DIY design 7 - using templates
28 May 2008 Jeff Gill
Whatever design software you are using, it probably came with a bunch of templates.
Templates can be quite useful, if you know how to use them. Here’s how to use them:
Don’t start with the template. Start with what you want to communicate. What look and feel will reinforce your message? Once you know that, start looking at the templates. If you work in this order, your choices will be guided by your message, not by your software. If you are making a leaflet for your summer kids program and the Catering Brochure template is the best fit, use it.
Change it (if you have time). Be bold. Mess with the fonts and the colours. Use your own images. Just make sure that your changes are consistent. Make changes all across the document, not just here and there. The best way to do that is to change the document styles, rather than individual blocks of text.
I thought there was going to be a third point, but there isn’t.
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tags: design
DIY design 6 - toolbox: finding images
11 May 2008 Jeff Gill
Let’s review what we have covered so far in the DIY design series
- Start with the right attitudes
- The obligatory and boring post on hardware
- Page layout software
- Image editing software (Photoshop, etc.)
If you are a creative person you haven’t been sitting around twiddling your mouse waiting for me to write this post. You probably found where to get images already. Nevertheless, I shall continue writing.
Unless you are a World-Famous Graphic Designer your image budget is probably about £0. That’s okay. It is 2008; everything is free. Just search Google for whatever you want. Copy. Paste. Voila!
WRONG.
Those images took time, energy and creativity to create. If you use them without permission, you are stealing. Thou shalt not. Also, my favourite wife, Christine The Photographer, and I, the World-Famous Graphic Designer will be very cross with you.
Instead, visit stock.xchng. They have over of 360,000 image. All are free. Many are very good. There is very little snapshotty stuff. Be sure to give proper credit to the photographers where required.
If stock.xchng doesn’t have what you need, do a Creative Commons search of Flickr. I recommend searching tags only and sorting by most interesting.
Morgue File is also good.
And there is lots more here.
You will have projects where none of these sources has the image you need. I suggest you do one of the following:
- Draw or make or photograph the image yourself.
- Make friends with a photographer now.
- Think – there may be a different and possibly better way to tell your story.
If for some reason you do have an image budget find a good photographer and hire them. If that won’t work, visit Getty Images or Alamy.
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tags: design
How I succeed at barbecues
5 May 2008 Jeff Gill
Yesterday, the Gill family was at the first i61 barbecue of 2008. i61 barbecues are famous for immense quantities of fun and food. Friends who accept the invitation to come usually find that before too long they are part of us and inviting their friends to barbecues.
People often ask me two questions at i61 barbecues. The first is: Did you make these chocolate chip cookies yourself? I reply, Yes, with an appropriate amount of honesty. The second question is: Can I have the recipe? Today, for the first time ever, the answer is, with a complete lack of modesty, Yes, you can have what is probably the best chocolate chip recipe in the world.
The ingredients are listed in a mix of American and British measurements, so you might need to use this.
Get a big bowl, and put this stuff in it:
- 300 g butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 2 eggs
Mix them all up. Don’t taste it yet; it’s too slimy and gloopy.
Now add this stuff:
- 1 1/2 cups plain white flour
- 1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour. This is important.
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- a bit of salt
Mix again. Tasting is good to do now.
Chop up 300 g of really good chocolate, 2/3 milk chocolate and 1/3 70% cocoa plain chocolate. If you are living in North America and you are tempted to use chocolate chips or anything that has Hershey’s written on the label, resist. Put the chocolate in the bowl and mix one last time.
Grab some dough, make a ball and put it on an ungreased baking sheet. Repeat about 35 times. Bake all those little balls for about 9 minutes at 190°C.
Eat all that you can within a couple hours. Store the leftovers in an airtight container.
Your results may vary.
You’re welcome.
