Design, Design, Design!

So I do graphic design work on the side. Sometimes for money, sometimes because I like you. I have done a whole slew of things this past year from softball jersey designs, to save the dates to wedding invitations to stuff for my own personal interest.

Graphic design is great because it keeps those creative juices flowing, helps bring in some extra cash and allows me to use my creativity to serve those around me in a really practical way.

I am including some samples to show you what I've been up to...

First up my brother-in-law Peter is marrying the lovely Kristin England. Seriously these two are really, really, really, ridiculously good looking.

Alexandra Jordan Photography out of Tulsa took some stunning photos of these two and they then asked me to design a save the date magnet for them. How could you not when you get to look at these two pretty faces...?

Lovely.

I love the balloons such a fun touch!

In the spirit of weddings I designed a few invitations because wedding are fun, I can and I've been asked to design one for some friends who are getting married at the end of the summer. Couldnt think of good fake names so I went with some old favorites.

Don't judge.

Next we have the cover of my schools 16 page graduation program (yes you read that right.) Part of my role at my school was to help with the graphic design of various things. The school underwent a rebranding before I arrived and has some pretty slick new crests and a unified color scheme. So I was asked to update the graduation program with the new logo. (This was seriously fun to design because I had a lot of the senior girls in my art class this year and was able to make their graduation program really classy.)

Classy.

After that we have a softball jersey redesign. One of our friends from our old home group at Providence plays for the churches softball team and hired me to help him out with some of the design. I really enjoyed recreating this font Neutra Inline. Neutra Display Titling is quickly becoming a new favorite.

Finally we have some designs that I have created for myself. Part of the way I take notes in church is through illustrating the sermon. It helps me understand and process what my pastor is saying as he is preaching. May is missions month at IDC and to kick us off, David Sitton founder of To Every Tribe ministry shared a bit of his story and challenged our church with Matthew 9:35-38 which says...

"Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

He explained to us that it is a privilege to share the gospel. Saying that if we are called to Christ then we are called to His mission which is, spreading His name and His gospel. The word used in for the phrase "send out" in vs. 38 is ekballo. Ekballo means to forcibly expel. So when we are asking for the Lord of the Harvest to send laborers out it is strong and forceful sending out. The hubs and I discussed the idea of "go" and where are we called to "go" right now. We came to the conclusion that the way we can "go" right now is by continuing to pray and support our friend Matt Maloney who is serving in Peru with Pioneers. We can also pray for those in the IDC church body who might be feeling called to go plant a church and/or go overseas. As I thought about "go" more on my own I realized that I can "go" to my students it is very easy for me to get to school and focus on the lesson I am to teach or the project we need to finish. Rarely do I pause to think of my school as a mission field. So I made this graphic for my desktop to challenge myself to go and engage with my students.

In addition to challenging us to go. Sitton also challenged us to think about the worldview of scripture. Explaining that the worldview of scripture is one of warfare. It makes sense if you think about scripture and the way believers are challenged to put on the armor of God to face the enemy. Not that we are to go out and bludgeon others with our bibles but more that we are called to go and die. If we are modeling our ministry after Christ's he came into the world and died for you and me. His death led to victory. I do not need to fear death nor the praise of man because the battle has been won. He said, "We are not on a Christian cruise ship we are on a Christian battleship." He lost me for a second because I began visualizing a battleship running over a cruise ship at sea. I immediately began sketching and started to make the vector battleship you see below. I'm pretty proud of this bad boy it took a lot of time and detail to render it with basic shapes and five different shades of blue and gray. I have included my source photo. 

Source photo.

Vector

I'm not done. My next step is to create the cruise ship that the battleship is running over but I thought it was finished enough to post on the blog.