The RGB (Over 16 million strong) and CMYK (Dots on a mission.) stickers have arrived! They are the first “official product” of the Design Rangers. YAY!

In the next few weeks I hope to set up an online ordering system (to-do list!) but until then we are kickin’ it old-school with the self addresses stamped envelope plan. Check!

UPDATE: We now have a e-commerce site set up for ordering the stickers!

Click here to head on over to that site.

Also, we’d love to see your stickers in action by posting your photos to our Facebook page!

The rides, the rush, the ice cream, it’s all been crafted to take you to another world. Every detail has been thought through and any deviation from the theme can change the experience. Design plays a large role, from the art-deco signs at Lakeside Amusements in Denver to the alternate reality that is Disney, the look helps create the world you’ll be living in for that day.

It’s these images and memories that helped inspire the logo for the Cave of the Winds’ newest attraction, the Wind Walker Challenge Course. The Wind Walker, a ropes course that will let participants traverse and dangle precariously (but safely) out over the floor of  Williams Canyon is sure to attract thrill-seekers and cave-dwellers alike. Opening in Summer 2011, the Wind Walker needed a design that captured the experience while extending the sense discovery and exploration present in the rest of the property.

With our muse in place, Jenny set to work pouring over images of theme park signage and rides from eras gone by (yes, we really do get paid to to play). After discussing some of our most memorable ride experiences, ideas moved quickly to paper as sketches began to take shape. A bold, graphic look became the focus of the concepts, using strong colors, expressive typography and canyon silhouettes.

One design in particular stood out, framing a stylized cliff against the backdrop of sun rays. It had all the elements of a theme park attraction while maintaining the spirit of the Cave of the Winds. After a few rounds of modifications, the final designs were put into place – one with a person out over the canyon for large applications, and a simplified version for smaller use.

We had a great time working on this logo and we’re looking forward to trying the Wind Walker for ourselves. What’s your favorite amusement park ride or memory? Share in the comments.

One tip Justin presented was about service, quoting from his life kearning blog post…  “Serving: Do you want to change the way you run your life, your firm, and your perspective on the world? Then start to serve. Not just with your work, but with your time and your team. Even if you are a team of one. I guarantee your life will be better for it.”

We took Justin’s advice to heart and started to actively look for a non-profit who’s mission was close to our hearts and needed our creative help.

Fast forward to mid-December; while participating in the Indy Give! campaign we found Kids on Bikes. We knew a little about Kids on Bikes and their mission, Keagan had participated in one of their summer rides at Bear Creek Park earlier that year.

The Indy Give! page taught us more – since 2005, they have provided more than 700 bicycles to children in need, through programs that inspire a healthy lifestyle, independence and achievement, AND right there on the Indy Give! page it also listed, very serendipitously, that they were looking for graphic design help. Chris and I both knew right away that this was definitely a cause close to our hearts and I contacted Kids on Bikes the very next day!

Design Rangers are pleased to announce that we are now working with Kids on Bikes – we will be helping them redesign some of their marketing materials and supplying them with a marketing “tool-kit” that will help them produce cohesive, professional looking materials as their need arises.

We are happy and our creative hearts are full. Thank you to Kids on Bikes for letting us serve you and your amazing mission!

P.S. – We would love it if you would drop by www.kidsonbikes.net to learn more about them. Maybe you are in the position to give them a donation & bring the joy of owning a brand new bike to very deserving children… It will help to fill your heart, and a full, balanced heart is a happy heart!

On August 1, 2009 (we remember the exact date because it was Jenny’s birthday) we took a trip up to a Parade of Homes House outside of Cripple Creek (near Evergreen Station for those of you in the know). Chris’ parents had raved and raved about this house and insisted we go see it. We walked into the Starlite Kibanda, our mouths dropped open and we instantly knew we had just walked into our dream home. It was there that we met, and got to know a little bit about, the amazing Doug Allen of Allentown Homes. Doug’s energy and passion for his work was immediately visible, we talked with him about the house and he showed us many of the funky cool custom touches. We left with a brochure and a business card, dreaming of living in the Starlite Kibanda or having Allentown Homes build us a custom home of our own someday.

