So often I am presented with projects that have a ton of text to incorporate. Now considering that I myself don’t enjoy reading TONS of copy in anything but a book, I have to navigate my way to a solution that will create a final piece that both gets the information to the viewer that my client wants and functions in an aesthetically pleasing way.

How do I do this? Well, my solution will vary from project to project, but for this course catalog I did the following:

1. I worked with the client to edit down the content. Once we have weeded unnecessary text out of the draft, we can move on to the design process.

2. Next, I determined how much space I had to work with. I was able to negotiate the client into doing a 4-page brochure which gave me more room than a standard tri-fold would.

3. Then I figured out how to present the text in a visually pleasing way. You can always find me nerding out with the task of organizing information. It’s a simple pleasure I have and look at it as a kind of puzzle. I ask myself: How can I say this visually and simply?

4. Finally I tweak the aesthetics until everything comes together to be pleasing to the eye without overwhelming it. My solution here was to use a single vibrant color against grey-scale images. By doing this, the eye knows exactly where to go.

This project was so fun to work on and I am thankful to say that it helped increase the church’s small-group enrollment to over 200 people. Success!

I recently found some old photographs and contact sheets from the black and white photography class I took in college. It was fun to see the portraits I developed of myself and my future husband.

The best part was finding the images of my mother that I, for some reason, chose not to develop. I absolutely love looking at images of her. She is such a gorgeous woman who has never been caught up in artificial beauty, but always looks radiant in her natural self.

There is something magnificent about her smile and her silliness that I have always longed to emulate. The tiny images shown here are just snapshots of the qualities that have shaped my entire life. Love you mom!

I love taking every opportunity to promote my talented friend, Rebecca Ogletree (formerly McIntosh). This girl has amazing talents, including one of the most amazing voices I’ve ever heard. I jumped at the chance to design her album cover. Her request was to incorporate a tree into the imagery as well as depict the album title: He is Beauty. I chose to use warm colors and natural textures to emulate the warmth of the music she creates.

And, hush…don’t tell anyone, but my husband and I were also lucky to be a part of her band and the recording of this album (Jason on guitar and me on bass guitar). Those were amazing times with amazing people and I’m so extremely thankful to have this album as a memory.

Sermon branding. What exactly is it? As a designer for ministries and churches, I have extensive experience with branding sermons. I find, however, that most people don’t really know what it is.

Sermon branding is…well…just that: branding a sermon.  As a designer, my task is to find a creative way to communicate the topic or message of a given sermon (or series of sermons). A basic example of that would be creating an image to be used on the big screens at church as well as a possible bulletin cover. This can extend, however, to include banners, advertisements, video segues, stage designs, web banners and the list goes on.

While many might think the purpose of this is to just make church look pretty, there is a deeper reason behind sermon brands. My goal, not just as a designer but as a communicator, is to visually convey the meaning or purpose of a message and to help it trigger something inside a viewer. I want someone to hear the sermon and have the images I created act as triggers in helping them retain and apply what they have learned. If I am merely assembling images and title graphics to just look cool or trendy, then I am not doing my job.

With this Gospel for Asia (GFA) graphic, I needed to communicate the basic idea that the sermon would be about this non-profit organization aimed at equipping the people of Asia with the gospel. However, more than that…I wanted to supplement the message with images of the actual people this organization is helping as well as a strong iconic symbol of the continent to enforce the goals of GFA. Hopefully, this design is something that remained in the minds of those hearing the message and helped catalyze the viewers (and hearers) into being doers.

With this project, I needed to not only create an attractive informational card for a college ministry, but I needed to incorporate a meeting time/date/location. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem; however, this particular ministry met once a month on different dates each time.

Simple solution: make the cards editable by hand! By designing a spot where the date of the next event could be hand-written, the ministry was able to save a huge amount on printing costs as well as precious time on constant updating.

In addition, the previous flyers for the Gathering were half-sheet size and many attendees couldn’t carry them with them on a regular basis. By making the flyer into a business-sized card, more people were likely to carry and distribute them. Win, win!