pastor.  The graphics team really doesn’t have any separation in that regard, though designers do sometimes gravitate toward certain ministries because of their visual styles. Having the two teams act as one is a huge advantage, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

That said, there are a few exceptions to the structure. The LifeKids, Digerati (web, etc.), and HR teams each have their own designers to handle the volume of content that they create (though we sometimes create for them as well), so they work independently and deserve the credit for all that they do.

DAMER: Along those same lines … does your department work on the print publications as well or mainly video? If separate, what is the work flow (i.e.- you guys wait to receive graphics from print department)? Any thoughts on how those 2 departments should or should not be combined to work together?

CLARK: Since we’re one team, there’s really no sense of waiting or disconnect (other than maybe the Digerati team waiting for our team’s graphics for the website). The amount of collaboration that happens within our team is vital. On most projects, there are designers and video producers involved throughout the entire process. Even when that’s not the case, we constantly bounce ideas off of each other and often drop what we’re doing to help another team member with their project. I can’t stress how beneficial that attitude of unity is to our final output.

DAMER: Here’s the question inquiring minds want to know … how is LifeChurch.tv cranking out such nice media each week? The art of getting enough info from the pastor in time to do anything creative with it is often a challenge. I know some churches just plan for a last minute push each week and end up having 5 media staff guys cranking out content last minute. Do you guys have a work flow system similar to that or what’s the secret to your success?

CLARK: Wow, I have no idea how to answer that! Honestly, a lot of the credit goes to our talented staff. Thanks to all that God is done here, we are fortunate enough to draw high-caliber, passionate people who could easily go somewhere else and excel–and probably make more money–but they do what they do because they love it, and because they believe in the vision of the church. I’m thrilled to be surrounded by such great people.

We definitely have our share of last-minute deadlines, changes, and late nights, but we do try to work ahead. We’re lucky to have leadership who appreciates the effectiveness of what we do, so allowing time for the creative process is part of our culture, even if it doesn’t always happen.

As far as secrets go, my only big secret is that I’m just a lucky idiot who’s been blessed enough to have fallen into all of this. God is all over this ministry, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been completely out of ideas when some miraculous epiphany has turned the few loaves I have to offer into something greater.

DAMER: Who wrote those Satan’s Sex Ed videos? Those are a riot!!! I’m not sure if I’m allowed to watch stuff like that!

CLARK: Ha ha! While the concept behind those videos was a collaborative effort from the team, the majority of the credit has to go to Nick Jones, our video producer who plays Satan, because they were pretty much entirely improvised. During some follow-up Satan videos we created later, we tried to write a script, but found that it paled in comparison to just rolling a camera and turning him loose.

Barton Damer is a Creative Producer at Igniter Media and he maintains a personal blog at AlreadyBeenChewed.net.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 9:36 am and is filed under Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.