More On Websites and Design

Sorry it's been a while since I posted, was sick last week and I'm just now getting caught up on everything!

So last we spoke we were discussing the Navigation on your websites. Hopefully you have mapped out your website on paper and you have a pretty good idea of what you want the site to look like. This week I really think I should discuss with you the various programs that you would benefit from.

Adobe Photoshop is my favorite program for editing photos. You can also use Photoshop to create and publish websites... Below are some pro's and con's for Photoshop, we'll start off with the good...

Photoshop Pro's:

• Photoshop has SOOO many tools that will allow you to do pretty much ANYTHING with a photo.
• Photoshop allows users to convert photos into various types of extensions (jpg, gif, bmp, png, etc.)
• You can create animated graphics
• There are literally THOUSANDS of brushes available for FREE download to help you achieve different looks
• There are THOUSANDS of actions available for FREE download to help change pictures and achieve certain effects with the click of a button.
• There are thousands of free tutorials to help you achieve certain effects.

Photoshop Con's:

• Photoshop is quite complex and can be difficult to maneuver in if you are not familiar with it
• Photoshop is quite expensive
• Photoshop takes up a large amount of space and you must clear out your temporary files frequently to prevent your computer from slowing down
• The built in tutorials are not always helpful to beginners.

So others most likely have more Pros and Cons for Photoshop but these are the main ones that I personally see. Me personally... I am a HUGE fan of Photoshop... but I have also taken classes and read books to learn new techniques. If you are new to Photoshop I highly recommend at least reading a book. Watching YouTube videos is also a very easy way to learn how to do things in Photoshop.

Now that we've discussed my favorite photo-editing software, let's move on to some options for your website (Photoshop WILL make web pages, but I don't use it for that). There are several WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) programs that allow you to see what you are designing as you design it. Publisher, Front Page, (Photoshop) and I am sure there are several others. My personal favorite is Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver is another Adobe program (no I'm not their spokesperson... but maybe I should be :). Dreamweaver and Photoshop are actually available for purchase together as part of a web premium suite along with Flash (we will get into Flash in a different post), Illustrator (another photo editing software that I have never used but have heard great reviews on), Firework (never used that one) and a couple other programs. It is pretty pricey but may be worth it if you need the programs, just keep in mind that all of the programs together take up a LOT of space on your computer.

OK Now on to Dreamweaver :) Dreamweaver is a web program that allows you to see the coding view of your page (it looks like Notepad II with color coding) along with the design mode (WYSIWYG). This split view is a lifesaver when you are first starting out. If you don't know how to write HTML code, you can build your page totally in the design view. The downside to this is that sometimes Dreamweaver THINKS it knows what you want and will change your coding and sometimes that coding doesn't come across well in the web browser, so I highly recommend learning SOME coding at the very least so you can fix the coding errors. The other benefit to Dreamweaver is that you have the option of previewing your page in an internet browser.

***Let me stop right there and add this comment... I highly recommend downloading the latest version of Internet Explorer and AT LEAST Mozilla FireFox. If you CAN download Safari and Google Chrome that is even better!! The reason for this is that there are times when your website may look perfectly fine in Internet Explorer, but won't load in one of the other browsers. There are times when certain areas of your web page will not function in Internet Explorer but function perfectly in one of the other browsers. For this reason you should test in as many browsers as you can, and on as many different platforms as you can (Windows, Linux or Mac). ***


OK just to recap, for editing your photos I recommend Adobe Photoshop and for building your web page I recommend Adobe Dreamweaver. I will go into more detail about getting started in Dreamweaver in another post.

Web Tools...

So we've talked about flyers, logos and dramas, now we should discuss building your church's website. The web is an awesome outreach tool... when it is used properly. A bad website can negatively affect people's oppinions about your church (or business), long before they have ever stepped foot on your property! A bad website is far worse than no website at all! For one of my recent assignments at school, I was tasked with finding a BAD website, and making suggestions for fixing it. There is actually a list of the top 10 worst websites!! I found a doozey for my assignment! This site not only had flashing graphics, it had a distracting background, the words blended in with the background and visitors had to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to see the content.

When you are designing your website try to step out of your position, put yourself in the position of a visitor... What information are you looking for if you have never been to a church, if you know nothing about the church and you are looking for a church home. If you have small children, you will want to easily find information about the Sunday School department, if you are a young single adult, you will want to find out about the Single's Ministry... All of your departments should have their own mini-site attached to your main church site. The links to these pages should be easy to find and the links MUST work! There's nothing worse than a site with "dead" links (links that go no where).

I am going to focus on the navigation for this post. We will get into the appearance and content in more detail later. For now, I want to focus on navigation because in my humble opinion... Navigation is one of the most important parts of your site!

The navigation area of your site is the map that will lead people to your organization. The navigation should be easy to find and even easier to navigate. Visitors should know what page they are on and what page they are going to without having to search for a title. There are MANY free programs that can help you create drop down menus for your navigation. My advice is to do a google search and see which one you like. If you don't want to go through all of the steps to get a drop down menu, you can easily create a menu on the side of your page. A simple <UL> tag can help you create an unordered list that will make your items into a bulleted list. Sometimes a simple unordered list is all you really need for your navigation.

