Fruitful Design

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Fruitful Design

Handcrafted Branding, Illustration & Book Design. Fruitful is the graphic design studio of Ben Lueders in Omaha, Nebraska.

Ben Lueders is an illustrator turned brand and book designer. He hand-draws logos with the heart of an illustrator and designs book covers with the eye of a brand designer. Ben is the founder and designer at Fruitful—an Omaha-based design studio specializing in handcrafted branding, illustration & book design. Ben has had the pleasure of working with brands like FNBO, Children's Nebraska, Omaha Steaks, Thrasher Group, Ligonier Ministries, Dayspring Bank, Buildertrend and many others. He is known for his hands-on design approach that empowers his clients to be involved. This process includes an interactive design discovery, mood board creation, and rounds of design concepts that include rough hand-drawn concepts, that are refined through collaboration.

10/21/2026

Even if you’ve never heard of Jack Henry before, you’ve undoubtedly interacted with them.

Jack Henry was founded in 1976 by two friends (one named Jack Henry) and they’ve been pioneering financial technology for the past 5 decades. From ATMs and bank tellers, to mobile depositing and tap to pay apps – their technology is woven into the fabric of modern finance. In 1985, Jack Henry went public under the ticker JKHY and they have grown to be a multi-billion dollar company with a global impact.

Earlier this year, I was intrigued when I received an email from Jack Henry’s Creative Director, Christina Santiago Ingrassia, requesting a quote for an illustrated mural. She had discovered some of my designs on Dribbble and thought I could be a good fit for their style. The design needed to commemorate 50 years of cultural, technological, financial and Jack Henry history and would be unveiled at their annual connect event in Kansas City.

I was delighted when they accepted my estimate and we immediately got to work.

This project required a lot of research, collaboration, mood-boarding, and concept sketches—but in the end we arrived on a dynamic and meaningful piece that is bringing a lot of color to their annual conference right now!

Very honored that they included a 7 foot pop up banner with my name, face and bio – as well as including my name and signature incorporated into the mural itself!

Jack Henry is a very generous and creative client and I hope to have more collaborations with them in the future!

10/09/2026

I just illustrated the cover for a New York Times bestselling author. 👀

Introducing, The Falcon’s Children by Ross Douthat

Releasing July 2027. Available for preorder on Amazon now.
https://a.co/d/02U7iORY

So, how did this happen?

Former Fruitful designer, Nicolas Fredrickson (Nic) was recently promoted as the creative director at Word on Fire, a well-known catholic ministry with a big online presence. Word on Fire recently launched a publishing imprint called Luminor—seeking to highlight fresh voices among writers formed by Catholicity in our time. This event corresponded perfectly with Ross Douthat (a respected public Catholic voice) seeking to publish his first work of fiction, a fantasy novel called The Falcon’s Children. The acclaimed former New York Times columnist and current CBS 60 Minutes correspondent has written many bestselling books, but they have all been non-fiction, usually dealing with topics like politics and religion.

When Nic and Luminor editor, Katy Carl, realized that Ross’ vision for the cover was a more painterly, throwback, fantasy style, they realized they would need to find an artist that could achieve this particular vision. I had just finished illustrating the fantasy map for the endpapers of the book (more on that later!) – and so, it was a natural fit for me to take a stab at the cover.

Meeting Ross was an absolute dream come true. I’ve been a fan of him and his work for many years and he definitely exceeded my expectations of kindness, humor, and collaboration.

The illustration itself was no small undertaking. It required much research, reference, sketching, and collaboration. The final digital painting took over 30 hours of design time to accomplish, with many small adjustments along the way to capture the right mood and feeling. The beautiful lettering was provided by Nicolas Fredrickson himself, and I think it really elevates the piece!

A heartfelt thanks to both Nic and Katy for this epic opportunity. And an even bigger thanks to Mr. Douthat for his trust and collaboration. I eagerly await getting my hands on this physical book next summer, and I am hopeful for future cover collaborations on this series in the future!

10/06/2026

✨New Book Design: Light in the Darkness
By Michael P.V. Barrett
Published by Ligonier Ministries

https://store.ligonier.org/light-in-the-darkness-hardcover

If you’ve ever read the biblical book of Judges, you know that it’s a pretty dark book. The book is set during a seemingly hopeless time in Israel’s history where they had no king and “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”

The Ligonier Ministries creative team reached out for me to help them create a cover for a book about Judges that does not shy away from its darkness—but also hints at the light of hope within its pages.

