you have to be kidding me

ok,.. I have to rant. I was driving to the YMCA the other day and saw two billboards for church's. One was highlighting their new series "Heroes" and the other was highlighting their new series "24". Now, putting aside the whole church marketing debate this could stir, the thing that drove me the most nuts was that these billboards completely ripped off the logos of those shows. Not close replicas, exact copies.

Another one I have seen is folks taking the Harley logo and writing something different in it to promote some event (I've seen many,... take any corporate logo or TV logo and some church has thought they would be edgy by stealing it).

It drives me nuts (I'm sure I've done it before as well... so I'm not pointing fingers, ... I'm just pleading that it would stop).

-One, it's copywrite infringement; freaking stop doing it.
-Two, it's not "edgy". It's not "relevant". It's not "connecting with the younger generation" It's freaking weak!
-Three, can church's please be creative. I'm not saying spend tons of money on ad campaigns (please, love the poor and know your neighbor first).... but if you want to design graphics/images, go buy photoshop elements ($70) and an old computer ($300) and be creative. God didn't give you that brain and desire to create art simply to rip someone else off (I’m not saying don’t be inspired by others work, I’m saying don’t copy/steal)

Oh yea, and to again remind any church folks reading this, remember #2, ... non-church folks find it very very silly; it's not “relevant” or whatever other buzz word you want to attach to it.

I'll close with a comment I read on another blog that is stated much nicer that I (sorry for the vomit on the post here,... I'm in a mood and thought I would let it out in this forum).

"Would the church of God please rise up and be original? We've been blessed with creativity, so let's use it to come up with something that can stand on its own, rather than make sorrowful copies of corporate imagery."