Ben Gray of openswitch, has an interesting interview with Michael Kelley, the writer of The Tough Sayings Of Jesus II.
I wanted to highlight the last paragraph because it really struck something with me, in particular sentence.
To Paul it seems that behavior is simple: Understand who you are, then live out your identtiy. So in terms of encouragement, I would say this: You can help a student know who they are in Christ. Then you can help them understand how to live out their identity. Don’t bow to the easy way of just telling them not to have sex, get drunk, and use drugs. Tell them who they are.
I think this really nails what a lot of people seem to miss. I myself have been guilty of it, we as humans get too involved in trying to correct people’s behaviour that we don’t stop and look at the Bible. We should follow the lead of people like Paul, who focused on telling people who they are. The more they understand who they are, the more their behaviour alters to reflect that and ultimately the closer to God.
13 May 2008 // Permalink
- This is an absolutely fantastic idea for an advert. Brains the Thunderbird puppet showing us his moves to Rhythm Is A Dancer.
It’s for a “new” bottled water called Drench which they are pitching at the intellectual side of the market.
8 May 2008 // Permalink
- iTunes UK adds NBC/Universal, despite US boycott. It’s also interesting that there is a variable rate to the shows, which is a part of the reason why NBC pulled out the US store.
7 May 2008 // Permalink
Jesse Anderson has redesigned his blog and website Echo Faith.
It’s a nice design. Clean and readable, but still using Jesse’s somewhat trademark worn stylings. It looks to me like Jesse was influenced or at least inspired by some of Avalonstar’s new stylings but it’s still clearly Jesse’s design.
6 May 2008 // Permalink
Inspiration: Jamie Oliver
One of the things I’ve always tried to do on this blog is talk about things which inspire me, mostly in my design work. It’s not always happened as I’ve wanted it to, but recently I’ve been noticing things a little more and seeing that it’s not just design work that inspires. So this post will, hopefully, be one of several which talk about something that has inspired me.
One thing that hasn’t come out much on my blog, is that I like to cook. My repertoire might be a little small, but I enjoy it and I’m always looking for something new to try. Recently I bought Jamie Oliver’s new book Jamie At Home and it’s inspired me to try a few new dishes. I wanted to bring it to your attention for a few reasons. One, it’s inspired me to cook through it’s easy, simple yet tasty dishes; and two, I really like the graphics of the book, it’s inspired me in my work as well as my cooking.
My Cooking
Let’s get started with the kitchen. I guess, I need to own up now, it’s not just the book that has inspired me but also the TV shows that accompany it. I know I wouldn’t have bought the book without them, the two are tied together very well, and Jamie’s enthusiasm is nothing short of infectious.
What I like most about the book is its non-threatening approach. The recipes aren’t your usual list of instructions, but are instead written in a nice understandable paragraph that, if you need, can be broken down to direct instructions. It makes the whole process of cooking a meal a lot less intimidating and gives the feeling of freedom. Instead of feeling like you need to follow each step rigidly, there is more a feeling that you can follow the paragraph and if you go slightly off it doesn’t matter too much.
Ultimately it gives me the feeling that I am creating as opposed to copying. It’s this which supplies, spurs, sparks, give it whatever S word you want, the inspiration.
My Design
The book hasn’t just inspired me in the kitchen. It’s also inspired me at the Mac with my design work. I like the graphics in the book, they give that organic and rustic feel which I guess typifies Jamie in his approach to food.
I like the simplicity of the drawn images which introduce each section of the book, and the texture given to the large type adds to the rustic hand-made feel. The general feel of the whole book enhances that feeling of creativity that is generated when cooking the recipes. This is partly why I found the book inspiring. My design work, as you can see from this place, focuses on simplicity to generate the right clean cut and honest feeling. Something which I feel comes out in this book from Jamie. The subtlety of everything in the finish just enhances it all. From the textured material on the cover, to the spot UV on the photo of Jamie, it all enhances the hands-on feeling of cooking.
Vodafone to Offer Apple’s iPhone in Ten Markets including Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey.
Darn it, why can’t they have got the deal in UK? I’m a Vodafone customer and tied into a long contract, which is stopping me getting the iPhone. Although if recent talk of Apple exiting the carrier lock-in comes to fruition, I might be getting it sooner than I thought!