The final illustration is full of symbolism from the book:

🏺🔥 Broken jars and the flame of a torch (Gideon)
🦊🦁 A dead fox and lion (Sampson)
🏛️🏛️ Broken pillars (Sampson)
🔨💀 Even a hammer next to a skull (Jael)

The Ligonier team took my artwork to the next level by incorporating luxurious printing techniques and paper choices that really elevate and highlight the mood of the piece.

I’m very pleased with the end result of this book and honored to announce that I’m working on another book for Ligonier while we speak! (More on that soon…👀)

10/02/2026

New Brand: Pacemark

An AI maturity model, built from real-world data.

www.pacemark.ai

Although I don’t use artificial intelligence in any of my designs, many of my clients are pioneers in AI. Dan Cumberland is one of those clients.

Not only is Dan an AI expert, he’s actually developed a system for helping companies assess and track their own adoption of AI technology. Pacemark scores your company on six dimensions and five levels, drawn from 300+ companies across 24 countries.

Pacemark is the third brand I’ve worked on with Dan Cumberland. Over the years, I’ve come to learn his visual style/taste pretty well. I’m always honored to work with such a kind, fun, and intelligent human.

Using the fonts and colors I had already established for his personal brand (more on that later!) I helped craft a retro-inspired logo depicting a path going up and to the right and forming the letter “P”. For a state-of-the-art framework that helps companies quickly assess whether they’re on the right track with AI implementation, this visual motif seemed a good fit.

Dan took the visual brand that I created and quickly implemented it into the vibe-coded masterpiece of Pacemark.ai. I believe this website is a great example of how hand-crafted brands and AI coded experiences can work together in harmony, and don’t have to cancel each other out.

What do you think? Can traditional and AI design methods live together symbiotically? Or do we need to kill the robots? 🤖

09/28/2026

Introducing Good Omaha Real Estate Group, a division of PJ Morgan Real Estate.

After over 8 years as an Omaha realtor helping hundreds of local friends find their next home, I’m excited to announce that my good friend David Potter has officially launched his own real estate group!

Good Omaha is a group of realtors committed to finding their clients the perfect home while also fighting for more freedom and work-life balance for their agents. They don’t just want short-term success, they're passionate about long-term service and impact for Omaha.

In addition to a combined support for homeowners and agents Good Omaha also strives to highlight what’s good in this amazing city of ours. That’s the inspiration behind their name! Omaha is a truly exceptional place to live, filled with hidden gems, and inspiring stories—and we want to be a part of all of it. From walkable neighborhoods, to restaurant dives, to family events and entertainment—Good Omaha aims to build a community committed to the common good.

I had the honor of creating the logo and visual branding for Good Omaha. David Potter and I explored many different visual motifs and concepts for the main mark—arriving at an optimistic Omaha “O” sunburst breaking over the peak of a building—representing the hope and opportunity behind every inch of real estate here in Omaha.

The color palette was an even greater challenge—but we arrived at a combination of colors that are as fresh as they are timeless. (I don't think I'd ever have the opportunity to combine Olive and Pine Green with the warm tones of Flamingo and Chutney before, but I'm here for it!)

Good Omaha: It’s Good to be Home.

Ben Lueders
Owner & Designer, Fruitful Design

09/16/2026

Coram Deo VBS 2026 Branding: "City of God"

This summer was Fruitful’s 5th year designing the theme branding and graphics for Coram Deo Church’s Vacation Bible School program! Every year is a unique challenge and a special opportunity to try out new illustration styles and techniques. This year’s theme was “City of God” and we landed on a colorful, clean, vector art style with subtle texture—depicting a vibrant, coastal city.

As always, the Coram Deo communications team exceeded my expectations for implementation of the branding at the event! It was very fun to see all of the signage and cutouts they implemented.

Perhaps my favorite part of this year’s design was the tshirt. They approved a royal blue shirt with bright orange ink and a “pocket tee” design. It’s always fun to see kids (and parents) wearing VBS shirts that I helped design—and I’ve definitely been seeing this one out in the wild!

09/14/2026

Chris Beaty and I had a fun "How to Make a Book" event at Joslyn Castle & Gardens yesterday! Check out these artsy photos my 15 year old took of the event. 📸

Writing a book is hard enough...making a book can feel simply unattainable for many. Should I self publish? Should I look for a traditional publishing agent? What kind of editor should I hire, and when? Amazon KDP or IngramSpark?

