MPC Website now LIVE!

Thanks to those who commented on the new-look MPC website. We are now live with a slight redesign at www.mpc.org.au - please drop by and check it out. Sorry Martin - the greyscale photos stay! They're a 'design feature...'

Sneak Peak at New MPC Website

After almost 8 years without a makeover, the Mitchelton Presbyterian Church website was looking dated and tired. Time for a nip and tuck - with Dr Derek Hanna to the rescue. Weilding only a scalpel and a set of handy WordPress tools, Derek has sliced and diced to the point where the old site is barely recognisable. There's news, there are pics, and there are clear links (we hope) to our popular archive of talks and studies. We're still very much in beta, and still adding content and populating pages... but thought you might like to take a look and give your comments while there's still time to change things. Please take a look at http://www.mpc.org.au/new and tell us what you think.

Searching for Free Stock Images

Keen poster Mike Pittman from Tuggeranong has submitted the following handy information.

Easy Searching for Free "Stock Images":
In an earlier post I mentioned YotoPhoto and Stock Exchange, which both provide free, high resolution "Stock Images". But how would you like to search straight from your browser? Both Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2 have a search box in the top right corner, and now you can easily add stock image search plugins to that box.

The following links will add search plugins to either IE7+ or Firefox 2+

• To add YotoPhoto - click on this link and then click on "I" to install the YotoPhoto search plugin.


• To add Stock Exchange - click this link and then click on "I" to install the Stock Exchange search plugin.

Now to search for Photos, you can just click on the arrow on the search bar, select the search plugin you wish to use, type in your search phrase and hit enter. Beautiful, isn't it?

Image Licensing:
A word about image licensing. Many images in these particular stock photo sites have no usage restrictions, but some do. Some images require permission (usually by email), some require attribution (a small note next to each image), and a few are more restricted.

I have set the two search plugins above to search for images that are in most cases 100% no strings attached. To do that, I have configured the YotoPhoto plugin not to find "Creative Commons" licensed images, because even though they're free they always require attribution, which I don't want on my publications. I have also configured the Stock Exchange plugin to use only "Unrestricted" images, which in many cases just means you need permission by email, but I don't want that hassle. If you want to search for all images, including some with slight restrictions, use this link for unrestricted YotoPhoto, or this link for unrestricted Stock.xchng. If you want to know more about licensing, you can find details on either website.

Powerpoint Tips

Thanks to Mike Pittman for emailing this useful powerpoint info.

Really Bad Powerpoint:

Recent Aussie research says Powerpoint often overloads audiences with information and destroys communication. But the experts say don't ditch Powerpoint - just stop being so complex - something Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CEO) both need to learn.

If you've been following Bill's lead, help is at hand. Seth Godin has written a very helpful article about curing "Really Bad Powerpoint". You can also read about good Powerpoint design on the Presentation Zen site, or Guy Kawasaki's "10/20/30 rule" on his blog.

The low-down is to keep it minimal - hardly any bullets, fewer slides, big images, big text (and not much of it), plus blank screens to refocus attention on your message. Because if it's all on the screen, you'll lose everyone, so why not save time and frustration and email the notes?

Styles To Imitate:

If you've got your L-plates on, why not try imitating some of the masters? Check out the visual simplicity of Steve Jobs, see his November 2006 keynote speech, or learn why Jobs is so persuasive. Another master presenter is Lawrence Lessig - his free culture presentation is 8.4Mb, but well worth a look. Others to imitate include prolific presenter Seth Godin or the absolute minimalist Takahashi method.

Look and Learn:

Once you've seen some of the masters, it's also worth taking a look at some good one-offs, like Meet Henry, Drive, Incredible India, 3 Types Of Teachers, or Flickr

More Free New Fonts

The creator of Fontin, previously mentioned in Design4church, has been busy creating a bunch of professional quality free fonts. Visit Jos Buivenga and take a look around. Fontin Sans is terrific... but the full "Delicious" family is delicious too.

Stock Photos - Great links

Mike Pittman offers the following handy links for stock photos:

http://www.yotophoto.com
This is a search engine for images that taps into several other free image banks. All are high resolution. All are free to use, although some require permission and/or attribution (licensing information is available for each photo).
I've got a plugin for my Firefox browser that allows me to search this site without opening the page first (http://yotophoto.com/plugin). There is quite possibly one available for internet explorer, but I haven't got the motivation to look for it
Something else impressive that Yotophoto does is search by colour - see http://yotophoto.com/search-by-color

http://www.pixelperfectdigital.com/
Many of these are taken on white backgrounds, meaning it is dead simple to remove the background.

Some other resources that may be useful;
http://www.picnik.com/
http://www.freewebpageheaders.com/
http://www.designpacks.com/ - by Darren Hester - pixelperfect, designsbydarren etc.

"Clarity" Conference in Canberra - Get the Notes!

Last Friday I presented a graphic design seminar titled "Clarity" at the REQUIP conference in Canberra. Download the comprehensive course notes and ppt file by clicking on the link below. (Please note, some of the material is drawn from previous posts on this blog, supplemented by other material and examples. It's a great way to catch up with previous design4church tutorials in an integrated package.)

More on Design Software...

Following up from his previous question on design software, Stuart Atkinson asks, "Do churches/ministers qualify for the academic/not for profit organisation version of Corel Draw($175- against about $800)?"

A few years ago, Corel was certainly offering the educational discount to churches; our church purchased through a company in Melbourne that specialised in academic retailing. I'll try to dig out the details.

