Feel free to use them download them and use them how you see fit. Just don’t sell them or redistribute them. And give credit when appropriate.

I hope you enjoy them!

I’m not really thrilled with the type treatment, but I needed to be done for the night. My goal was to start with something simple and go from there. The mark started with three straight lines. It took me a while to figure out what to do with them. The first attempt was this braided thing, but I couldn’t get the proportions of the thing right. Next time, I’ll try to save a shot of my missteps for you to see.

P.S. Here is an update of the video that I did posted last week. For video, I figure one per week equals is about the equivalent of one design a day.

Using Helvetica, I set out to create a little monster in a similar fashion to the one in the tutorial.

I guess it’s about moving forward and getting better, not checking something off the list. If you are wondering what this is all about, check our my project for 2010.

Day 9: Presentation Background

I had to do a presentation on day 10, so creating a background became the project. I gotta say, I did not come up with it on my own. I recreated one template that I saw for sale at graphicriver.net.

Day 10: Not Nemo

The caption totally explains how I felt about this one. However, I just started drawing and this is what I ended up with. I reiterate—it’s about working on being creative and stuff… Ok, I know, I’m just making excuses for not spending more time to grow and get better.

On a scale of proudness, this would be about at 2-3 out of 10.

I was hoping to try to work on something during lunch, but due to a broken copier (I handle most of the IT stuff too), 8:00 PM came around and I had designed absolutely nothing. And because tonight was the season primary of The Bachelor: On The Wings of Love, we have a plane theme.

A disclaimer: one of my wife’s good friends is on this season and so this will be my Monday nights for the next couple months.

Smashing Magazine recently posted an article challenging designers to design something every day for 365 days. I blew this off at first because—let’s be honest—I’m not really a designer. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew I had to do this.

So, I’m going to be sharing this journey with you. Every couple days, I’ll post some of the things that I’ve created. Don’t get your hopes up, though. Most of the stuff that I create will probably be junk. But, I’ll learn from it. That’s my goal and my promise to you as well. I will get better (designing stuff following tutorials will help, too).

As a sign of good faith that I will actually keep up this project, here is what I created today (using a vector.tuts+ tutorial).

Church powerpoints are generally ugly. That’s the problem. And I understand that most churches can’t afford the resources to buy attractive backgrounds or pay someone to make it look pretty. I get that.

But having “resources” doesn’t fix that problem. Even if you have a great looking background, the powerpoint can still be ugly if the information is laid out poorly.

With that being said, this weekend I experienced a sermon powerpoint that made me feel good. It was super simple. Two regular typefaces, a slight radial gradient, which looked white on the projectors (which was better, in my opinion), one small graphic, and a great accent color. Check it out: “Talking to God When Life is Wonderful” by Pastor Joel Slater at Portland Christian Center.

I think my favorite aspect of the presentation was the block-quotes (see pages 8 & 12). The key that made this powerpoint successful was simplicity. Simple and clean will serve you well when creating powerpoints for church services.

“It’s great to strive for brilliance, but it’s also important to be patient with our own
growth process.”

I recommend giving this article a read, even if you wouldn’t consider yourself a creative person.

Free Your Creativity: Overcome Unhealthy Expectations: http://www.howdesign.com/article/expectations/