PROCESS
We don’t believe in creativity, we believe in storytelling. If anything, creativity is a repurposing of what already exists, but storytelling is a process of discovering something that exists invisibly and translating it into visible reality. Here’s the process:
DISCOVERY
Discovery is eureka - finding something after searching for it. In discovery, we clarify your dreams, ideas, and experiences into a coherent story.
INNOVATION
Innovation is meditation - listening to the story tell you the best way to tell it. In innovation, we get rid of all other voices (trends, inspiration, insecurity) other than your story, and receive the story’s innovation - the unique conceptual language by which it wishes to communicate itself.
TRANSLATION
Translation is consummation - moving the story from the invisible to the visible. In translation, we turn the conceptual language into a visual language through art. Any story can be translated into any artistic medium.
Since this is all slightly abstract, and we learn best by examples, I would like to provide a project that follows this exact process. This is the album artwork for the record “Heaven Life” by SEU Worship, used to illustrate the storytelling process:
Discovery
Working as the creative director for SEU Worship, I was tasked with developing the art direction for their album Heaven Life and the subsequent season of music. In the discovery phase, I printed out the lyrics of every song and performed a story discovery on each one. This means that I story funneled each song through the story model, discovering each song’s 5 story modules (as we discussed on the “map” page).
I then overlayed each song’s modules on top of another to discover the metanarrative of the whole album. The five modules of this metanarrative were longing/looking for more, encounter the presence (of God), fix the gaze, living dream, and colorful, wild destiny. I also extracted the repeated visual motifs of the lyrics and unearthed sight/vision/eyes, dreams, clouds, color, heaven, hope, faith, wild, and a few others. This meta narrative and the repeated visual motifs formed the foundation for the story and the visuals.
Innovation
I hid this metanarrative in my heart and meditated on it throughout multiple trips to my favorite açaí place (which you will hear about again later). I realized that the metanarrative and each song had three movements, three worlds - earth, spirit, and heaven (in that order). So one day while I was walking up the stairs in my apartment, I vividly remember having the breakthrough - “If each song has these three elements, and the album artwork is simply a visual translation of the songs/album, then every graphic should have these 3 elements as well!”.
This is what I call the story’s innovation - a unique conceptual language by which the story wishes to communicate itself, that no story has ever communicated itself through before. It was then time to translate this into actual visuals through branding.
Translation
Within the storytelling process, I have a translation process. This is what some people would call the creative process - the sequence of events within an actual creative medium (in this case branding). “Creatives” often have a process whether it’s for a film, a song, a painting, etc. It is important, however, to notice that in the storytelling process translation (what most people call creativity) is only 1/3 of the storytelling process, and the last phase to be done.
Many jump directly into the third phase from the onset, but without discovery and innovation, they are not translating something from the invisible to the visible. They are simply creating - reshuffling existing translations into something “new”. These “new” results often come from inspirations like pinterest, stylistic preferences of the designer, or what the most popular brands and artists are doing today (see photo). This sort of methodology is what is called stylization, the opposite of innovation. Stylization is taking the form (translation) of someone else’s function (story), and applying it to your own. This corrupts the unique innovation within their story and that of the story they stole from. So when multiple people stylize the same story, this is how trends start. This method is faster and easier and it’s certain to look good because of all the other people who have copied it. I don’t want to copy, so I offer a forth a story-driven translation process…
Translation Continued
This translation process for branding is as follows. I ask the client for 3-5 adjectives describing the personality (if it were a person), and aesthetic (look and feel) of the brand, respectively. I then ask them to send a few images that encapsulate these adjectives, add the story modules to the top, and we have a moodboard. The moodboard is dangerous because it can lead to stylization, so I’m sure to only use it as proof to the client that my work met their desires and as a very general direction for how the final brand should look. From there I always start with a typeface selection, since the typeface is the primary way in which the brand (which can be likened to a person) communicates with the world. Then I move into analog logo sketching, as it is essential to begin on paper. I then digitize my best few sketches, send them to the client, and revise until we have the final. From there, I can complete the brand with any other necessary elements such as colors, icons, patterns, imagery, letterhead, business cards, etc.
Translation Continued (again)
For this project, I made the moodboard and added a few images of my own. I chose the “retro yet current” bold, lively, and happy typeface of goudy heavy face. I designed the color palette to be the transition from earth to heaven, moving from the green of the earth, to the blue of the water, to the pinks, oranges, and yellows of the sky and heavens. Because of the transition, it was perfect for the bespoke gradient I made. I then designed an icon for the Spirit, as an ambiguous icon of water and wind, to serve as a staple in the visual language. I then went to town translating or speaking different words in this visual language. The beauty of the story’s innovation as a conceptual language is that it can be translated INFINITE ways. It’s not an idea limited to a single expression, but can literally go on forever. It is at that point that creativity kicks in, with a clever and unique reshuffling of existing materials.
Translation (final, I promise)
As you can see, my crowning achievement of this brand is the album artwork consisting of the three elements of earth, spirit, and heaven (the largest photo). The gradient appears both within these three elements and in the border, wirth the elements of life, different, off-center, clouds, wild colors, and hope in full display, and it’s only the beginning! In just a few short days, I was able to creatively translate the story’s innovation into multiple other ideas and iterations. By putting the hard work in on the front end of the discovery and innovation, it’s as if the floodgates open in translation. You have an idea onslaught, because you have such a clearly defined canvas, paintbrush, and colors to work with. This is truly the most joyous part of the storytelling process, as you finally get to turn invisible into visible in as many ways as your brain can think of. In these creative iterations, I began to focus on specific two tone color palettes, using circles, textures, and eventually even designed an icon that could be used for the album as well.
This process is really what excites me and it is a blessing for you to enter this world with me. In addition to the story model, this process is another lens through which you can look at this world and the multiple other projects I present throughout. It’s now time to move onto some of the stories I’ve been able to tell!