So I was reading these chapters in Ezekiel and I was bored. This passage talks about how a "bronze" man took Ezekiel to where the Temple was supposed to be rebuilt and it was describing the specific details of how all the rooms and walls were supposed to be; i.e. all the measurements. And those were in cubits nonetheless, which made me have to try harder to understand how truly big the place was.
I was trying to search and seek the LORD out in what He wanted me to learn in this part of His word, but I couldn't get anything! It was SO frustrating. I kept asking the LORD but there was no answer. I enjoyed understanding the experience that Ezekiel must have had with the "bronze" man since that bronze man could have actually been Jesus.... and I think it was. And that made me want to seek out the LORD that much more since I am always seeking to get closer and closer to Him and to experience Him in all the ways that people in the Bible have experienced Him. But I was still perplexed as to what His specific revelation was to me... I didn't just want His general revelation of how the temple was built. Then, after reading these chapters in a two day span, I got it.
I got a very quick and passing thought in my head about how Dennis Leon from Pura Vida Church, the pastor that is going to be marrying us, asked Anna and I to write down our dream ministry. At that specific moment, it hit me. The LORD has VERY specific plans as to how His ministry is supposed to be run and built up. It is not our ministry. It is not our dream. It's the LORD that puts the desire to dream His dream according to His heart. The LORD delighted in David's heart not because David had nice thoughts or emotions, but because David's heart sought fervently after the LORD's heart. In the same way, Anna and I, as well as all Christian, must die to ourselves like Galatians 2:20 says, and try to find out God's plan and desire and dream for us instead of wondering how the ministry that LORD is preparing for us looks like. I also think that the LORD has been revealing this plan to both of us separately and for this plan to come together Anna and I must become one in marriage. Otherwise, I believe that only one of us being in ministry is futile.
Anyways, I am WAY excited about starting to dream with her again. We both believe that this year is going to be an amazing year where the LORD will be finishing the preparations for how our life and our ministry is going to be for the next few years. I am WAY excited!
Friday, March 21, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Ezekiel 34 - What the LORD Says About Church Leaders
I love this passage because it really puts it into perspective what the LORD thinks about His people in the Church and how they need to be shepherded. This passage also shows the importance of the role and position that is given to the Church Leaders and specially the pastors of the church.
Ezekiel 34
Shepherds and Sheep
1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? 3 You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. 4 You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. 5 So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. 6 My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.7 " 'Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD : 8 As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, 9 therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the LORD : 10 This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.
11 " 'For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. 12 As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. 13 I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. 14 I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign LORD. 16 I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.
Most sites employ DHTML, Flash, Frames and other fancy objects to enhance the end user's experience. While these objects are great to captivate the users attention, Google and other search engines can't understand them and will have trouble interpreting them while crawling your sites. Google introduced a new concept called Site Maps. Most people overlook the power of this feature. The Site Maps feature allows Google to understand your site structure and diagnose any potential problems.
A superiorly designed and laid-out Web site, along with excellent and good-quality content, has a lot more to do with search engine rankings as any other aspects.
A factor which is more vital than the quantity of content, is the quality of the content that needs to be seriously taken cared of, because you simply can't just put out a lot of words and expect your online visitors to find it interesting, and keep coming back to it for some time.
Getting a professional SEO expert or firm to improve your Web site is often compared to making an investment in your firm's core infrastructure, than simply paying for mere advertising space. In devoting significant resource and effort by utilizing a coherent SEO program, this helps you run a long-term strategy for your online business.This holds true, because when a business stops paying its optimization expert at some point after the campaign has started, it would still continue to get results from that campaign for longer periods of time, depending on whether they hire a decent, professional SEO company or expert. Below are more of the many, wide-ranging benefits optimization brings.
Most search engines allow you to find relevant web pages even if you only remember snippets of information. A company name, a running shoe, product review, or a person.
Getting seen on the first page of a search engine results page is key, particularly if your businesses' keywords belong to a competitive search query field.
As search is demand-driven, anybody who is referred from a search engine is hoping that your Web page would match their search query. If it does, and you show them all the information they need to know, and they may well become your next customer.
A professionally designed and optimized online Web site should stay long term in the rankings, as compared to PPC where costs and outlay are either ongoing or unpredictable.
Online clients referred from search engines tend to stick around for longer periods, and this will surely increase customer lifetime revenues via SEO.