Chris and I have learned a lot through our own self-publishing adventures, and we attempted to share some of those findings yesterday. Thanks to everyone who came out!

Stay on the lookout for more book-related presentations from Chris and I in the future! We had a blast co-presenting.

Huge thanks to Monica Gomez and Joslyn Castle & Gardens for having us – the Carriage House was a beautiful venue for an event like this!

09/05/2026

Introducing my first book design collaboration with Ligonier Ministries:

God is God And I’m Not
by Timothy Z. Witmer
Amazon link: https://a.co/d/02dhBGSu

Ligonier is a brand with an amazing design portfolio—regularly working with many of my design heroes. So, it is a great honor that they have chosen to work with me on numerous projects recently, including this new book project.

As with every project, we had a design discovery and created an in-depth mood board to create a jumping off point for all of my concept sketches. We explored many design angles and motifs, but ultimately landed on this simple, clear design to complement some of their recent titles, and to reflect the accessible, plain-text language of Witmer’s book.

Working with an established organization that routinely publishes physical books is a real treat for me. Their team took my design and elevated it in the final result – including a cutout in the dust jacket, and a gold foil printing of my illustration on the cloth cover underneath! I absolutely love how this turned out and I’m excited to share some more Ligonier book projects, very soon.

To close, here’s something nice that Anthony Diehl, Ligonier’s Creative Director said about working with me:

“The Fruitful team is outstanding and a joy to work with. They have such a thoughtful, curious, and client-oriented process that is perfect for taking big ideas from loose "napkin sketch" to pixel-perfect final ex*****on. Ben [is] a joy to work with, so collaborative, and crazy talented.”

(Thanks Anthony!)

09/02/2026

“Words make money.”

That’s the tagline of Wes Gay—one of the top StoryBrand guides in the world. Wes is a copywriter for founders who’d rather not sound like everyone else.

Wes went pretty far without much of a logo or visual identity to speak of, but when he wanted to take things to the next level he called Fruitful.

During his design discovery, one of the things I realized right away is that Wes is a man of taste. He admires vintage watches and cars. He enjoys classic fountain pens. He’s a southern men’s fashion aficionado. I began to draw inspiration from some of these sources – exploring classic monograms, etchings, and vintage color schemes.

Three special visuals that emerged from the logo sketches:

🖋️ A fountain pen nib
🐊 A Florida alligator
🔤 A Classic hand-lettered name & monogram

As a lover of fine writing instruments and a professional writer, the classic shape of a pen nib (with a hidden letter “W” for “Wes) became an instant hit for the main logo mark. The hand-drawn alligator illustration emerged as a supporting brand element—a nod to his Florida upbringing, and his southern gentleman charm. Many classic and luxury brands incorporate animal “mascot” motifs for brand recognition and this seemed to fit Wes’ vibe pretty well.

In the end, Wes received a full brand book with fonts, colors, a hand drawn logo mark (in many versions) and a supporting brand “mascot” alligator.

It’s fun to see Wes using this brand on his new website, and in all of his LinkedIn videos. Make sure you follow him and check out his awesome content. I was deeply honored to play an important role in Wes Gay’s visual brand identity!

www.wesgay.com

08/31/2026

"Process is how we differentiate ourselves from AI."

That’s how I began my recent breakout session at the 2026 OnBrand conference, entitled “The Collaborative Design Process.”

There’s no doubt that Artificial Intelligence is here to stay—and it’s great for certain tasks. But, the truth is, not all work is created equal.

In my talk, I encouraged designers to do “foundational work”—the kind of work that is good for us to experience wi humans as it’s so closely linked to our identity and reputation.

I showed how books are foundational artifacts as they are so personal and so linked to the author's identity. The right clients will never feel good about simply outsourcing something so important to a machine. They want to go through the experience of designing the cover with an actual person. (I talked about some of my recent book clients, including Chris Beaty, Josh Dotzler and Dave Miller.)

I then encouraged my audience to create human, collaborative experiences for creating that foundational work. I walked through my own design process in detail—highlighting the messy, handcrafted, human aspects that make it so special to experience.

No matter how insecure or awkward you might think you are—you will always be better than AI at human connection.

Address

PO Box 540369
Omaha, NE
68154

Website

http://www.fruitfuldesign.com/

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