Last night I finished the design for a brochure promoting a missions trip to Africa that we plan to take in September. Along the way, I found myself against a few odd problems in Illustrator and thought it worth while to share their solutions.

Large-scale Texture Backgrounds

For the backgrounds of both the inside and outside of the brochure, I wanted solid colors that were accented by subtle textures. Initially, I created full size raster graphics in Photoshop, using textures from the always lovely CGTextures and simply linked to them from Illustrator. This wasn't too cumbersome to deal with, but as the brochure is 8.5" by 11", the file size for each raster was unnecessarily large.

After trying a few things, I found a nice replacement in Illustrator's Swatch Patterns (Window > Swatch Libraries > Patterns). There are only so many that come bundled with the application, but with the right layer blending and opacity, they'll do nicely. Plus, since each is made up of vector shapes, they tile to large physical sizes but maintain an overall low file size.

Bordered Images

I knew from the start of this project that I wanted to drop in the photos with each having a border of consistent look and assumed that I could directly apply a border (e.g. typical Illustrator shapes) or use the Appearance panel to apply a border (e.g. a nice trick to get gradients and borders on live text). Unfortunately, neither option works on linked photos.

I did, however, find success by first placing the photo, applying a shape mask (in this case, it was a simple rectangle) and then adding a border. You won't get access to the Stroke Alignment options (among many other options), but it did make it a lot easier to get consistent borders without having to switch to a page layout application like InDesign or Pages.

Patterned Strokes

My preliminary sketch had these patterned lines that I was immediately fond of excited to see in color. Unfortunately, the pattern used wouldn't separate with the "Expand" command and didn't result in what I wanted with different blending modes.

What did work was recreating the pattern by applying three new Strokes to the line via the Appearance panel (one thick solid for the middle, one white for the space and the last one dotted for the outside) and then using the Graphic Styles panel to apply it to the rest of the border lines. In retrospect, I might have tried using the Symbol Sprayer Tool, as it has done solved similar problems before.

And Done!

The rest of the hard stuff was easy enough to get around, thanks to CS4/CS5's new features ... Artboard Tool, Key Object Selection and Magic Wand options. That last one isn't really too new, but I don't think as many people use it as should. Oh and the last piece of goodness was that this is another design project that I kept versions of using git. Commits at the major changes and if I needed to roll back, I just ran a checkout. Easy peasy.

Sometimes ... having to deal with drama is annoying.

On a lighter note, this was lots of fun to draw and shade, thanks to a Indigo Blue Prismacolor pencil I found at work. The yellow I added in Photoshop.

On another note, I am again under my daily calorie allowances, thanks to the fabulous Lose It iPhone application. If you want to join me, just add me as a friend in the app.

I found some photos of FCC of Boca's week at camp and I couldn't help but miss those wonderful days of summer and fun. Making scrambled eggs for two hundred people, flipping grilled cheese sandwiches like a pro, morning devotions on dewy grass, racing canoes, showering off after crazy mud football, winning n' losing ping pong and carpet ball tourneys, meeting my wife-to-be ... seriously ... I love that place.

If you haven't already, go watch Tracy's video about the support that Gold Coast Christian Camp needs right now to stay open and continue growing South Florida's youth for Christ!

Rocky Ricardo from Oscar Cortez on Vimeo.

Here is another piece done in the wonderful Brushes iPhone app, on the way to Cocoa Beach. I didn't have any specific inspiration for it, but did think about that scripture in Mark:

The Parable of the Sower
Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water's edge. He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: "Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.

Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times."

Then Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." - Mark 4:1-9

If you want, you can download it as an iPhone-size wallpaper.

I am guessing that is why during the service, both my tuner pedal and BOSS Blues driver kept dying on me … it eventually worked out, but was still kinda non-confidence instilling.

I did however manage to fix a last-minute issue Jeremy was having with transporting a PowerPoint file from an elder. It was a ”.pptx” file that PowerPoint didn’t recognize and was being sent to the system extraction tool (ala a .zip file). It took me a second to remember, but of course this is because ”.pptx” is the new file extension for Microsoft Office 2008’s Open XML file formats.

Ideally, one could simply save to the older ”.ppt” file format before-hand from the new version the PowerPoint application, but if you find yourself stuck without that option, just grab this free Open XML File Format Converter tool from Microsoft’s website. Easy, peasy.

In case you missed it on the Flickr feed, be sure to check out this “mystery” sketch I did last Sunday. Everyone seems to have a wonderfully different interpretation of what it is, so I definitely want you to chime in. What do you see? Hmm?

Oh, and here are the sermon notes from last week. This week’s are on the Flickr. Enjoy!

Hopefully, I will be able to push out the new Southside site updates by tomorrow, but for now, please enjoy this little sketch and the notes from Ron’s sermon this weekend.

2. Refashion Our Preparation
- We need to get organized.
- Motivation
- Get rid of Sunday anxieties
- Get our hearts and minds ready.
Psalms 19
- I can be distracted by any small thing, if I have not prepared my heart.

3. Rehearse Our Procession
Ephesians 5:22
- A wedding ring is a reminder that you belong to your spouse.
- Sunday morning is the ring of Sabbath, reminding us that we belong to God.
- Mental fidelity
Matthew 25:1
- Make ready for the Day
- A. W. Tozer - 100 pianos tuned to the same fork are all automatically tuned to each other. It is the same for 100 worshipers tuned to the same God.

I’ve had the words of a song I heard at Status last week stuck in my head for awhile, and after shaking around in my head a bit, this wallpaper is what they turned into. I hope you enjoy, and for those interested, here are my notes from the speaker that night.

The song is called Hosanna. Here is one of the lines: "break my heart from what breaks yours."

Luke 12
"How ironic is it that the crowds where trampling each other in order to hear Jesus' message of love?"
"Is the inside of you lining up with the outside that people actually see?"

Questions to ask yourself before buying things you probably don't need:
Can I afford this?
Will this make me happy?
Should I buy this?

In the parable of the rich man, Jesus does not condemn the man for being rich ... Jesus calls this man a fool when his attitude becomes focused on self-serving. "Your life is not your own!" Our lives are on loan from Him. We have made money such a private issue ... This rich man wasn't talking to anyone about this ... he hadn't really discussed this plan of laziness he wanted to persue with anyone.

2 Corintihans 8: 13-15 - Rich towards God ... Do I fit the description?
Our possible responses to God about money:
1. Let me do what I want.
2. Legalistic ... 10% ... No more, no less
3. Ask the Holy Spirit ... What can I change?

Invite the Holy Spirit to inventory what you own ... Is my heart attached to this?
Are you greedy in some way that is closing your hand to giving?

Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. – Matthew 6:34

Here is an initial mockup for the site I am currently working on for Jim Book at First Christian Church of Winter Park.

The logo was provided to me and the main goal of both designs was a tight integration with their new identity.

The final design will use this layout and style, but the color palette of the other design.

Let me know what you think.