Designing a banner for this blog comes with the challenge of conveying:
1. God’s aka the Potter’s hand at work
2. Cluelessness of the Clay
Besides the concept, the color combination has to be decided on though I eventually settled for an orange-earthly tone. However, being me, I read up about colors and here are great sites recommended by Veerle.
Veerle’s Blog - Choosing Color Combinations
Color Schemer - Color Pix (this tool is great, takes only a few seconds to download, then anywhere you put your mouse over, it will give you the RGB, CMYK, HEX. That way when you spot a color you like, there is no need to re-create the color)
Color Lovers - An online community of color lovers with lots of information on color trends
Color Share Wonders - Great tool for choosing colors for web design, allows you to choose the background color, text and heading colors.
DeGraeve - Color Palette where you can enter the url of an image and view the color pallette.
Color Blender - Provides the midpoint of 2 colors
I come across a daily devotional reading where it recommends having a mission statement for a family. I, who at the point of reading was a little loss as to how to spend the evening wisely, jumped at this suggestion.
I decided and coerced my family that we will have to brainstorm and decide on our mission statement which thereafter shall be the authoritative document to hold each other accountable of any actions contrary to the mission.
With no ardent fan for this session, I wrote my own as follow:
1. To draw near to God (and reinforcing each other to do so)
2. To be the church for our family (i.e. loving and supportive)
3. To spread the gospel (i.e. love and witness, though for now, my most comfortable medium is through this blog)
This, by the way, is after giving it thought for 2 nights and then, I see that it is the same commandment that Jesus gave i.e. love God and love your neighbor (Matthew 22:37-39). I think it is good to have a mission statement even for individual, at least for me, I can have so many thoughts in a day not entirely loving that putting a mission statement down in slightly more tangible terms will at least nudge an improvement in me.
This is the first design book that I have read and it is a comprehensive one that covers the basics (as the title says!) but nonethless to be used more for reference. The book covers Composition, Components and Concept which touches on alignment, shapes, colors and themes.
You can check out Jim Krause on his website but it’s a pity that there is no tutorial or free stuff on his site.
A calling without a Caller is futile.
That may be just my problem.
Always in search of one source that consumes my everything, supposedly that should be God BUT
Always wondering, dabbling then doubtful as to what my passion is.
Afraid that 30 years later, with or without children, I will still be in the same state of search, doubt and lostness.
Then I decided on a last resort, I have to first seek the Caller. For what my friend said is right - you can’t have a calling if you don’t know the Caller. So here I am, willing myself to a 30 minute bible study and prayer time per day because there just doesn’t seem anyway getting around it.
I have to salute Douglas Kennedy, a male, who is able to capture so vividly the emotions, struggles, triumphs of the female lead (Hannah Buchan) in this book. The book is set in two contrasting periods, the 1960s when Hannah was a student, how she decided on a quiet life in Maine and how a one-night affair turned into a nightmare years later (when she is a grandmother!)
The feelings in this book: disappointment with life, settling for something less, courage to differ, courage to face obstacles are so real that believe me, I cried more than once reading through the book. Definitely going to read more of Douglas Kennedy’s books.