That night we took a peek at the Allentown Homes website, excited to see how he had blended his building style with his website style. We arrived to the site and let out a “oh no”. Doug did have a site for his prospective clients to visit, but the site was definitely not up to par. The photo gallery was hard to use and the site just plain lacked the passion that Doug possessed. We emailed Doug to let him know had some great ideas for a better functioning gallery and thoughts for a site that really projected the feel of Allentown Homes.

We started working with Doug and his wife Jannelle not too long after that original email. At first, it was only in the budget to add the Starlite Kibanda home as a feature to their current site. We also updated the photo gallery for this feature home – making it more intuitive for the viewer to use.

Not long after completing that project, Doug and Jannelle asked us to submit a proposal for a complete site redesign.

Right around that same time we decided we had to move forward on finishing our basement/office area. The cement floors and insulation walls were not at all inspiring and we were so ready for Design Rangers to have an official HQ. Not knowing were to start we contacted Doug to ask if he knew someone that would be interested in working with us. When Doug replied, “I’ll do it!” we were shocked. Really. Wow. Okay! Our dream of working with Doug was coming true – even if it wasn’t to build our own Starlite Kibanda.

Design Ranger office: Before*

*This is the day we were moving EVERYTHING out of the basement so Doug could start. The kids found their way over to the computers for some resting up…

So it turned out we worked in succession. The Design Rangers’ office moved up to the living room and Doug moved his contractors into our basement. We designed Allentown Homes’ website concepts, Doug installed the baseboards and trim around the doors. He’d come up at lunchtime and we’d all sit on the deck and eat Chipotle or we would feed Doug his favorite lunch of egg salad sandwiches. We started to feel like Doug, Jannelle and their 3 beautiful daughters were part of our family – they are fun, super friendly and an amazing family.

Here is Doug’s work:

Dryall complete

Doug & Chris hanging cabinets

Our new HQ!

Client meeting/brainstorming area

The most awesome bathroom. Ever.

Here is our work for Allentown Homes (to see the full site click here):

We will always be thankful for that trip up to Cripple Creek, for meeting Doug and his family, and for helping each other out. Allentown Homes now has a site they can be proud of, that truly reflects their style and vision. Design Rangers now has the most amazing office/meeting/guest area. Six months later we still are in shock – this is our office?

Endless thank you’s to Doug and Jannelle. Our lives are better because of you!

We were able to tackle the garage (ugh!), the pantry (holy wow!), the coat closet, my kitchen desk, the lower kitchen cabinets, the main level bathroom, the guest room, our office, our master closet, the boy’s bathroom, and Keagan’s room. I’m still in shock over the amount of *stuff* we owned (and still own) and I feel really good knowing that we were able to donate many, many Jeep-fulls of items to Goodwill. A good friend of ours once worked as a grant writer for Goodwill and made us aware how much good those donations really do.

The Jeep, heading to Goodwill:

It all makes sense – if you are not using something why not give it to someone who will or to a charity that can sell it to help support their cause!

I was really impressed with how well Keagan handled going through every item in his room and saying either keep, give or sell to each one. He gave a bunch of books to his school, lots of old toys to his younger friends, and he even sold a few things on Craigslist – games, random electronics, giant plastic dinosaurs, etc. and made $39! Unfortunately, he owed us $35 due to a very large, unauthorized “jewel” purchase on his iPod game “Pirate Nation”. Ah, the life of a kid! Lesson learned: Don’t ever let your 7 year old know the iTunes store password.

As I mentioned, we are not quite finished. I am hoping to get to the upper kitchen cabinets and our master bathroom cabinets this weekend, then the only room left will be Dalton’s. Luckily, Chris and Dalton did a big clean out of his room just before school started in August so hopefully it won’t be too bad. I say that now – a 15 year old’s room is never “not too bad” is it?

I talked to several readers who decided to join me, maybe not quite to the same degree, but join me none the less. I hope you enjoyed following along and found tidbits of our process helpful. I can say that it worked – I don’t feel so controlled by our things anymore. Our things are not dictating how we spend our time and our things are not making me feel guilty. I used to open the pantry door or go into our master closet and get down on my self, “We’ve lived in this house 5 years! How have you not found time to go through this stuff? You are such a slacker!”As I said in one of the updates, now I open up the pantry just to feel that sense of pride, “You did it! Awesome job!”

