Marketing and Management Thoughts

Little of us know the extent to which the work of men like Saul Bass (a personal hero of mine) have had on the visual language the world around us speaks. Saul was the first to use moving title sequences in film. Today these sequences have come light years from the early roots.

Title sequences can be great for video announcements or promotions, and for creating clean, simple, and easy to understand flash animations for a church website.

The top five title sequences of the year according to the NY Times are: (more…)

One of the things that I love about the beginning of every year is all the predictions that get made. Not that I believe almost any of them, but it gives a unique pulse of direction that certain people feel an industry is heading into. The design world is no different. Of all the lists that came out last month I felt like this was one of the better lists.

I’m not saying that we should abandon our current styles and designs to adhere to this list, but I always find it inspiring to see examples of other good work.

Smashing Magazine did a top ten list that is worth a look. Its full of great examples and descriptions.

1. Embossing
2. Rich user interfaces
3. PNG transparency
4. Big typography
5. Font replacement (sIFR, etc.)
6. Modal boxes
7. Media blocks
8. The magazine look
9. Carousels (slideshows)
10. Introduction blocks

Jeffrey Zeldman comes up with a pretty insightful and funny/painful list of top cues for a designer/developer to walk away from a project before it every starts.

Some favorites are:

#7: Client can’t articulate a single desired user goal. He also can’t articulate a business strategy, an online strategy, a reason for the site’s existence, or a goal or metric for improving the website. In spite of all that, client has designed his own heavily detailed wireframes.

And

#20: Client begins first meeting by making a big show of telling you that you are the expert. You are in charge, he says: he will defer to you in all things, because you understand the web and he does not. (Trust your uncle Jeffrey: this man will micromanage every hair on the project’s head.)

Make sure you check it out if you are a designer for a smile.

If you aren’t a designer/developer check it out to get some insight into that world. Make sure to glance over some of the comments to hear their thoughts.

If you are in the least bit responsible for design at/for your church make sure to check out this link.

30 Essential PDF Documents ever designer should download

You can never have enough references, resources, and samples to look to for help or inspiration.

The western world is undergoing a dramatic shift as we leave the era spurred on by the industrial revolution and we enter into a world spurred on by the microchip. Just as with every previous shift in eras we don’t leave behind the previous technologies, only adapt their uses and move into newer technologies.

This raises the question, How do we, as the church, stay relevant in the info age?

I understand some people have strong theological opposition to the Internet and the progression of technology. If that’s you, the rest of this post will just upset you. If not, keep reading.

First we have to embrace technology, and quickly. The church has gotten into the habit of letting technological things blow past us until its obvious we need to get on board with them.

So what does this embracing look like?

(more…)