Search engine optimization aids online businesses in meeting their various online marketing objectives, among these are generating leads, sales or by simply creating increased awareness.
There is more to search engine optimization than just marketing, as firms can derive many business benefits from utilizing this method. At present, the many advantages offered by SEO services have made competition in this field increase quite drastically.
These effective methods can surely make your site to rank among the top sites in most search engines. The high competition has also led to the rise of many unique methods and processes of Web site optimization. Among the key benefits of optimization is significant return on investment (ROI), increased brand visibility, attaining targeted customers, and generating higher sales.
If you have had no luck driving traffic to your website, you may want to employ an expert in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). When you start your search for an expert, there are several things you should consider:
- 1. Start by interviewing the expert. Find out if their style and philosophy will suit your purpose. Give them information about what you want to accomplish and ask them WHAT THEY WILL DO to help you achieve your goals.
Ask specifically how they will address your objectives.
- Are you interested in increasing website traffic, increasing brand recognition, or increasing online sales?
Are you planning to push one product or service over another on your website?
How will they help you accomplish these goals? - 2. Ask for examples of their previous work. Visit the websites they have already worked on and look at the sites. Perform searches with search engines to see where these sites rank on the search engine lists.
Do they come up in the top ten? Look at the keywords they are using on the sample websites and compare those to the sites that come up in the first, second and third position on the search engine.
Is the SEO expert giving the right advice to his/her clients?
In addition to sample websites, see if you can get actual references to call. Contact names and phone numbers for clients who have already worked with the SEO expert can be quite valuable.
How did the client feel about the SEO expert services? Were they timely in delivering their services? Did they deliver what the promised in additional traffic?
- 3. Find out who will be working on YOUR project. It may not be the person who sells you the service. You want to be sure that you have a good team of people assigned to perform various tasks.
One person isn't going to be expert in all aspects of search engine optimization. How many projects have these team members worked on for this employer and what success stories can they tell?
What reports will they produce?
At minimum, their documentation should include:
Your current web traffic results
A list of issues they feel you should address, and what they will do to resolve these issues
Progress reports on your project
Post-Mortem reports to demonstrate positive results for website traffic, etc.
- 4. Ask for white papers, reports and any documented processes the SEO expert has to offer. What exactly does the SEO expert do for his fee? Is his or her process logical and thorough? You may not be a search engine expert.
Nevertheless, if you look at the sequence of their processes, and the activities listed in the SEO process, you may find that your prospective SEO expert is using poor business practices to get information.
Or perhaps he or she is recommending unrealistic methods or unscrupulous methods to deliver good search engine ranking.
If this is the case, your initially good search engine ranking may rapidly change to NO search engine ranking when you find yourself booted off search engine lists for bad business practices.
Make sure you know where your prospective SEO expert firm stands on business ethics.
You may want search engine optimization but you certainly don't want 'keyword stuffing' without content or logical association to the topic that brings the customer to your website.
You don't want false keywords to attract clients and you don't want cloaking or doorway pages.
You don't need to know all the details of how these things work; you just need to get a statement of ethics from your SEO and have a value discussion with the SEO firm and its team members.
While it may seem that no online business practice could be THAT unethical, your business reputation and your status on search engines WILL be damaged, if your website uses artificial or misleading techniques to attract customers.
- 5. What will the SEO expert charge for your project? Is it based on a fixed price project or an hourly rate? Will you have to pay travel expenses or other associated expenses?
What is included in the price? You should get a detailed accounting in writing, so that you KNOW what you can expect.
Don't buy into the explanation that the price is higher, but there is a 'guarantee' of results.
Even the BEST SEO firms will find it hard to guarantee rankings and results when they don't know what your competitors are doing next and whether new keywords and action will be necessary next month to keep your rankings high.
A guarantee of ranking and traffic can, at best, only guarantee results for a particular day or time period immediately after the project is completed, and even THEN it is unlikely the guarantee will be exact in terms of results.
There are many other personal considerations you may have when hiring an expert in SEO.
However, if you do nothing other than ask these five questions and get the information included in this research, you should be very pleased with the Search Engine Optimization expert you hire.
I hear you! Everyone knows there are literally DOZENS of ways to drive traffic to your sites. But what a pain looking for and buying all the different products out there! Web Traffic Pack solves that problem for you...
