It wasn’t exactly part of my role to design these since I managed the welfare requests in an entire region — and training the trainers about welfare resources and self help groups. But since I had the skills, I helped a Springfield Missouri congregation create this game for their youth. There are different versions for youth brackets, missionaries, college edition etc.
I don’t have the game rules that were used nor did I attend the activity but here’s the sheets! Reverse engineer if you will…
Guest Post by Evander Hansen, Adobe (and, as a HUGE fan of Adobe Express and proponent of hiring graphic designers, I wholeheartedly agreed to post this blog article!).
In today’s fast-paced and visually driven market, the importance of strong visual representation cannot be overstated. Businesses that aim to stand out in a crowded marketplace increasingly rely on the specialized skills of professional graphic designers. These creative experts not only bring artistic flair but also a strategic understanding of how visuals can enhance brand identity and communicate company values to consumers. This article hosted by Sparkbark details several key advantages of employing a professional graphic designer that collectively boost a business’s potential.
A professional graphic designer possesses the unique ability to create a visual identity that resonates with your target audience, fostering instant recognition. This is more than just about a logo; it’s about choosing the right color schemes, typography, and design motifs that embody the essence of the brand. For example, think of the immediate recognition that brands like Apple and Coca-Cola command. Their distinctive visual styles were carefully crafted by professionals, making their products recognizable at a glance worldwide. This level of brand consistency ensures that customers can easily identify your products or services in a sea of competitors, reinforcing brand loyalty.
First impressions are crucial in business, and a well-designed visual representation speaks volumes about the company’s professionalism. A graphic designer ensures that all visual touchpoints—whether digital ads, business cards, or product packaging—convey quality and credibility. This professional appearance builds trust among potential customers, suggesting a reputable company that values quality in all aspects of its operations. This trust is fundamental in persuading customers to engage with your business initially and over time.
In the digital age, where consumers are bombarded with information, the ability to catch an eye with visually appealing marketing materials is essential. Professional graphic designers excel in creating layouts and designs that are not only beautiful but also effective in conveying the intended message. Whether it’s an impactful brochure, a memorable business card, or a dynamic online ad campaign, designers use their creative skills to make materials that grab attention and provoke action, significantly increasing the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Graphic design is an ever-evolving field that requires constant upskilling and access to advanced tools and software. Professional designers invest in the latest design technologies, which are often cost-prohibitive for many businesses to acquire and maintain. By hiring a professional, companies gain access to top-tier design tools like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign without the direct investment in expensive software or training, ensuring that the quality of visual content remains high and on par with current trends.
A professional graphic designer is trained not only in how to use design software but also in fundamental design principles including balance, alignment, contrast, repetition, and proximity. This training allows them to create designs that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also optimized for user experiences and marketing effectiveness. A deep understanding of these principles ensures that every piece of designed material functions well in its intended context, whether it’s enhancing readability, conveying messages effectively, or driving customer engagement.
Perhaps one of the most valuable assets a professional designer brings to the table is their ability to see the big picture. Designers help businesses develop and implement a cohesive visual strategy that aligns with their branding and marketing goals. This strategy encompasses various media and platforms, ensuring consistency across all channels. Such consistency strengthens brand identity, enhances customer journey experiences, and builds a reliable brand image that customers can grow to recognize and trust.
Adobe Express is a versatile design tool that helps both novice and professional designers effectively showcase their creative projects. Here are four ways you can utilize Adobe Express to display and extend the reach of your final designs:
Employing a professional graphic designer offers myriad benefits that go beyond mere aesthetics. It is an investment in a company’s brand identity, market position, and ultimately, its success. As businesses continue to navigate a competitive environment, the expertise and creative prowess of a graphic designer can be a pivotal element in distinguishing a company from its competitors, fostering customer loyalty, and driving business growth.
I picked up a new client late last year and designed a deck for them in December. Normally I’d design anything and everything in Adobe (well, almost), but when they needed editable forms with limited resources they could revise on the fly, I designed a form for them using Master Slide feature in PowerPoint. It’s not how I’d normally do forms but there is a use case for those who only work in presentation software. Random sample slides from the deck below — including a sample of the Candidate Presentation Template form.
The image below is a thumbnail cover image for an upcoming live podcast by sports commentators who I’ve grown to admire recently as I’ve helped them with their social media. The sports industry is new for me and I’m learning and making connections with sports journalists and reporters — they’re a fun crew! If you like to talk sports, give The Buck Stops Here a listen. They’ll be announcing their trademarked United States Athletics Hall of Fame inaugural class this week! Details on the image.
The image below will be slightly adjusted further to optimize size and resolution for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. if you’re interested, I’ll be the podcast LIVE on their TikTok channel as well. Join us!
As an Agatha Christie devotee, I found this book by Sally & Tony Hope through The Book Guild Publishing (a subsidiary of Troubador Publishing) to be a thorough collection and analysis of the mystery-genre literary devices she uses in her works. If you’re an Agatha Christie fan as well, or an aspiring murder mystery writer, this book is for you!
Join Net Galley.
What a tragic thing to have to highlight some of your best work. One of our son’s friends was killed in an ATV accident and I had to do something — so I did what I do best — created a logo in his honor and offered to do the funeral program. I was able to create the layout and donate the printing for the funeral program for the Bartlesville, Oklahoma service and provide a digital, print-ready funeral program for the service in St. George, Utah. This kid had THE BEST smile. I hope you’ll find these graphics inspiring.
The circle social media icon / logo above was made into stickers and used for social media profile pictures by Burk’s family and friends to honor him.
The program used in Bartlesville, Oklahoma was printed 4 over 1 (CMYK/Black) on house stock by a local printer (yes, again with Bartlesville Print Shop’s Shawn Roberts — simply the best!), and donated to the family in honor of Burk and his friendship with our son for his funeral. The version above was the print-ready copy for the St. George service that had a few different speakers and participants.
