Vectors Explained by Mike Pittman

You don't have to go far on this site to hear about 'vector' graphics - but what are they? Well, 'vector' graphics are made of smooth curves, as opposed to the dots or pixels that make up 'bitmap' graphics. A bitmap image will get chunky or 'pixelated' when you enlarge it, but the curves in a vector image will stay smooth.

A few articles back, Phil talked about making vector images by tracing a bitmap, but you can also get lots of free vector images online. A great source of public domain vector images is Open Clip Art Library, or Clker.com, which hosts many of the Open Clip Art images, but with a friendlier interface. Images on both these sites are are public domain, so there are no copyright hassles and you can do whatever you like with them.

The format they use is called SVG, which stands for Scalable Vector Graphics. SVG files open in Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw or the free Inkscape. They are also quite easy to modify, because the bits kind of float over the top of each other. So, for instance, click on the text on the soft drink bottle, hit delete, and type something different. Click on the lime colour and change it to strawberry red in one more click. It's easy!

To learn more about vector editing, check out some great video tutorials by Heathenx (don't be turned off by the name). The videos on his home page can be large (~40Mb), but thankfully much smaller versions are up on YouTube here. Heathenx's videos are specific to Inkscape, but the principles transfer to any vector package.

So, watch some videos, have a bit of a muck around, and you'll soon get the hang of it. Remember to save your work, and there's always the undo button if you make a mistake. Mike Pittman, Tuggeranong Presbyterian Church

The Challenge of Atheism

Our annual Food For Thought Dinner is taking up the Dawkins challenge - but capturing the concept of atheism in a design is more challenging...

A Neat technique

"I noticed this on the Anglican website advertising connect 09," says Stuart Atkinson. "I don’t really know how it’s done but I really like the effect."

Agreed. Well done to Anglican Media's design department. (Sarah, is that you?) Clearly, it's a combination of vector and bitmap artwork, and there's an easy way to get something of the same effect... though not with the neat graduated colours that add depth to the CONNECT 09 piece.


If you want to try an easy simulation though, you can use Corel Draw's image cutout and autotrace functions.


I'm using Corel 14, which although s-l-o-w compared with version 12, offers greatly improved trace features.

Step 1 - Import a photo. The selection of your original photo image will determine the quality of the outcome. The simplicity and colour range of your background will be especially important. This one is a little too complex... but let's run with it.






Step 2 - Choose 'Edit Bitmap' to export the image to Corel Photo Paint. Use the ImageCutout Lab feature to trace around the girl in the foreground. Meanwhile, in Corel Draw, autotrace the original image with settings for low resolution Line Art. You want the resulting image to be as simple as possible.

Step 3 - Assemble

Paste the cutout image of the girl exactly on top of her vectorised representation. You've now got a bitmap foreground overlaid on a simple vectorised background.









Step 4. Here's the result. I simplified the vector background a little by taking out the background people and extending the areas of green.












Step 5. Finishing Touches - Add some text and compare it with the original image at the top of this post. It's a similar effect, but was completed in minutes...

A Beautiful Powerpoint

Garnet Swann from Eatons Hill's Freshchurch is celebrating the first birthday of the church with a powerpoint presentation on why they want to "grow committed, connected, clear-thinking and compassionate followers of Jesus." It's not only a great framework for a church - it's one of the cleanest, most beautifully designed powerpoints I've seen for a while. Here are some pointers:

* Lots of clean white space

* crisp cut-out images on the white background look fresh, and integrate the design

* orange and grey make a great colour combination, and work well with the crisp black and white of the rest of the design

* the grey 08 background is another simple and clean design element. It's a simple, constant reminder that they're launching a new year, and adds a nice dynamic touch with the slight tilt, and the edge cropping.

* overall, it's simple, clean, and not too fussy.

Top marks!

Absolutely Magic Vectorising...

If you're looking for a way to convert dodgy bitmaps into smooth, smooth vector images - and who isn't? - go to http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/. In a word, it's fantastic. If you're familiar with tools like CorelTrace, you'll be astounded by the superior results. And it's free. Upload your bitmap, wait a few moments, and the SVG or EPS version of your image is ready to save back to your PC. Cool, cool, cool.

Truly... this is astonishingly cool.

Mark Bookmark

Andrew Richardson has just produced a promotional bookmark for the Mark's gospel series he's running alongside the upcoming Church4kids program. "I'm quite pleased with the graphic and the colours," says Andrew - I agree. nice job.

No ordinary flyer...

Bryson Smith has been working on the design for a flyer promoting the Western Plains Christian Convention, which is running under the title "The Life Less Ordinary." He's come up with a beautiful design, though he says he couldn't find exactly the stock image he was looking for..."The grain works because of the region," says Bryson from the heart of rural Australia... "but the flower is still less blokey than I'd like. I'd love a crowd scene in which everyone is frowning and one person is smiling or something like it." Even so, it's a great job, and one that we hope draws a crowd...

Two New Books from Amazon

I've just received my copies of two nice design books - ordered from Amazon.com to take advantage of the current great exchange rate. The first is 'Before & After Page Design' by John McWade - the same guy who does the B&A website and the magazine. Loads of inspiration and step by step tutorials. The second is 'Robin Williams Design Workshop - 2nd Edition.' Robin is the lady behind the 'Non-Designers Guide' which started me on the road to better design. This is a far bigger book, with far more examples - but maybe lacking the distilled clarity of the original. Even so, I've already pickup up some practical design ideas from each book.

Church4Kids

Back blogging after a long break - sorry about that. Here's the draft of a flyer I've been working on, which will be re-used around a number of churches in Brisbane in the next few months. The toughest challenge was finding the right kid-shot to liven it up. Ultimately, dreamstime.com came to the rescue once again... though they've recently both increased the cost of download credits, AND increased the number of credits per image. These kids cost 2 credits, or around $US4. Hope they do the job!

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.