Pantry of Doom:

Pantry of awesomeness:

Time will tell if all of this work before the holidays will make the actual holidays and the (insert booming voice) *holiday aftermath* less stressful. What I do know is that Keagan now has one side of one bedroom cabinet empty as well as his closet shelves with plenty of room. When he receives Christmas gifts I’m excited to feel thankful for the thought & generosity rather than the “Ugh, where in the heck is this supposed to go?!?!”

I am so eternally thankful for the amazing life I am living and for the many cool, fun, cute, comfy & helpful things we own. I am also very thankful to be in the position to possess way, way to many of those things. This Thanksgiving I am reminded how good it feels to give. Give a book you loved to a friend that you think will love it like you did, give a warm jacket that no longer fits to someone who needs it, give those unworn clothes or random unused kitchen gadgets to Goodwill and let them work their magic, give the toys your kids are not playing with any longer to little people who will take them to bed at night and hug them tight, give those unused art supplies to a art student – oh, how they will love them! The awesome thing is, giving away feels so good! And it opens up your heart for more and more giving.

Happy Thanksgiving friends. We are so thankful for you!

John came to the Springs to talk to us about adverting – focusing on how everything has changed, and how nothing has changed. Old Media, New Media – the same rules still apply.

1. Great work can come from anywhere
2. On serious issues, rather than using scare tactics – make them giggle.
3. Give the viewer something that inspires them – makes them think, or laugh, or feel inspired.

You know John’s work and have probably enjoyed many of his commercials over the years. Here are few examples of John’s successes:

Old Media:

H&R Block – Worried About Bill 60 from MUH-TAY-ZIK|HOF-FER on Vimeo.

Citi – Identity Theft – Chassis from MUH-TAY-ZIK|HOF-FER on Vimeo.

New Media: John’s new media successes include many videos for Google Mobile. Click here to see the, low budget, viral “pizza” video that was proclaimed a “Masterpiece” by Mashable.

Thanks again John for stopping by and giving us some food for thought!

The pace has slowed a bit – due to work and life – but we are trying to fit it in; because getting rid of our unwanted, unused “stuff” is definitely making our lives less stressful! I still randomly open the left side of the pantry just to make sure it’s not a dream.

Last Saturday while Keagan was at the Colorado Springs Air Show with Grammie and Papa, Chris and I tackled our master bedroom closet. Ugh. It had gotten really bad. Really, really bad.

Proof:

Here is a shot of 5 years of dust. Nice.

Well, we got down to business! Sorted, organized, donated, trashed, and cleaned. For 10+ hours. (One thing about us is we are THROUGH. Takes a lot of time for us to do things like this, but they are definitely done right.)

Each of these hangers had an item of clothing on them – we were ruthless about going through our clothes and getting rid of items we hadn’t worn in a year, were stained, or just plain unattractive…

The final result:

Yet again, another weight off the shoulder. Of course the trick is keeping it this clean… wish us luck on that!

Noteworthy:

I have mentioned to a few people that a good way to get rid of things that have a sentimental value to you is to take a picture of it!

Here is Chris’ art box from college. This box held a lot of memories for Chris and it was really hard to part ways with BUT he hadn’t used it in at least 10 years and was really just collecting dust. A good friend of Dalton’s is super passionate about art – we knew he would used it and love it. It was a good feeling to pass it down to him, but it’s nice to have a picture to bring back the memories too!

On September 14th, we had the pleasure of attending the American Advertising Federation of Colorado Springs‘ first luncheon of the season featuring John Crilly of Brand Innovation Group (BIG). John came all the way from Fort Wayne, Indiana to talk to a room filled with AAF members and guests about Guerilla marketing.

John gave an entertaining, informative talk about guerilla marketing (GM) – which essentially means finding creative ways to tell a clients unique story. GM enhances traditional marketing and is a unique way to tell a message – most often an attention grabbing, emotion evoking, creative supplement to the standard client billboard, brochure, and advertisement.