6 May 2008 // Permalink
When I was younger I used to be fascinated with models. It was mainly model trains but I did used to like looking at models in general. I guess that’s why I was drawn to this article on custom figurines.
The detail is fantastic and each one is custom built off the base of an existing figurine. Jin Saotome then sells them on e-bay for whatever the buyers think they are worth. A fantastically talented chap.
If you ant to see more I suggest you go look at his Deviant Art page.
3 May 2008 // Permalink
Congratulations Forest
It was a dramatic afternoon but thanks to Cheltenham beating Doncaster my team Nottingham Forest are promoted to the 2nd tier of English football!
- Excellent way of visualising Tweets on a particular subject. I like it’s clear ad stylish presentation, and of course it’s set in Helvetica which is always a winner in my book.
30 April 2008 // Permalink
- Coldplay, one of my favourite bands have just begun the launch of their new album. The first single was aired today and is available for free download for the next week, I suggest you go get it.
My first impressions after a few listens are good. I like it and it seems a natural progression from the sound on X&Y, looking forward to the rest of the album which is released on June 17th.
29 April 2008 // Permalink
Commenting
Before I begin, I will state that this is not me turning the comments back on here at Electric Weekend. It is instead about what has sparked me to begin commenting on other people’s blogs a little more.
When I began blogging I used to comment like crazy on people’s blogs, often because I could and sometimes because there was something I felt they had missed. I also had a lot more spare time to go back to each site individually to see if there had been any response to my comment. As I got towards the end of my degree this kind of time began to decrease and I was less inclined to comment. I tried some solutions to track my comments but it didn’t feel very convenient and I was reluctant to leave a trail on another 3rd party server.
A few weeks ago I came across a possible self-hosted solution for tracking the sites I have commented on and for the last few weeks I have been using the public beta of Sam Brown’s Commented On. It’s proved very useful and I’ve found myself being a little more active when reading and subsequently commenting on people’s blogs.
Commented On is a great piece of software and method of tracking your comments. After I’ve made my comment, I simply highlight my comment, or the first paragraph, and hit cmd-3 to activate the javascript bookmarklet. It collects all the information needed and I just have to hit add site for it to be added to my database.
All I have to do now is return to the main page and click on the links to the most recent comments and I can track any replies.
There are several things I like about Commented On:
- It’s helped me to return to commenting on people’s blogs which is nice for interaction and makes it a little more personal.
- It’s self-hosted. I like self hosted things. My blog and tracking software are self-hosted, I have Sidepath for shortening links rather than using another service. It gives me a little more control, and ensures I don’t leave a trail on another web-service.
- It’s designed well. It looks great and is a pleasure to use, it’s appearance really enhances the user experience.
There’s really only one thing I wish that Commented On did, tell me when there has been a response (or additional comments) to one of my comments. Just something subtle on the main page like a badge in the Mail.app style maybe. I’m not sure how it could be done, maybe Commented On could grab the comment RSS for that post when you bookmark it and let you know when it gets updated.
Either way, I’ve really enjoyed using Commented On and highly recommend it to anyone who actively comments on people’s blogs.
Brent of iBoughtAMac fame has been going through the design process and asking for some feedback from the Flickr community.
I wanted to highlight it as a great way of getting other peoples opinions on your designs and therefore improving them. I’ve enjoyed partaking in the discussion and watching the changes and tweaks Brent has made based on the feedback.
Great idea Brent, looking forward to seeing the final thing.
22 April 2008 // Permalink
Veer has some beautifully crafted prints of buildings created from type entitled Type City Prints.
Each portrays an urban facet, illustrated character by character with a typeface that evokes the image itself. Illustrations are letterpressed onto archival, acid-free paper using brass dies mounted type high.
They really are beautiful. I just wish Veer shipped this type of thing outside of North America, although it might be a good thing for my finances!!
(Via Cameron Moll.)
15 April 2008 // Permalink
Kyle Meyer just made his already super-stylish designed block look even more super-stylish!
He’s approached the re-design in a slightly different way than most. Remembering back to the days of geocities where every page looked differnt, Kyle has tried to move away from the “standard” blog look. No meta data, just style and content.
I also suggest you take a look at his rather spiffing (did I just type that?!) looking archives page. Again, he’s stepped away from convention and moved from the standard list of posts to something a little more unusual. A little time representation is always a good thing.
