There are two types of people in the world. Those who love Duck Dynasty and those who don’t. I’ve seen the show once and fall into the second group. BUT, that doesn’t mean I haven’t bought a few of Uncle Si’s tea glasses for my dad… and a t-shirt… and a hat. So, it’s not that I don’t support the Quack Pack — see, I even know the lingo. Anyway, for the last month or so, our church (my part-time gig) has been promoting an event with a Duck Dynasty theme. And since I do graphic design, I’ve been up to my ears in camo, beards, and “wise” quotes that tend to be nothing more than common sense. I mean, really! But I love my job, and I love my church, so I decided that even though I don’t love this particular theme, I was going to give it all I had and make all the promo pieces look good. Thankfully most of my other team members know all about the show and were able to skill me in all things Dynasty. There was even a speaker phone conversation where one of the guys patiently explained to me what “It’s on like Donkey Kong” means. Yeah.
So… our church has a bit of a goose problem. As in, geese are always leaving presents all over our parking lots. We’ve tried everything to get rid of them. My favorite was a “mean wolf” decoy that didn’t fool the first goose. It did confuse my kid though. Anyway, it’s kind of a running joke around here, so we decided to use the term “Goose Commander” instead of “Duck Commander.” It’s been a big hit! Here’s where Tim comes in. He’s the design guru around the office (and also the person who explained donkey kong to me). Every time I have a a problem I call him and say, “Tim, help!” and he usually answers. Sometimes I think he might hide really quietly in his office, but I don’t blame him. I call A LOT. Well, Tim is a perfectionist and decided that if we were going to use “goose” instead of “duck” we had to have goose camo. Like I said, perfectionist. So he created a custom goose camo that we’ve plastered on just about everything. Again, big hit. People love it!
I’ve realized during this project how grateful I am to work at a church where people have Tim’s attitude. Sure we could have settled for the regular ‘ole camo. No one would have thought much about it (except Tim – He would’ve lost sleep) but people do notice that we went the extra mile with this event, and we try to go above and beyond with everything else we do. Working at a church is a funny thing. Sometimes when I tell people where I work, I can see them picturing me and a little old white-haired lady sharing a cubicle with two typewriters and a phone. But that’s so not the case! I work with a big team of people who all strive to make everything we do real, relevant, and refreshing. (That’s our church tagline. I so didn’t just come up with it!) And I love that church marketing (yes, it’s a thing) and design have come so far over the last few years. Remember the bulletins that looked like your great-grandma designed them? Yeah. Those don’t fly anymore. When I started here at Chets one of my first outings with my team was to a big outdoor shopping center where we literally just walked around and looked at what stores were doing with window displays, signage, and other advertising. Why? So we could stay on top of things. I knew that day that I was going to love this job. I may not be a Duck Dynasty fan. But I’m so glad I work for a church that recognizes that it’s a huge hit right now, so they’ll use it (and just about anything else!) to bring in people who might not have come to church otherwise.
Hey – whatever works, Jack! (Great. Now I can’t stop.)
These are the invites I made for the big event. 🙂