A number of articles and white papers have been written on this topic. Before the days of Google and Web 2.0 there was little attention paid to the topic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In the early days of the Internet Era you could get a site listed on Yahoo! or Altavista by merely submitting it. As long as it wasn't too complicated for search engines to understand you could get your site listed within 2 to 3 days. But Yahoo! and Altavista couldn't keep up with the flood of URL submissions. As web evolved, more and more companies began to embrace the online medium and the potential for using it as a marketing tool.
In the late 90's something dramatic happened. Google introduced PageRank, a system of ranking Web pages based on their importance and other factors. Google searchbots (or spiders) crawl through the world wide web following links, indexing and categorizing pages based on their content and relevancy. The more links a page has, the more likely they will be picked up and indexed by searchbots. In order to allow spiders to understand the site content, web masters needed to follow certain rules like placing proper keywords, title tags and content in each web page. At this point search became more of an art than a science. Companies can no longer expect to simply add their sites to directories and wait for them to appear on the top of search engine results.
The Search Engine market is fragmented, with Google commanding the majority of the market share (over 80%). If there is one search engine that you want to focus on, that would be Google. Microsoft's announced bid for Yahoo! (subjected to regulatory approval) might increase Microsoft's share in the search market, but I still don't think they will be able to challenge Google's dominance anytime in the near future.
In 2007, a survey concluded that over 50% of traffic originated at a search engine. According to a 2007 report published by eMarketer, over 20% of U.S Internet users use a search engine at least 4-5 times in a day. According to Internet Measurement firm, Hitwise, Search Engines were the highest sources of traffic during the peak Christmas shopping season, representing 57% of upstream traffic. Google alone was responsible for 18% of the upstream traffic, followed by Yahoo with 6%.
The above figure highlights the importance of SEO as a potential marketing tool in attracting visitors to your site.
A few ideas of ways to implement SEO:
Before you start your SEO implementation, it is a good practice to analyze your current state. Evaluate your goals and priorities. Determine your plan of attack. After you implement a solution do not expect immediate results. Don't be tempted to go straight for a Price Per Click (PPC) campaign such as Google AdWords or Yahoo! Small Business marketing to promote your site. As I pointed in the previous sections, what determines your site's placement involves more than one factor.
Some companies take an easier route by hiring optimization firms that use shady techniques to increase search rankings. These optimization firms typically guarantee linking in from 50 or more sites (aka link-spamming). They are linked to doorway pages or parked domains that may work short term, but it is only a matter of time before the search spiders detect and penalize the site. Google even makes a point about this on their SEO support page.
As we noted in the first section, PageRank is a value that Google gives to a page based on the number of links pointing to your site. So how do you get others to provide links to your site? You can try the following methods:
- * Register with major search directories (Yahoo!, OpenDirectory, MSN)
* Send press releases about your product or idea that generates free links
* Hire an expert to write something positive about your product and publish in an industry newsletter, magazine or a local newspaper
* Ask to be a featured or sponsored client in a major portal site
* Ask employees to mention you and your products
* Enlist in a local library's site
* Make reciprocal link requests
* Mention your site in major Blogging sites, Yahoo! Answers and Google Groups
* Respond to blogs or queries in Yahoo! Answers (just don't over-do it)
* Syndicate your content through external RSS feeds to different sites
* Use announcement sites like URLwire to announce your site
* Consider ad campaigns through Google AdWords
Most sites employ DHTML, Flash, Frames and other fancy objects to enhance the end user's experience. While these objects are great to captivate the users attention, Google and other search engines can't understand them and will have trouble interpreting them while crawling your sites. Google introduced a new concept called Site Maps. Most people overlook the power of this feature. The Site Maps feature allows Google to understand your site structure and diagnose any potential problems.
Many sites use session IDs to track a user's path to the site. If the session IDs vary on each visit, Google and most other search engines simply ignore the page, resulting in it not being indexed.
You can avoid this scenario by doing two things:
- * Store session information in a cookie on the user's computer
* If the request is made from a searchbot, you can have your web server serve pages without any session IDs, hence allowing the searchbot to navigate through your site without using any session IDs
Create a narrow targeted keywords list that you think identifies your site properly. Check Yahoo's Overture (searchmarketing.yahoo.com) or WordTracker (www.wordtracker.com) for ideas on selecting keywords. You can find out the effectiveness of your keywords. In WordTracker for instance, you can input your keyword to see how often people have searched for it. It also tells you how often a term is searched and how many pages appear for that term.
