Thoughtful Interaction with Issues That Matter.
Odd Timber was born out of the passion of one of the staff members of a Christian college ministry at the University of Kansas. Kevin hoped to create a podcast and blogging platform where himself and others – university students as well as educators and academics – could engage in a thoughtful way about issues of faith, vocation, academics and education.
Kevin’s vision was that collaboration for content creation would be extended to a diverse range of contributors including students in the ministry, educators and professors on the KU campus, religious leaders in the community and others. Odd Timber exposes the common humanity of its contributors and followers while exploring the implications of what it means to be limited finite beings. By encouraging diversity in participation, the hope was that people would be encouraged to think deeply about their system of beliefs and have their eyes opened to other worldviews.
The Odd Timber Brand.
ODD
adjective \äd\
1. not regular, expected or planned
2. differing markedly from the usual, ordinary or accepted: peculiar
TIMBER
noun \’tim-bər\
1. material or stuff
2. refers to the qualities of character, experience or intellect
The name Odd Timber is derived from the intended content of the site; exploring the oddities and ironies of human existence, the existential “stuff” that creates both sameness and uniqueness.
Odd Timber’s logo is representative of human existence and the ways in which humanity experiences growth, longing, groundedness and confusion. The unique serif font displays an academic seriousness with a somewhat playful aesthetic.
Planning, Strategy & Development.
In developing the website, Kevin and I had numerous meetings involving lots of whiteboard notes and scribbles. Though he had a broad idea, we worked together to sort out the details of the brand and the messages he wanted to convey through the content.
Once we ironed out the direction for the brand and content, the next step was to organize the site in such a way that content could be easily consumed and maneuvered by followers. I created a series of sitemaps, determining the best way to allow users to look up content by category, or by content type (podcast, blog, essay, etc).
I created the podcast and worked with various platforms (Apple, Spotify, Google, TuneIn, etc) to make it accessible through those outlets in addition to the Odd Timber website.
Currently, the site is waiting for additional content population before being pushed live.
