One Minute Through My Eyes

Here's a video of 6 hours of photoshopping condensed into a little over a minute.  I find it very beneficial to see the process morphing from blank pixels into final art.      

I used GAWKER to record the screen shots. 

Before&After: Worship Guide AKA Bulletin

The higher the probability the lower the connectivity.  These are some words we try to live by at PVC.  So about every three months or so well evaluate the worship guide (aka weekly bulletin) and rework layout options.  

I have to first give some props to Cameron Smith for providing some inspiration on the new layout.  He took some time in a 3 part series "The Evolution of the Bulletin" to explain their process and how they got to where they are at now.  

BEFORE:  Here below is a example of what the worship guide was looking like before the rework. The finished size was 4.75in square trifold. While this provided for easy sectioning of information, it grew a bit boring after a while.  The design did not have a place for the eye to start and finish easily (learned from my days of laying out newspaper spreads). Another draw back was the lack of room for notes. Lulu would nudge me every Sunday about her notes leaking over to the front cover.  The reason we were in this size to begin with was to cut down printing cost.  We would be able to get two bulletins out of one 11x17 paper.  

AFTER: I stuck with a trifold format for the new layout. However this time I increase the length. The great thing about it is that I was able to get more content space while still being able to print 2 worship guides per sheet.  The note section has almost doubled in size.  The small outside tab is where I put weekend service content.  This section has small blurbs on what is going on in adult, kids, middle school and high school services for that particular weekend.  The inside got a whole lot of rework love.  The left side is our big featured spot.  On this particular week it's a recap of the last series with some extended resources. This is a good creative spot to mix up some more feature writing content or for a big ad.  The inside section is broken up into two parts.  The "Upcoming Events".  Under that is the "PVC News" section.  With the launch of our new site a few months back we started blogging PVC news to keep our visitors updated on what's going on around PVC.  I decided to take it a step further and include some of those features in our worship guide.  Finally, the last section is used to promo what's going in during our midweek New Community service.  

I'm satisfied with how the final piece came out.  Again, much props to Cameron on the inspiration and the team I work with everyday who makes the content worth readying.  The only con so far has been the folding process, for some reason out folder just doesn't like this fold.  But that's another before&after so I won't go there just yet.  

I've included a high quality PDF of the new layout here along with InDesign Interchange document.  

Before&After: Mexico Outreach Booklet

My goal as a designer is to take the idea and translate it in a way that it clearly communicates the message while still keeping true to the brand.  Once a project is completed it is really easy for me to check it off and move down the ever so growing list.  Much can be learned by taking the time to pause, step back and evaluate the process from beginning to end.   

In this Before&After series I want to take the time to step back and look at where the project has come from.  

This particular piece is part of a huge project called Mexico Outreach 09.  This is our yearly outreaches that are hosted by PVC.  Several youth groups come from all over the nation to participate in mission work across the border in Reynosa, Mexico.  

Below is a resource booklet that is given to students.  It has the daily schedule, campus map, note sections, Spanish 101 page and internship advertising.

Before

The previous booklet was done in a time that we had limited resources here at PVC. However alot of time and was taken into the binding of the booklet, with a clear cover, spiral bonding and plastic book end. I decided on simplifying the process. The end product was folded and stapled and cut to bleed.  Since we do mostly everything in-house I have to keep in mind how long the process will take to finish the piece.  It is really easy as a designer to come up with creative packaging and not realize the implications it makes to the production time of the product.  I strongly believe as a designer I'm called out to not only be creative within my photoshop window but also to be creative with the resources that are available to me.

After
 

Overall I'm truly happy on how this piece turned out and have learned a great deal by stepping back and looking at the big picture of the project.  I challenge you in any work or project you may be working on to take some time, pause and look where you have come from.