Newsletter 014
What do board games, innovation, and the church have in common? Their unifying thread was the brainchild of Amanda Drury in 2019 called Imaginarium. Marion Design Co. was hired to brand this new project funded by a Lilly Grant to help churches imagine new ways of doing church and studying the Bible. What began as a branding project has emerged as a partnership whose influence continues to flow into crevices of the church enlarged by the pandemic’s challenges.
Whoopsie is a colorful board game that helps organizations creatively examine sustainability of current or new programming and initiatives. Complete with cards, game playing pieces, score pad, instruction booklet, game board and box, this fun action packed game makes collaboration and examination fun for your organizations team!
Since the launch of Imaginarium and Whoopsie, we’ve worked with Dr. Drury to brand and develop Discipleship by Design, design thinking methods such as Journey Map, 16 Systems Calendar, Scripture Squared, Actors Map, Prayer Squares, Creative Conversations, and more! Through Hatchathons and other national conferences, we’ve traveled to several national and statewide conferences to introduce these tools to church leadership. We look forward to sharing more of these DBD and Imaginarium projects through this longtime partnership!
Angelica Oles, Food Photographer and owner of Lush Food Photography and the Lush Foods Pretty Things account on Instagram, worked as a Placemaking Design intern during her junior and senior years of college at Indiana Wesleyan University.
Now two years after graduation, she shares that the most valuable lesson she learned was listening…that listening is not only essential in design, but in leadership. Her favorite memory is working alongside Grace Woodard as creative directors for the Marion Made Fashion Show during her senior year. She states, I have never experienced such effortless collaboration and partnership, we had so much fun and worked so hard for each other!
Her favorite project was co-leading with Wendy Puffer a design thinking session on placemaking in Chattanooga, TN at the Project for Public Places Placemaking Conference. Through connecting our play practice as children to teaching community development leaders how to innovate, we simulated playing house with blankets, plastic play food, and cardboard boxes to encourage creative collaboration. Angelica carries her training in leadership skills and establishing confidence in business at Marion Design Co. into operating her own business. In September 2021, she took the leap and began to intentionally pursue food photography and launched her business, Lush Food Photography.
Angelica shares, “The idea stemmed from an instagram account I had started in July of 2020, @lushfoodnprettithings It was a place for me to express my creativity and share photos of all the food I was making. Eventually I realized that this was much more than a hobby, I was excited about creating in a way that I had never experienced before. Manically cooking and baking everyday, I started taking online courses on food photography, styling, and photo editing, developing my skills. Once I committed to pursuing this as a career, I knew I needed to hustle. I emailed countless brands, companies, and small businesses asking them if they needed photography and attaching a media kit I had created. That was how I found my first clients and continued to secure work. It also enabled me to establish relationships with brands and get hired for multiple projects. The fact that I am making money doing something I love still feels surreal. I am also an instructor and social media manager at a barre3 fitness studio. The combination of these 3 positions fulfills me beyond anything I could have ever dreamed for myself!”
Angie Thompson, Chief Financial Officer
I’ve been working for Marion Design Co for 8 months now as the company’s financial manager, completing their invoices, payroll, and overall financial organization. One of my jobs is to make sure we are assigning the correct value to the correct item. Some things in my job are easy to put value to and some things are a bit harder. Resale product for example, is easy to assign value.
Design services, on the other hand, can be more challenging to assign value. There are many factors to include in this process, such as time spent with the customer learning about the individual or organization, hours spent transforming that information into ideas, and then ideas into a tangible process that we give back to the customer. One of the things I’ve been so impressed with is the way MDCO gets to know their clients before advising them on their design, their brand, or their overall presence. With each contract that comes across my laptop I see a description of the client, who they are, and what they are looking for from us. Wendy and the team truly want to know what brand or message the customer is wanting to portrait. So how do we assign a value to that?
Think about how important space and a brand is to a business or organization as a customer. Walking into a room that’s pleasing and clearly states what their business is and what they believe in provides familiarity and comfort to a customer. Seeing a brand on billboard is an expression of that business. When a customer starts to recognize an organization’s brand and space, then they hopefully become loyal to your business. That is where the value lies in our services. MDCO cares about the businesses and organizations in our community and wants them to perform well. There are opportunities upon opportunities that come from healthy organizations in communities. Whether it’s designing a space, a logo, a website, or video, MDCO can add value to an organization through thoughtful meetings, research, and action plans. That value keeps on giving.