⏰ One of the things it took me far too long to learn 🎓 is that 🔥 “done” is better than perfect 🔥 . . . except for maybe brain surgery and rocket science. If I could go back and redo this pro bono 2020 religious invitation for a special day of prayer and fasting (needed now even more than during the pandemic!) I would absolutely request higher-ups change the verbiage to “It consists of abstaining from . . .” but likely they requested it and I was preoccupied with my full-time humanitarian role. Does the message get across? ✅ Does it still bother me it wasn’t perfect? ✅ Can I live with that? ✅
Two prayer and fasting invitation options below that I had designed for the Bartlesville Oklahoma Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) below.
Yes, I spelled “theater” both ways — the intentional “error” will increase engagement and better the SEO results for my Google search terms, so it’s a win-win for everyone except old-style grammar afficionados and most English teachers. As unofficial president of the Sharpie Enthusiasts Club, I apologize and encourage fixing the error with a Sharpie.
This program was actually designed in very early July on a rush basis because the original print layout person became ill. It’s been a few years since I designed anything for the theater, so it took longer than usual, but was fun to try and match the original cover style the original designer had created. I loved the custom gilt frames and golden photo backdrop I was able to bring to the interior — particularly the spreads for the major roles. It’s been a long time since I designed anything and felt like riding a bike after many years. The speed will come back as soon as I get familiar with the upgrades to the tools I used to use and some fantastic new ones that have surfaced in the last 6 years!
The show had all sold out performances — CONGRATS to Superstar Productions and the Darwin Theater in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia!
Disclaimer: I’ve been so busy working that most of the “What I designed today” posts are going to be a retrospective! I designed this horizontal funnel a few weeks ago. The funnel was used in executive presentations using Google Slides for Google Cloud Partner Learning & Certification. The intent was to illustrate Google Cloud learner journey progress through a 5-stage funnel. I had a difficult time finding a vector or raster graphic for a horizontal funnel, so I drew one in Adobe Illustrator! I actually drew two versions: a horizontal funnel WITH a gray path and one without. Here’s the original .ai file for Adobe Illustrator for you to copy and tweak or a transparent PNG. Not-so-incidentally, this fits standard Google or PowerPoint Slides perfectly.
SEE BELOW the FUNNEL IMAGE for QUICK DESIGN TUTORIAL on how to use PNG files and keep image sizes low in large presentations and documents.
Design tip: place the entire PNG in your file and crop the image to the part you want to use. If you’re working in PowerPoint, you can compress images to what is shown to keep your file size down. Here’s a handy, quick 1-minute video tutorial on how to save space by compressing images in PowerPoint — makes for easy file sharing and space saving files. It was an old tech tip I shared with colleagues in my last role but still applies for those of you who want to keep file sizes down for sharing without using cloud hyperlinks.
Much of the work I do for Google Cloud is to help partner organizations help their learners successfully become Google Cloud certified. I actually designed this during Q4 2022 which always seems to be crunch time for taking certification exams — both for achieving KPIs for Google AND for achieving personal career goals before year-end. If you want to download a PDF of this Google Cloud Certification Exam Tips packet, here’s the official Google linked PDF for you.
I had so much fun altering a basic knit dog sweater pattern for our boxer’s deep chest and long neck. It’s been a while since I knitted this, though, and even though I wrote down the changes, I’m worried I won’t be able to do it again – oh well, the fun is in trying, right?! Learning to enjoy the process as much as the product.
The pattern I based mine from is the Bernat Knit Dog Coat.
If you’re on Ravelry, let’s connect!
Most of you know I’m working full time for a “higher cause” this year and haven’t been doing much designing at all but was asked to put together some possibilities for a stake logo for church. Oklahoma City had designed one for their stake — story has it from a reliable source that the stake executive secretary just did it one day and it was quickly adopted — and it’s a great logo. 
The Bartlesville Oklahoma Stake, however, doesn’t lend itself to easily using an acronym for a logo. Pitfalls include derogatory connotations of letters similar to BOS, etc. ad nauseum. At any rate, one hasn’t been chosen so maybe they’ll pursue other options but here’s the contenders and a flyer that was created for a stake conference around the same time. Skills are rusty – it’s amazing what a year off from designing can do for that to happen! It took me twice as long as it should have to come up with these passable designs… 
Adam & Kizzie are coming to Bartlesville and it’s going to be a fantastic night of music at OK Mozart’s Ambler Hall. This is a new direction for OK Mozart’s music selection and this duo with their gospel, blues, rock-n-roll and jazz sound are sure to please. I can’t wait to hear how they sound in Ambler Hall. If you’re local, info & tix are at okmozart.com.
Technically I designed these billboards a little over two weeks ago. The traditional billboard goes up tomorrow and I hope to add a shot of that from the street as well.
Traditional billboard
Digital billboard
Digital billboard from the street
It’s not a full-on style guide but it’s a step in the right direction with a usage guide for the most common scenarios for a logo. I’m so excited about some of the concerts coming up at Ambler Hall! Check out Adam & Kizzie — they’re coming in November. For more details, visit OK Mozart on the web.
Contenders:
Lots of interesting musical things going on here but I didn’t like the femininity of the lyre shape as well as having the logo associated with any single instrument, even though the trumpet is very engaging.
Final Design:
The final design incorporates something that sets Ambler Hall apart: its gorgeous chandelier, donated by a patron. It’s the first thing you see upon entering the small hall and it is the perfect icon to associate with the acoustic hall that can also be rented for receptions, weddings or meetings. It’s elegant, simple and a good choice! Next post, I’ll list the style guide variations.
