Worship Media Arts

Let’s face it, not all of us are artists. Many of us are designers, who create inspiring works using great source materials created by talented artists. The web is filled with a plethora of amazing stock art, but sometimes it’s hard to find sources at a size large enough to incorporate into a new finished design. This is especially true when it comes to print work.

Vector art, or art created using programs that use mathematical equations to represent lines, shapes, color and so on can be scaled to any size without any concern of resolution. In other words, you can make it as big as you need it, and it won’t break it up and get pixelated. It takes a lot of skill to create vector imagery, and the learning curve is high, but the good news is that a lot of artists want to give their stuff away for free.

Here are 5 sources for great vector art:

www.123freevectors.com

www.freevectors.net

www.multimedia-stock.com

www.brandsoftheworld.com (Be sure to read how these images can be used)

all-silhouettes.com (Warning: some of the silhouettes on this site are bit risque)

As a graphic artist, I’m always looking for ways to be creatively inspired. When I’m scouring the web looking for inspiration, I sometimes encounter things created by other designers that I know I could never pull off. One might think this would leave an artist discouraged. For me, the exact opposite is true. The inspiration that comes from studying mind-blowing design is priceless.  I look at things beyond my reach and feel a strong desire to reach further, do more, and learn techniques I’ve never used.

In the last few weeks as I’ve been recovering from surgery, I’ve occasionally found myself looking for new inspiration. I’ve found some great sites that I thought I’d share here on the blog. In no particular order:

www.motionographer.com – A great site for motion graphic artists to find inspiration. Amazing stuff here!

www.behance.net – This site features all sorts of creative inspiration from users all over the globe. It appears to be a great way to get connected too.

www.graphic-exchange.com – An amazing collection of inspiring designs.

www.redgiantpeople.com – The parent site of this site sells After Effects plugins but there’s lots of cool stuff here to check out-especially in the Guru section.

www.theinspirationroom.com – Several categories of inspiration to choose from. You’ll lose hours here.

So how about you? Where do you go for creative inspiration?

In our book Design Matters: Creating Powerful Imagery for Worship, we look at several rules for good composition. One of those rules deals with leading the eye through a finished composition in an orderly and interesting fashion.

Today I ran across this article that did a great job of illustrating different ways the eyes can be lead through a photograph by way of good composition. Of course the rules apply to graphics as well.

Check out the article.

While other types of fonts such as grunge and script fonts seem to get all the glory, block fonts are as important if not more to graphic design. Blocky doesn’t have to mean boring, though you have to choose wisely when using them. Here are 20 of the best block fonts on my system:

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve already seen more Christmas store displays and heard more Christmas music than you care to by now, raise your hand.

Seems like every year, welcomed or not, we get bombarded by the “Holidays”. Be happy, dangit–it’s Christmastime! And right up front are the usual cast of characters. No, not Jesus, silly. We’re talking about Rudolph, Frosty and all of their cronies.

For those of us in ministry, the shininess of Christmas obscures the light of Christmas. How do we get past the trappings of tinsel tradition and tell the story of the Jesus, the light of the world?

One way is through Rediscover Christmas, one of our most popular resources. In this layered phtographic animation, the camera zooms past Santa and the gang and lands on a nativity scene in a powerful reminder of why we celebrate.

We’ve got the video available by itself for the first time for only $15, or for only $30 (regularly $75!) through November 30, get a bunch of additional stuff including:

• versions with and without title
• shorter (35 sec.) and longer (60 sec.) versions
• version ready for broadcast television
• customizable, radio-ready audio file
• two matching loop / motion backgrounds
• two matching sets of still images
• editable Adobe Photoshop / Elements files
• matching bulletin image
• 4 page creative guide for worship planning
• matching web images for promotion
• 8.5×11 matching poster-sized print file for promotion
• 2×8 matching bookmark for promotion

Also, don’t forget our other Christmas resource on sale through November 30, Come Home for Christmas.