Once you identify the keywords, what do you do with them? One obvious thing to do is to add them inside the Meta Keywords tag. In addition, use the keywords generously throughout your page content. Search Engines love a site with fresh descriptive content filled with keywords. This means constantly updating your site with new, fresh content is vital to your overall SEO strategy.
One great way to generate traffic is to simply pay for it. Since Google pretty much dominates the PPC market, you want to focus your ad campaign effort on using Google AdWords. Google's AdWords Network not only includes Google's site, but also About.com, The New York Times, InfoSpace, Business.com, Lycos and a few others. So paying per click (PPC) on Google AdWords allows your ad to be featured on all the sites that are part of the Google network. Keep in mind that in most PPC systems, the top bid gets the top position. Be sure to use relevant keywords when associating with search engine ads.
Combining the steps outlined above and running ad campaigns on Google's AdWords Network will provide ultimate exposure to your site.
Measuring your returns on SEO investments is crucial. Google's PageRank feature in the toolbar can help estimate your site's importance in the Google index. You can perform a search on Google for the word "link:yoursite.com" to see how many back links your site has. This is a good indicator of how many sites are linked to your site.
One way to track the traffic to your site is to use Google Analytics. This tool allows you to see the traffic variables such as a) Absolute Unique Visitors, b) Page Views, c) Bounce Rates and d) Average Time Spent. In addition, you can also set conversion goals to determine how many of those leads converted to an effective sale (or some other action you describe), which is a key way to measure ROI. Tracking in helps you evaluate the efforts of your marketing strategy whether it is a PPC campaign, banner ads or natural SEO. Tracking also allows you to gain visibility into your end user's behavior and time spent on each page, which allows you to make a decision on where to place ads.
Like any other software solution implementation, SEO implementation needs to be constantly monitored and updated. A continuous enhancement to optimization techniques, tracking, keywords, content, blog entries and ad campaigns is necessary to keep your site rank high in the search results. To stay on top, you not only have to outdo your competition but also keep content fresh. This will not only bring new visitors to your site, but also the keep the visitors returning to your site.
To learn more about Search Engine Optimization and other topics around Search Marketing, please visit http://www.seosolutions.biz. Chan Komagan is a Digital Media Strategist and he provides consulting work to both profit and non-profit organizations in Search Marketing. You can reach him at chan@seosolutions.biz
The wild and often oddly mythical world of search engine optimization (SEO) is filled with old wives' tales, facts, and a mix of the two. Separating fact from fiction is often far more complicated than you might think possible but with a few cold and hard facts as well as the do's and don'ts of SEO, you will be well on your way to having a site and content that search engines like and that will receive highly targeted web traffic.
1. Keyword density is an important component for SEO. Although not the one nail on which to hang your hat, the more desirable keywords your article contains, the better off you will be and the more visitors search engines will send your way. In other words, if you are writing about the importance of SEO and do not use this term until your final sentence, the odds are good that you have missed the boat. On the other hand, overuse the keywords so as to goad search engines to send you visitors, and you will have web traffic that jumps ship as soon as they read the beginning of your articles and the impossible linking of a bunch of buzz words and key terms. The trick to keyword density is balance.
2. SEO requires competition and niche thinking. If you are writing about the DeBeers lawsuit, you can bet that there will be a plethora of articles and websites dedicated to the same topic. While you may have some strong competition for the most commonly used keywords and phrases, make sure you also bolster your article or site with some rarer ones that the majority of your competition will not think about: the niche words. Thus, address the needs of the commercial diamond users at least in passing while offering information to the private consumer front and center.
3. Without relevant keywords, your SEO attempts are in vain. Who has not received the spam emails that contain gibberish of highly sought after terms? Sure, they might have tricked your spam filter, but they probably also ticked you off and you won't be caught dead buying from those spammers. Turning this around, do not try to trick visitors to come to your site by enlisting much sought after keywords that have nothing to do with the site's actual content.
Of course, no amount of SEO tweaking can replace the unique content to a website that attracts new visitors, and the sticky content that keeps them coming back. Do's and don'ts of SEO may cover the nuts and bolts approaches possible, but even the most relevant and organized by the book website will fail to appeal to a visitor if it does not have that wow factor which will set it apart from all the other websites that have read the same manual. It is in this little wildcard that the true genius of SEO strategies is revealed: the marriage between abiding by rules through the following of algorithms and high level creativity born of an understanding of consumer behavior.
