Workcamp T-Shirts
Here’s our Workcamp T-Shirt for this year. Big thanks to Randy for the design:
Our Workcamp shirts are becoming something of a spiritual memorial. After we’re back, they remind us of the work we did in a particular city. We can remember what God has done in the past and look forward to what He will do in the future.
The Digital Business Card
I found an absurd deal on hosting for my own website. It was such a steal, I couldn’t pass it up. I got a 90% discount on 2 years of hosting, or 2 years for $20. Not bad. I’ve always considered getting a website, but what would I put there? I decided on making it a digital business card.
Here’s what happens with business cards these days. We pay money for them, then they go out of date because we move, change blog services, change emails, stop using this service and start using that one. So instead, why not get business cards printed that point to your personal website and make it a digital business card. Check out my digital business card, at JasonTheDCE.com. It currently has six links out to various services that I use:
- WordPress Blogging
- PicasaWeb
- YouTube
Check it out and let me know what you think!
EDIT: I wrote this post without knowing about Church Crunch’s “Do Bloggers Need Business Cards” blog contest. I’m making this my “entry” in the hopes of winning free cards.
More Designing Goodness
Continuing from yesterday, I have another design idea to pass along. It’s a new Scrip Order Form. For reference, if you haven’t seen it before, here’s the old one. The design goals this time:
- Make it easier to read
- Highlight most purchased vendors
- List more vendors overall
- Prepare for a special Christmas sales push outside our church
Thoughts?
Student Ministries Flier
Kathy Figini asked me to come up with a flier to send to people who ask for more information about Student Ministries here at First Trinity. Here’s the first draft:
If you have any suggestions, let me know. They would get this with a copy of our current ministry schedule and possibly a cover letter.
Update: Based on discussion in the comments, here’s a 2nd version with Cornerstone sub-theming that keeps the same basic design.
The challenge with this one is the lines of the Cornerstone Emblem don’t match the curves of the “&” sign. It’s also not immediately recognizable for anything, unlike the Compass in the first design that people would recognize as a circle with a cross in the middle, despite not being able to see the full image.
First Assumptions
Kent Shaffer had this great quote on his blog today:
You can’t stop people from making assumptions, but you can create an image that produces the right assumptions.
He’s talking specifically about design, and I feel like it captures my feelings on the matter so well. The last quote is useful as we think about how we present ourselves at church. The first impression we give to visitors leads to their first assumption about us. We seem to be decent at this, but I’m praying our communications project will help us excel at it. It’s not just our publications, but our space, our greeters, our ushers, our people and our staff that communicate with visitors and lead to a first assumption. Let’s make it a positive one.
Design For Dummies
I’ve been considering purchasing Adobe’s Design suite, which includes Photoshop, InDesign (like Microsoft Publisher on steroids), Acrobat and Illustrator. I’ve always wanted to get a copy of Photoshop, but I’ve been happy with The GIMP as a free alternative. I do enough with it, however, that the time-saving shortcuts Photoshop provides would be beneficial to me, plus I can get the software at a student discount currently.
I downloaded Photoshop for a 30 day trial and found I still remembered how most of the tools works and I’ve been quick to pick up the newer stuff because it works similar to The GIMP. InDesign, the desktop publishing software, was a different story. For the first time in what seems like forever, I was completely stumped by a piece of software. I opened it up, looked around, and immediately closed it because I was unsure where to get started. If I get the software, I might actually have to break down and purchase the for dummies book for InDesign. Crazy stuff…
A Lasting Change
With Pastor Whited out of town in Haiti, I’m covering services this weekend again. He started a new series last week titled “Questions for the New Year.” He covered some general questions, but I get the first specific question in the series, “How Can I Make a Lasting Change?” I just finished the first draft of the outline, which is much earlier than I was expecting to have it done. I used the extra time to make a graphic for the series. I’m a bit of a hack, having very little design knowledge/creativity, but knowing my way around graphics software. I think real designers might not like people like me.
So, because I can’t actually draw anything, I’ve just gone with a basic font treatment for the graphic:
It’s nothing fancy, but I like it better than just a plain old boring text at the top of the outline. Look for more about the sermon in the coming days, plus we’ll have a special follow-up to the sermon that we plan to make a regular feature, at least on a trial basis. Fun stuff!
