MBI Guidebook

The chair of the Communications Department at Moody Bible Institute approached me and explained that he was working to recraft the vision for the department. As the umbrella group where the artists gathered, communications held a unique position on the urban campus. The chair wanted to inspire artists to take up their brushes, their cameras, their microphones, and gather around something exciting. His ethereal language for the department guidebook carried pulsing potential.

My task was to bring visual identity to the department, starting with the guidebook. I started considering what on earth could possibly house all of the creatives in a way that would honor and inspire them.

And that’s when it hit me: Nothing. Nothing on earth could house all of the creatives.

We had to move to space.

What emerged was a series through space, time, and ideology. It begins with creation, moving progressively to the artist’s creative practice as worship back to God.

God is the first Creative, the One who formed and molded everything into its present shape. Grand design is evident in the beautiful complexity of creation.

The first Creative laid out His canvas—the universe itself. The field of stars, too large for any human being to explore in its entirety, is His sprawling handiwork. Stars, planets, and nebulas sprang from His brush, swirling together into an array of exploding hues.

Our gaze from space is narrowing, and one particular terrestrial ball glows crisply. God made this place for humans to dwell. It is here that mankind grows and learns and lives and dies.

We are entering the terrestrial sphere. Dew and haze envelop the senses. This shell of protection enables the perfect conditions to foster life.

God supplied raw materials for us to find and use in our development. Combined in differing quantities by various processes, these elements allow us to build.

Steel, concrete, and wood merge to form the domes of society. We use elements to keep us safe and dry from other elements. We design intricate blueprints for our houses, workplaces, and assemblies.

The laboratory is a place of trial an error. It is an elaborate web of wires, lenses, pencils, paints, and airwaves. As we gather together in community, the whole is greater than the sum of individual parts. Separate we are single strands of thread; together we form a glorious web of splendor and support.

The laboratory is comprised of people—men and women—together on a divine quest. Mortals are the successive creatives; we take our cues from the first Creative. And we are most creative when we are most in tune with His leading and His love.

The heart represents the whole of a per- son. Complexity is abundant here: vile corruption and Spirit-wrought valor exist contemporaneously. The actions of a man flow from the deep-rooted beliefs in his heart. From the heart flows creativity. In the heart is life.

Art is always done for a purpose, and our purpose is to return the fruit of our labor back to our Lord. Believers have been joined to Jesus Himself, and this allows us to participate in the divine Father-Son relationship by means of the Holy Spirit. In this Trinitarian salvation we rejoice and find our identity. We return our creations back to the first Creative in worship.