Given the importance of search engines in driving quality traffic to your site, it's no wonder that Search Engine Optimization or SEO is such a vital element to the success of any web site.While there's loads of good SEO advice available for your use, there's plenty of bad advice too, which can actually do more harm than good.
The following are three SEO myths.
The old mantra "The more links the better" doesn't hold as much water as it used to. It may have worked earlier, when the Internet was more manageable. In keeping with an ever growing Internet and increasing misuse of link exchanges, search engines have now adopted different, varying criteria for ranking web sites.
Today, an over abundance of links from irrelevant, low-ranking sites and link farms could actually cause you more harm than good - getting your site penalized. While links continue to be vital to the success of your website, what is important for SEO purposes is that you use a wide variety of anchor text and seek out one way links only with sites that are relevant to yours.
There are numerous SEO companies that promise to get you ranked high with Google and other major search engines. They may make good on their promise and get you ranked in the top ten. But then what? Don't forget that every other web site owner is going to be trying the same strategy and the competition does not stop once you've positioned yourself on the first page.
In order to stay at the top, you will need to keep your web site continuously updated, employ innovative new methods to keep attracting visitors to your site, and try to keep getting a steady flow of one way links.
There are several ways to do this:
• Personalize your website with latest updates on lifestyle, technology or finance.
• Write articles and submit them to article directories.
• Join a blog that's relevant to your business and post valuable comments; don't forget to include a link with your signature.
• Write testimonials for other web sites in exchange for a one way link to your site.
We've all seen the Ask commercials demonstrating how much more user friendly their search is. But, a commercial is one thing and reality is another.
It's really a matter of optimizing for the big three (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) and letting everything else fall where it may.
If you have a website that is well designed and content rich, it is sure to please almost all major search engines. What's more, you are likely to build a significant portfolio of search terms where different terms attract traffic from different search engines.
But, spending your time trying to please every search engine is an exercise in futility. You're better off spending your time optimizing elsewhere.
Paul Majestyck is the publisher of EZ Affiliate Profits :Great Articles Top Notch Resources Free e-Courses Product Reviews & Videos To Help You Shorten The Online Learning-Curve And Start Generating Income visit=> http://ezaffiliateprofits.blogspot.com Also be sure to visit his Digital Webstore eNetMall :The #1 Digitital program and product store on the internet => http://www.enetmall.net
Monday, March 10, 2008
Ezekiel 24-25
Man these peeps got it bad. One thing that stuck out to me today was these two verses: Ezekiel 24:13-14.
I pray LORD that you have mercy on me and that you continue to mold me and shape me according to Your heart that I want within me. That I NEED within me. However, LORD if you ever deem me to be in such disobedience that You decide to not hold back your anger, I pray that I say, "Praise God" for all you do. "Praise God" for correcting me as a loving father.
Thank you LORD for loving me so much that even when I prostitute my heart to other things, you are still there... in punishment and anger, but there...
13 " 'Now your impurity is lewdness. Because I tried to cleanse you but you would not be cleansed from your impurity, you will not be clean again until my wrath against you has subsided.
14 " 'I the LORD have spoken. The time has come for me to act. I will not hold back; I will not have pity, nor will I relent. You will be judged according to your conduct and your actions, declares the Sovereign LORD.' "
I do not EVER want to be in this position where the LORD has attempted to cleanse me of the wickedness in my heart and because of my lack of reaction to His will for me, He stops to hold back His anger and judgment. Man that's a bad place to be. I'm sure that I've been there in the past once or twice and I never want to be there again!I pray LORD that you have mercy on me and that you continue to mold me and shape me according to Your heart that I want within me. That I NEED within me. However, LORD if you ever deem me to be in such disobedience that You decide to not hold back your anger, I pray that I say, "Praise God" for all you do. "Praise God" for correcting me as a loving father.
Thank you LORD for loving me so much that even when I prostitute my heart to other things, you are still there... in punishment and anger, but there...
How to make a Logo
So I'm continuing to learn about visual design and especially logo design so that I can make the logo for our web site. C is also coming up with stuff on his own and in an attempt to have us both learn more about this I googled logo designs tutorials and here's what I came up with... It's pretty good :) thanks Gary Simon...
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Adobe Photoshop
I will be using Adobe Photoshop CS2 to design this logo. Many swear by illustrator, but I believe for the purposes of making a tutorial, it'd be best to use photoshop as it will cater to a wider audience. More people have used photoshop than Illustrator. Besides, I've created 95% of all my logos in Photoshop, so take what you will.