For our church's site, I used a program to help me get a horizontal menu with drop downs for the departments. The link to our site is listed below so you can see what I am talking about.

http://www.rosemarkupc.com/

Once you've decided how you want your navigation to look, now you must determine what pages you will have... The best way to design your site is to draw it out on paper, and keep these rough sketches so you can refer back to them while you are building the page. List out what pages you will need to make. If you have a Ladies' department, they will need a page, if you have a Sunday School department... they will need a page. Once you get all of the pages listed out, you can organize your navigation menu and see how many links your navigation will need.

Well I think that's enough on Navigation to at least get you started. Send me an email or a comment if you have any questions.

Flyers.... How much is too much??

With Easter just around the corner, many churches are designing and posting flyers to publicize their Easter programs and the special events they host on Easter Sunday (or on the Saturday before Easter in some cases). When designing flyers... when do you stop and say... That's it, I have enough graphics on this flyer?

We have all seen them, the flyers with LOUD colors, cluttered typing and jumbled up or pixilated graphics. These flyers do very little to get the message across to our target audience... the unchurched! There are also the flyers on the opposite end of the scale with very little to no coloring, no attention grabbing text and no details about the event. These flyers do even less to get our message across! (I mean really... what good is it to advertise an event if you do not tell where or when the event will be held?!) Somewhere in between there is a happy medium... This happy medium is an effective flyer.

Recently our Outreach Director contacted me for a flyer to send out that was not for a special event, we weren't promoting any fund raisers or any special services... We were just promoting our church. The only information she gave me was that she wanted a flyer to send out... I told her to give me some time because I wasn't used to creating flyers without a theme or an event to promote... Immediately after praying about it, God gave me the theme for the flyer! Below is that flyer...

The theme for this flyer is Restoration... which coincidentally is the theme behind our Pastor's Vision for our church (which I did not know about until after I had emailed him the flyer and he called me and read me his vision that God had given him for the church over 17 years ago!). The graphics do not interfere with the message of the flyer, the font grabs your attention and the scriptures help to reinforce the overall message of the flyer. The location of the church as well as our website is included in case people want more information or would like to join us. The downside of this flyer (that I did not realize until after we had sent the flyers out) is that I did not include the service times on the flyer. If someone DID want to visit our church, they would have to go to the website to find out our service times. This is a mistake that will definitely be corrected on future flyers.

The next flyer that I am working on is our Easter flyer. This flyer is a little more colorful and has more graphics. I also made sure to include the service time on this one :)

This was the first draft of the Easter flyer. It didn't make the cut! While we all liked the concept, the flyer seemed to focus more on the Easter egg hunt than the REAL reason for Easter and for our special service. Notice that the font is large enough that people won't have to get too close to read the message, the time, date and location is all included, along with our website and our BRAND NEW LOGO! :) (yes I'm a little excited about the new logo :) In addition to the issue of the eggs, the font for the date and time were a little light when the flyer was printed. Below is the final version that we are publishing this week.

The colors are bright and will attract attention, yet don't distract from the overall appearance of the flyer. The background is light enough that the message can be clearly read, yet also helps to deliver the true reason for Easter as well as the reason for our service.

Now that we have a logo, you can expect to see that logo on everything we put out, from letters, to flyers, to business cards and soon even on our envelopes. Our webpage has been changed to include the logo in the address bar (I'll discuss that in a completely different post!!) Branding is all about getting your brand out there. My goal is for people to see that logo and KNOW that what they are looking at is from our church.

Well I hope this blog helped you get your flyers designed. Don't hesitate to send me a message if you need any help or if you would like to use any of the graphics from our flyer. I'll be more than happy to share!

God bless!
Steph

Drama Drama Drama!!!

Ok so normally when you hear "Drama Drama Drama" you don't think about worship, ministry and praise... This time I'm talking about a dramatic interpretation of a song for the purpose of WORSHIPPING Him, MINISTERING to a congregation and PRAISING God!

Our Sign and Stick Teams are currently practicing for our annual Easter Drama. I started thinking about these dramas that many churches do, especially at Christmas and Easter. The question came to mind... Are we doing this as a performance... or for worship, ministry and praise? If our dramas are simply performances... then we need to stop and re-evaluate our priorities. Anything we do, whether it is a drama, skit, singing in the choir, praise singing or even preaching... MUST be done for God and for worshipping Him and glorifying Him. Performances are all fine and great... but not in a church.

Whether you are called to write dramas (or plays and skits) or you are just called to participate, remember that everything you do, is to God!

I'll try to post pictures and/or a video of our Easter Drama.

God Bless!!
Steph

Logo Mania!!!

This week has been all about Logos for me! I've been trying desperately to design a logo for my church. I had a vision in my head of what I THOUGHT I wanted... and when I brought that vision to "life" on my screen... I didn't like it...