Meanwhile, Rob Lamont's Ministry Blue site has links to a number of special offers, including the full Adobe Creative Suite for $580. It's certainly worth a look:
Discounted Software for Australian Based charities, not for profits , missions, ministry, church or youth organisations

Today's Churches Too Old Fashioned for 21st Century Audience, says Author

Here's a provocative extract from an article in Christianity Today:
"“Our audience are used to 21st century advertising - slick, professional, competent. They will hardly even glance at much of what we are offering. We need to chuck out the day-glo posters, meaningless jargon, hand-drawn lettering and naff jokes, and bring in professionally produced posters and witty lines.

“With churches facing declining attendance and struggling to make their message heard in an increasingly noisy world, it beggars belief that so many have a mend and make-do attitude to publicity,” says Creighton. “We have a life-changing message on offer, but we want to wrap it up in crass slogans.”

Creighton gives ‘cheesy’ examples of church slogans such as ‘Carpenter from Nazareth seeks joiners’, ‘Come-in for a faith lift’, ‘Seven days without prayer make one week’, and ‘Free Trip to Heaven. Details Inside!’."

Read the full article here: Christian Today – Christian News > Today's Churches Too Old Fashioned for 21st Century Audience, says Author

Which Software for Church Design?

Stuart Atkinson is looking for software recommendations. "I am currently using Microsoft Paint, Publisher 2003 and Photostudio 5.5(a free photo editing program which came with my Canon printer) to do any layouts for church activities(bulletins, brochures, powerpoint slides etc)," says Stuart. "I find that I end up sometimes using all three, because no one program seems to be able to do everything I need. ie Publisher lets you move stuff around to your heart’s content, but you can’t rub bits out or be very creative. I played around with a trial Coreldraw program, but it seemed too technical. Can anyone suggest something that is more of a one stop shop, but doesn’t cost three hundred dollars?"

It would be great to hear from regular blog-readers on this. I'll start. First up, if you've got a tertiary student in the house, did you know that Office Ultimate (with Publisher 2007) is available for download for just $75? More details at www.itsnotcheating.com.au However, as Stu points out, Publisher is a layout program, not a bitmap editor. You really do need both. Stu, take a look through the blog and find the link for Photofiltre, a free bitmap editor that's much better than Microsoft Paint! And for my money, Corel Draw is certainly worth the learning curve. It's almost essential if you want semi-professional results.

Kuler Colours!

Stuck for a creative (and tasteful) colour combo? Kuler can help! WIth active colour discussion forums and an ever growing range of colour schemes, it's a great place for a dash of inspiration.

Easter Ideas

Luke Tattersall at Parramatta City Presbyterian Church is running with the Easter theme "Jesus - Fact or Fiction?" Free copies of the DVD of the same title from Life Ministries are being distributed, with invitations to easter services:
Good Friday—9:00am
Jesus: Fact or Fiction?
The Facts Behind the Death of Jesus

Easter Sunday—10:30am
Jesus: Fact or Fiction?
So What if Jesus Rose from the Dead?

Two neat new free fonts

Free fonts are a dime a dozen - it's only rarely that you'll find a gem that's well enough designed for professional use. Here are two I've unearthed recently at www.dafont.com... they may even work quite well as partners, with Yanone as headline font and Fontin for body text.

Logo in positive - thanks Aaron!

After the previous post (below) Aaron commented that he thought the simplified logo (in positive rather than reverse) would look better than the original (more complex) version for everyday use on letterheads etc. So I've given it a try...

Simplified QTC Logo for Glass Etching

Here's an interesting challenge. With the rebranding of Queensland Theological College (formerly the Consortium of Reformed Colleges), we needed a crest design to be applied to the glass doors at the college entrance. There's a great new stick-on product that looks just like old-style glass etching... but the design must be simple enough to cut from the plastic sheeting. As you can see from sample A, there's no way the detailed leaves and flames would be suitable... so the design had to be reduced to simple elements that would maintain identity with the original design. This was far from easy, and took lots of hours. The result is shown in sample B. (The plastic sheeting is translucent, sparkly white - I've shown it in blue for your convenience.) In the end, I'm wondering if it might actually work better on letterheads and for general use than the original design. Any thoughts?

Eatons Hill Up and Away

After our orange and green Freshchurch advertising blitz, our Eatons Hill Church Plant launched on Sunday. The results were outstanding - the core group of 41 adults was amazed to be joined by another 22 adult visitors who had come along because they'd seen the ad campaign. Orange and green was a definite theme...

MetroWest Mailout

Here's the front and back of a mailer that Brisbane's MetroWest church is sending out to the Taringa community via Aust. Post. There will be one mailout each month for the rest of the year. Copy by Michael Bennett. Art by Martin Howard.
Michael, the interim pastor is preaching a series on the Sermon on the Mount. This flyer highlights the passage about not worrying.
Tools: InDesign, iMac, cartoon from iStockphoto.com
Fonts, Helvetica (Light and Condensed Black) and Aroma.

Getting warmer...

Luke Tattersall has locked in the title and poster for his series playing off the "Inconvenient Truths" movie. Here's how it's looking...

Pic 2 Colour

Here's a handy online utility for automatically generating colour schemes from bitmap images... pic2color. Seems to work just fine...

Fresh New Church at Eatons Hill

Our church plant launches next Sunday morning - so thanks to Rob Hanson at Photograve Pty Ltd, we're going to have some great new signs and banners. We're hoping they'll catch the eye. The fence banner (above) will be 2 metres long. A series of direction signs will lead to the carpark (below)