Let's Start : The Project
A buddy of mine runs a gaming website, bluelaguna.net, and he has wanted a new logo for some time, so I agreed to do it for this tutorial. So let's take a look at the current logo:
(Note: The image above isn't a logo, it's an entire header. The actual name bluelaguna.net along with the slogan is the actual logo. I thought it would be a good idea to show the entire header though to see how it reacts with the overall design.)
One of the most important things this logo lacks is readability. When a user visits a web site, or visits any medium in which a logo is displayed, the first thing that hits them should be the logo. And for some reason or another, the first place us humans look is the upper left hand corner of a site. The current logo is placed in the middle of the header and the small font and the dark blue in "BLUE" is hard to read.
There's also nothing exciting with this logo. For a logo to be effective, it has to "brand" an image, it needs to stick in your head. All this logo is is times new roman on caps lock.
Now that we've gone over why their current logo is not suitable, let's begin with the actual tutorial.
Gathering Information
It's important to always know the specifics of what you or the client is looking for before you start. Generally for most projects, I only need to ask the client 5 questions:
| 1. Name of the service/product: | BlueLaguna.Net | |
| 2. Any slogans to use?: | "Your #1 Source for RPG Media" | |
| 3. Any specific color schemes in mind?: | Match the current design | |
| 4. What are you trying to convey through the logo?: | Serious game-related site. | |
| 5. Any other specifics: | You don't have to use the current header design. Get crackin' |
Pretty straight forward, now we know what we have to work with.
1. Setting up your Document in Photoshop
- Once you have photoshop open, go to File -> New. Then specify the name of the logo, and a width of 600 and a height of 500.
- Then click "OK" (Refer to the screenshot below).
After you click "OK" Your setup should look like this:
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2. Experiment with Font Selections
As a starting point, I always experiment with a font that I think will work well with the logo. You have to develop an eye for what font will or will not work, with the specifics of the project in mind. Since for bluelaguna we're trying to focus on a serious yet gamer'ish feel, a serious font selection might be the best bet. Having yourself an arsenal of fonts is very important. I have several thousand myself.
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3. Good and Bad Font Selections
Since our goal with this particular logo is to be serious, we need serious looking fonts. It simply takes time to develop an eye for what is serious and what isn't.
Here are a few examples of bad font selections for this project: The first logo (the top), has a very laid back, fun / unprofessional tone to it. The second logo is simply "goofy" looking, and it's generally always bad to select a logo that has an inherent shadow. The third logo is way too "ragged" with its frills all over the place, definitely a no go. Calligraphy logos are generally outdated, especially ones with weird "drops" coming from them. The last logo you can hardly even read. Remember, a logo should be easily readable. |  |
Here are a few examples of good font selections for this project: All of these logos with the exception of 4 and 6 are pretty much similar. #1, 2, 3 & 5 are all very simplistic and serious in appearance. Logo 4 still appears "serious" even though it is significantly different from the rest. I chose this just in case I want to experiment with piecing together fonts for the word "Blue" and "Laguna". Logo 6 is a very bold / italicized logo that says nothing but serious. |  |
4. Finalizing a Font Selection
Once you have some possible font selections, each in their own layer, you further analyze them and see which works. With logos that have more than one word, most of the time it is good to separate the appearance of the words from each other. Since this particular project has two words, "Blue" and "Laguna", we're going to want to separate them by possibly choosing two different fonts. You can also separate words from each other by keeping the same font, but changing the color. So I'm going to experiment with the 6 good font selections above.
This is what I've come up with: Although I didn't use one of the 6 fonts I selected initially for the word "blue", I simply used an unboldened version of "LAGUNA", which keeps a consistent feel but also allows for separation of the two words. |
5. Adding in a symbol
Sometimes logos work well with only the use of fonts, but most times adding in a relevant symbol of some sort will really make a logo stand out. When I say "symbol", I mean any part of the logo which isn't actual text. So let's start with the first font selection from above:
Now here is where having an eye for design and experience is a really big help. We need to begin contemplating ideas of what exactly we can add to this logo to make it awesome. So, the first thing I do is just sit there and stare at the font selection and think of what exactly the product/service/site is all about. Well, BlueLaguna.Net is about gaming, more specifically speaking, it's a site that offers RPG media (Role Playing Game) media. Therefore, we have two things to work with: RPG and Media. What exactly can we associate with both RPG and Media? Well, we don't necessarily have to convey both RPG and Media through the logo (if you try to get too complex, the logo will become cluttered). We can choose one or the other if we want. I think it'd be most logical to focus on the whole RPG aspect, as you can find media all over the place and it isn't an entirely unique concept.