He highlighted several successful GM campaigns. Here are a few you may have seen:

• Folgers coffee manhole covers
• 3M Security glass
• IKEA bus huts

John also talked about how to make it work for the small business – ideas like sending out a fun promo on the same day every month or performing random acts of kindness (buying lunch for a table of diners at a local restaurant – tell the waitress you’ll take care of the bill and just ask her to deliver them your business card). Here is an example of how a dentist used GM. Obviously, this was an inexpensive, easy to produce marketing method that probably got a lot of attention. Who could ask for more?

There are many, many more creative thought provoking ideas out there – just doing a Google search for guerilla marketing images comes up with more than 300,000 results.

So when you ask yourself a question similar to “All traditional advertising mediums are covered, what else can we do?” The answer is “Go Guerrilla!”.

My shoulders do feel a little bit lighter already. It’s nice having a place for everything somethings and putting them it in that place. Along time ago Chris read an organizing book that said if a chore takes less than two minutes, do it right when you think of it. That’s been my motto lately – if I bring something out to the garage instead of putting it on the workbench (which is what I used to do, and then before you know it you have put 15 things on the workbench…) just put it where it goes. Right at that moment. Takes way less than 2 minutes. Done!

Another tip we have been hearing for years, but are only now using: When you come across something sentimental that you don’t really need, you are just holding on to it because of the memories it brings up – take a picture! That picture will take up 100 times less space than the actual object and you can look at it when ever you want. Just pull up the “sentimental items” folder on your desktop and let the memories come back. Alternatively, you could always dedicate one photo album to actual prints of the special objects – that might make it feel a little more real to those of you that like scrap-booking and actual printed photos.

Here are some before and after pictures. I love before and after!

The Garage: Before

The Garage: After

The Evil Mr. Kitchen Pantry: Before – see that Miller Light box. Yeah. That had been in the same spot, on the same shelf, never looked in, since the day we moved in. June 30, 2005. Seriously.

The Friendly Mr. Kitchen Pantry: After – this is such a big deal to me! I find myself walking by and opening the door just to make sure I’m not dreaming. Now when we have guests come over I won’t be afraid/embarrased to open it.

The Coat Closet: After – I forgot to take a “before” picture as I was so excited to get to it. But trust me, it was packed.

Other noteworthy accomplishments: Cleaned out my kitchen desk. That’s where I normally put all that random paperwork I don’t know what to do with: An articles with an interesting tips, Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons, credit card offers… I had a million of those.

Oh, and address labels. I was holding on to WAY too many address labels!

There have been enough signs from the Universe lately that I am finally willing to listen.

We rented and watched this movie from Netflicks, we’ve seen random episodes of TCL’s Hoarding: Buried Alive, and we have read many books that at least mention if not dedicate a chapter or two to how much control your things can have over you. I think Chris and I are finally ready to get down to business. A fair amount of our stuff HAS to go. I am tired of spending hours each evening trying to find new places to store things because all of the usual places are packed full. I really do feel like our stuff is controlling us and I’m frankly tired of it.

OUR MISSION*: To get rid of 1/4 of everything we currently own by Thanksgiving 2010. It’s scary and yet freeing to type that, because now I have to stick to it and now I have to stick to it!

*When I say” our”, I really mean “my” mission. Chris is excited and will be a willing party and I’m sure will make it his mission too. But, when I told the boys about my mission they both looked at me with crooked eyebrows and said “Why?”

Where is all this stuff going to go? Probably the usual suspects: Goodwill, Salvation Army, Craigslist, and friends. Hey, if you are in need of a bunch of stuff please let me know!

But, if you are feeling a little more like I am right now, how about taking the 1/4 Challenge with me? On my Facebook page I’ll be posting before and after pictures of closets, rooms, etc. I’ll also post stories of the process, how many tears were shed and by whom or how good it feels to be able to *walk* into our walk in closet or actually park our cars in our garage. CRAZY. If you decide to take the challenge with us, please let us know how it is going for you and your family. We’d love to see your pictures, too!

So follow along, as the Schell/Stephens family gets rid of 1/4 of their belongings and hopefully finds their way to just a little more inner peace.