I liked the story behind it more than I liked the actual image itself. One thing to keep in mind when you are designing your logos... If you have to explain the logo and what it means/ represents... then it isn't designed well... For this logo, I would definitely have to explain to an "outsider" or someone who doesn't go to our church, that the rose represents the ROSE in Rosemark, the half heart represents our desire to seek after God's heart, and the flames represent the fire of the Holy Ghost the Bible talks about (the elements together also make an R)... see... great story... poor design.

One thing that I did that helped me temendously, was I showed my designs (all 7 of them) to a friend that has never been to our church, does not go to a Pentecostal church, and knows very little about our church. It is VITAL to have an "outsider's" point of view when you are designing ANYTHING, logos, flyers, postcards or whatever you are desiging (including web pages!). My second attempt fared slightly better, but still not what I wanted... It felt more like a piece of clipart than a logo to me... numbers 3 and 4 weren't quite what I wanted either

Attempt #2

Attempt #3 just looked a little too busy and hectic and still needed the explination.

I like #4, but it was just missing SOMETHING... (other than the half of the cross that was hidden behind the rose :-)

Finally after about 8 different designs... I came up with the one that appears to be the winner. My Pastor loves it, my "outsiders" love it and I am happy with it. Here's what we came up with...

Here we have the new Rosemark Pentecostal Church Logo (at least for the time being :-)

In one of my recent college courses, we studied logo design and one of the major points the instructor stressed it KISS... Keep It Simple Students (she said Keep It Simple Stupid but I don't like that one :) Logos should not be so complex that they don't print well or that customers have to spend a long time looking at them to figure out what they are. Logos should also be recognizable. When people look at your logo, they should understand the concept and how the logo ties to your business, or church.

Well I think that's enough information for one post. I'll try to make them shorter in the future... I'm just SO excited about all God is doing and I have so much I want to tell you all! Please don't hesitate to send me an email or leave a comment if you need more/ less information or if there's a subject you would like to know more about!

Steph

Introduction

I guess I should start off by telling you a little about myself. I am a 28 year old mother first and foremost. I work full-time outside of the home and I am a full-time student. I am also the assistant to the Pastor of my church, as well as the web designer for the church. I've been "in" church for almost 11 years now. I was not raised in church and I have not always done what I was supposed to or even what was expected of me. Through God's grace and mercy, He's brought me through all of my trials and tribulations and has forgiven all of my stubborness and rebelious ways. HE saw fit to continue to work on me and change me into who HE needed me to be, not who I thought I should be.

Ok, now that you know a little about me, I'll explain why I felt the need to create this blog (which I know I know, is just another drop in an ocean of blogs). Honestly, I felt the need to create this blog to help others who are in the position that I personally find myself in. Once I finally realized that God actually had plans for my life, I began searching for my ministry. I knew I wanted to do SOMETHING for the Lord, but I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I have been a Sunday School teacher to younger children, pre-teens, and to high school aged teens. I have helped in the soundroom of the church, I am a choir member, I'm on the praise team, I have worked in the outreach department and have been the church photographer. I have helped in almost all departments of the church and still did not feel that I had found my part of the ministry. That was until about 2 years ago. About 2 years ago, I saw a need, my Pastor was in dire need of an assistant who understood scheduling constraints, and technology that would assist him in maintaining his schedule. I immediately knew that was what I was supposed to do! I was supposed to play a supporting role in one of the greatest ministries in the church! My Pastor's ministry!! Seeing that I am a secretary for a very large company, I knew I had the skills, training and knowledge to help him. So, for the last 2 years I have supported my pastor and helped him in any way I could, from typing letters to designing flyers to creating a webpage for the church. Over the last few months I have felt that there is more that God wants me to do (not that He doesn't want me to continue in my supporting role for my pastor, but that there is more in His plans).

Recently I attended a Music Conference at Indiana Bible College and one of the classes I attended was called Church Marketing and Design. It was in this class that God finally opened my eyes and gave me that AH HA moment. While I was sitting in the class, I had solutions to problems that other churches were having. Some of the people in the class were sharing how their church had spent THOUSANDS of dollars to have an outside company create their web pages (I created our webpage for the cost of the hosting each month which is less that $10 a month!). Many of my fellow classmates also voiced their concerns about graphic design and designing flyers and such. I had answers for them too! I immediately knew what God had in store for me! So I opened my mouth and I answered as many questions as I could, and gave out my email address for anyone who needed my help... my FREE help! My ministry IS a ministry of support for others! THAT is what God wants me to do! Just like Aaron and Hur lifted up the arms of Moses while he held back the Red Sea (supported him while he did the Lord's will), my role is to support others while they do the Lord's will. Through this blog, I will share tips and answer questions that will help churches grow and expand. It is my prayer that I am able to bless someone with the knowledge and talents I have been blessed with. I also hope and pray that I am able to help others who are also called into the ministry of support. "Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all." Acts 20:34-36