So let's do some research on Role Playing Games. We need to figure out a symbol which can really represent RPG. The current BlueLaguna.Net features a 3d female, perhaps that has something to do with RPG? Well, let me do a search on images.google.com for "RPG". The results turn back a few different female characters, Hmm! The first few results, keeping in mind the 3d female character on the current header of bluelaguna.net, seem to suggest that depicting a female in the logo might be the best bet. It also seems that weaponry / mystical environments are associated with RPG as well.
Now that I know what I can associate with RPG, I can come up with some possible ideas for a symbol. I think maybe featuring a face of one of these RPG'ish females with maybe a hint of mysticism.
The Pen Tool is your Friend
The most important tool when it comes to logo design is the pen tool. If there is one tool to thoroughly understand, it should be the pen tool. The pen tool allows you to create any shape(s) you want, and maintain vector format (which is very important if you ever want to size your logo up n' down (for professional print or whatever.)
It's always good to draw your logo by hand without copying over a picture (vector tracing), but if you aren't very talented and don't have much experience, it might be your only option. So for the sake of making the biggest impact on this tutorial, I will teach you all an awesome technique for creating great looking symbols for you logos.
Finding a suitable picture
If you're going to trace, I always suggest using a site like istockphoto.com to find the image and pay for it. This way you won't be using copyrighted images to trace over. Or taking your own picture to trace over. Unfortunately though, istockphoto has nothing with RPG or "anime". So I just went on images.google.com and found a picture which I think is suitable, here it is:
When I came across this picture, I got the idea that I can vector trace over her face and hair to create what I want, and then integrate it along with the font selection in some unique way.
So once you've found the picture you want to trace (if not the same one), save it to your hard drive, open it up in photoshop, CTRL-A, CTRL-C to select it and copy it, and go back to your main logo document and CTRL-V. Now you've imported this picture into your logo document. Once you've imported it, with her layer selected, you can cut off the bottom half of her body. (Select the first tool in the upper left corner of the tools menu, Rectangular Marquee Tool), select the bottom half of her body and hit the delete key. Your screen should look something like this by now (You can hide the text layers behind it).
|  |
Vector Tracing
Now select the magnifying glass in the tools menu and select around the girl, it will look like this zoomed up to about 400%:
Now select the pen tool in the tools menu:
|
Make sure that the foreground color (the black square at the bottom of the pic to the upper right ---^) is the same dark blue color of the text we specified.
In the layers window to the right, select the little round circular > icon on the upper right corner of the window, and click on "Create New Layer" in the window that comes up. Hit "OK" and then in the layers window, with the new layer selected, change the Opacity to 0%. We do this because once we start tracing over the image, we don't want the dark blue color hiding the picture of the girl below.
And with the pen tool selected, click a point somewhere on the outline of the hair (at the top), and then click to make another point somewhere on the hairline where the line will begin to form. You can hold down and "direction" the angle of the line to create a certain type of curve. It takes awhile to get the hang of, but it's very easy once you get the hang of it. After plotting points of an entire section of hair, yours should look similar to this: (Note: I've lightened the opacity of the girl to illustrate what your lines should look like so far)
 |  (opacity 100%) |
It's not perfect, but for now it's a good start.
Now I'm simply going to continue creating more shapes, like the facial features. After 15-20 minutes or so of creating the different facial features and the face itself, here is what I have come up with:
As you can see, I specified a different color for the face (light blue). And by now I have around 15 different layers. There's a separate layer for the top portion of each eye, the bottom portion of each eye, the middle, and the small glare. There's also a layer for the face background, and the ear. So let us continue and add some shading... |  |
There are a total of 3 different layers for the hair. It's somewhat of a tedious process to do hair shading simply because there's a lot of strands of hair! But you have to just condense them and get the general idea of the shading and it will work out well. Then I did some light shading work on the face and the neck. Now I consider the actual draft of the symbol complete. Let's make our initial text layer visible and see what we can do to integrate the symbol with the text. |  |
First, you will want to select the very last to the very first vector layer that you created (you'll have a couple dozen or more), hold down the shift so you can select them all. Then in the layers window click the little circular round button and select "New Group From Layers". This will put all of the layers of the girl, into one easily manageable layer group. This way, you can move around the one group and it will keep all of their positions together so it won't break up her face.