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tags: church,
community,
food
The good Samaritan goes home
20 April 2008 Jeff Gill
Inspired by this sketch I wrote a sketch which avoids the wife-hating and features a ninja:
Joanna: Where is he? He should have been home ages ago. She gasps. What if he was the one they attacked! No, they said he was a Jew. But Nathan looks like a Jew sometimes when the light is low…
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tags: drama,
silly,
stories
More good Samaritan
20 April 2008 Jeff Gill
Our news sheet was very personalised this week, thanks to Google Earth:
The pub where we meet is touching the y in the copyright notice. The town just of the right of the i61 is Conwy.
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tags: design,
i61
That's well neighbourly! - updated
20 April 2008 Jeff Gill
This weekend our church is looking at the story of the good Samaritan. I want to rewrite it for my class of 10-13 year-olds and set it in high school. (For those of you outside the UK secondary education starts at age 11 here.) I found some interesting retellings laying around the internet: here (scroll down), here and here, but none of them are really what I need. How do you think I should update the cast?
Who are the attackers?
Who is the victim?
The priest?
The levite?
The Samaritan?
The innkeeper?
If all goes well, I shall put a working draft story online in a day or two for your further comments and sugestions.
Thanks!
UPDATE
I ended up not rewriting the story beforehand. Instead, I did it live as a mad lib with my class. They loved it. And they heard the story three times, once proper and twice silly. AND they all asked for a copy of their own. Here is their story with a little help from the TNIV:
Once a footballer slide tackled Jesus to test him. ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit fantastic life?’
‘What is written in the Law?’ he replied. ‘How do you read it?’
He answered, ‘‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’‘
‘You have answered Jeffly,’ Jesus replied. ‘Do this and you will live.’
But he wanted to sit himself, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’
In reply Jesus said: ‘Conor was going down from Tesco to i61, when he fell into the hands of terrorists. They stripped him of his table, karate chopped him and went away, leaving him half hairy. A referee happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side of the Aston Martin. So too, a fit, sporty girl when she came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side of the elephant. But a nerd, as he read, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on 7up and lemon juice Then he put the man on his own ferret, brought him to Jamaica and took care of him. The next day he took out two dollars and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will paint you for any extra expense you may have.’
‘Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the terrorists?’
The footballer replied, ‘The one who had mercy on him.’
Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise.’
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tags: children,
i61,
silly,
stories,
writing
DIY design 5 - toolbox: images
15 April 2008 Jeff Gill
Okay, you’ve got a computer and some page layout software. It’s time to make something, but you need some images, and when you find some you will probably need to work on them. So where do you find images and how do you go from this…
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tags: design
Six proof-reading tips
8 April 2008 Jeff Gill
Access Elevation is a behind the scenes blog of a young, fast-growing multi-site church. Their graphic designer Ryan Hollingsworth has posted six very good tips for avoiding the dreaded typo. Go read them.
Mr Hollingsworth also wrote:
Good design goes a long way when you’re developing print materials for your church. But it quickly can become all for naught if your print piece comes back from the printer with misspelled word or misplaced period. Like a pimple on prom night, it doesn’t matter how pretty your dress is – everyone else is only seeing the zit. Without good proofing, one glaring error that would have taken just a second to fix now seemingly negates hours of quality design work.
Notice the word seemingly. This is important. You’ve probably realised by now that the pimple on prom night isn’t disaster they told you it was in the Clearasil ads.
Do follow Ryan’s advice. Make sure at least three people proof everything important. But when a mistake slips through, remember: It’s just a pimple.
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tags: design,
writing
DIY design 4 - toolbox: page layout software
7 April 2008 Jeff Gill
You have a computer. What software do you put on it?
Everything that you make, except for websites, is going to end up on a page. (Of course, that ‘page’ may be a bulletin, poster, sign, business card, booklet or PDF.) If you are going to build a page, you need page layout software. For decent page layout there are only 2.5 choices.
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tags: design
DIY design 3 - toolbox: hardware
31 March 2008 Jeff Gill
Before I get to the how-to’s I’m going to spend some time on the tools. Whether you are the equivalent of a master joiner or a gangly kid in his first woodworking class, you can’t cut wood without a saw, unless you are also a ninja.
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tags: design