Needless to say, I think it’s a great looking site, and an inspiring one at that.
14 April 2008 // Permalink
The Last Shadow Puppets and The Age Of The Understatement
‘The Age Of The Understatement’ is a wide-screen, bold and brilliant introduction to the band. The Last Shadow Puppets are Alex Turner (from Arctic Monkeys) and Miles Kane (from The Rascals).
I heard this track a couple of months ago, and finally today tracked it down. I’m a big fan of the Arctic Monkeys and this is a great compliment to the work Alex Turner has done with them. Looking forward to the album of the same name in a couple of weeks.
10 April 2008 // Permalink
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Big talk on the internets today has been about the emergence of video on Flickr. I’m quite excited, I unlike many people like the fact there are 90 second time constraints on Flickr video, it means we are more likely to receive interesting and creative uploads rather than rubbishy YouTube type videos or TV shows.
9 April 2008 // Permalink
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Until today I didn’t realise how amazing this would be. Now I can watch TV shows on catchup from the comfort of the sofa, a fantastic idea and I’m delighted my license money is going towards the development of services like this.
9 April 2008 // Permalink
This afternoon I got annoyed. Annoyed by Mac. So I found a fix. My Finder now works like it should be default and shows on all Spaces. It bugged the heck out of me that I switched me to another Space if I had left a window open other than in the current Space.
Show the Finder in all spaces.
The second thing that bugged me was that I needed a .Mac account in order to sync my Address Book with Yahoo and ultimately my iBook. What’s the point in that? Fortunately I found a simple solution.
So until BusyMac make a version of BusySync that sync’s the Address Book I’m sorted.
5 April 2008 // Permalink
The new designs for the British coins.
I meant to link to these yesterday but somehow forgot. They are fantastic and I’m delighted that they are being put into currency. I like just looking at them and seeing how they work, and yes I think it’s one of those design moments where I will be looking at it as I walk out the shop with my first coin!
3 April 2008 // Permalink
Feels Like Summer
It’s interesting how a few blog posts and a change in the weather can spark a thought and approach to something. I’m specifically talking about work here, and focusing further, inspiration.
Everything started on Saturday evening when I came across a post on Hivelogic entitled “Offices and The Creativity Zone”. As I read the post I identified with many of the points about finding the “Zone” and it got me reflecting on the last few weeks of design work I’ve done. Now that I feel settled into my first job a little more, I’ve had this slight feeling that I’ve lost that “Zone” in recent weeks. That relaxed feeling I somehow managed to keep with me from Uni as I started my working life seemed to have ebbed away a little.
Me being me, that realisation started to make me think. I obviously wanted that creativity, that spark to come back. I enjoy designing and without that ability to focus and find the “Zone” I’d find it hard to enjoy.
Fortunately waking up on Sunday morning to a bright and sunny day coupled with the longer days sparked the beginning of something. It felt nice and fresh and like the first day of summer. More importantly I felt a little bit of a spark returning. I wanted to begin with something here on Electric Weekend. I wanted to blog, but after starting a few posts recently and not getting any kind of flow in my writing I was unable to create something I liked to read, let alone what anyone else would like to read.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Monday morning arrived and with it a new week at work. Hoping to help my little feeling of creativity grow I began work. A small and quick project seemed to provide that extra bit of spark I was looking for, but it still didn’t feel quite right. In my quest to find a little more creativity I went on a search of the internets. I’m not sure how, but I came across Elliot Jay Stocks’ blog. Straight away I was intrigued. I liked the look of the blog and some of the posts were attracting my attention, more specifically for my particular hour of need a set of posts focused Elliot’s design inspiration. I began to read through the post and looked at the images he had taken, and gradually my mind started to turn. Ideas began to grow and I was off. My creative juices were flowing, and for a good hour and a half I immersed myself in creating something a little more interesting than the things I had been generating.
I guess what I really wanted to remind myself of with this post, is that it doesn’t always have to be design or art that is the cause of inspiration. It can literally be anything. I don’t need to just focus on one area to find inspiration, it’s everywhere in God’s world . From His creation itself to the writings of a guy on his blog, inspiration is everywhere we just need to open our eyes to see it.
My Photos
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