Now this actually doesn't look too bad, in and of itself. But the proportion of the anime head is too big, in relation to BLUELAGUNA. So we will want to scale down the head. Let's try moving it over to the left, and adding the slogan + the ".net" text. This is what it looks like:
Now it looks pretty damn good eh? The only other thing I did, was with the pen tool, I added a white shape over the "B" in "BLUE" so that the face doesn't collide with the B.
Unfortunately I messed up and didn't design this over the dark blue'ish background that the bluelaguna.net has. So I'm going to change the colors of the logo to fit a background of an appropriate header for the site.
As you can see, simply changing colors around can really change the look and feel of a logo. I'd consider this logo a winner.
6. Conclusion
I can pretty much guarantee you that if you're a first time user of the pen tool or photoshop for that matter, it won't turn out so pretty like mine did. It takes some time and patience to really get the hang of it. It's all about getting a little creative and working at it for awhile.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Ezekiel 23 - Prostitution
It's so easy to commit prostitution against the LORD. All we need to do is to realize that we need to commit adultery. To do this, we can simply look to the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20:3-5. Putting anything before the LORD, putting anything ABOVE the LORD is prostitution in His eyes. If we put anything above the LORD it is considered an idol. If we put anything above the LORD we are in a sense worshiping it. www.Dictionary. com defines worship as "reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred." When we put business, a person, a friendship, money... anything above the LORD we are honoring something above Him and therefore cheating on Him.
Again, it's so easy to become a prostitute again the LORD. The scary thing is what the LORD has done to His own people because of their prostitution. Just read Ezekiel 23 and it will become clear that we not only want be a prostitute towards the LORD because we want to honor Him, but we will also want to do it because of the consequences!
Again, it's so easy to become a prostitute again the LORD. The scary thing is what the LORD has done to His own people because of their prostitution. Just read Ezekiel 23 and it will become clear that we not only want be a prostitute towards the LORD because we want to honor Him, but we will also want to do it because of the consequences!
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Things That Happen When Jesus is Everywhere
Anna and I were talking to pastor Dennis in our Marital Counseling and as we talked about the fact that Jesus is everywhere and how because of that we can find truth everywhere, I started to think along the lines of culture.
I started to think of an interesting consequence. Since Jesus is truth and where Jesus is, there is truth, and since Jesus Christ is omnipresent (again, everywhere), that means that truth is in different places at the same time. Then I started think back to my Theological Foundations of Mission class at Westmont with professor Farhadian. I remember studying that truth is also relevant to culture. Sooooo, what happens when (and this DOES happen) two or more Christian people from different cultures are from different areas of the world and these two cultures start talking and living together and then their two Christian truths rooted in their culture are in opposition to each other? Which one "wins"? Does either of the two "win"? How do the two reconcile their opposing truths? Can there be opposing truths? Isn't that illogical?
I mean, let's break it down a little bit. Math is supposed to be universal. But what happens if there is a culture somewhere in the Earth where they were always taught that the symbol used for the number "1' means 10? Therefore, while 1+1=2 to most of the world, 1+1=20 for them. I seem to think that just because the majority thinks one way, that the minority isn't necessarily wrong. I guess that's why I'm usually that rebel in the crowd that doesn't always agree with the crowd ;-)
Anyways, this culturally opposing truths happen all the time in the United States. There are people immigrating constantly and they bring with them opposing lifestyles and cultures. And with those different life views come different views on Christianity and how their faith is lived out.
What I think will eventually happens... and IS happening... is the same thing that happened in biblical times. The Deuteronominc writer of the Pentateuch generation interpreted God in their way and wrote history as they saw and experienced it. However, the Chronicles generation rewrote history as they interpreted because their calling as a new generation and their understanding of God as a new generation was different. So, in much the same way, we as a generation of US born and non-US born people need to recognize that we are a new generation that will interpret God a little differently than our parents did. Hence, non-US culturally-influenced truths and US culturally-influenced truths need to combine. I believe that as we do that, we will get to see more of the image of God on Earth NOW! That's SO EXCITING TO ME!
The "trick" will be in how we handle it. There will be a lot of pain and suffering as we work through it but I believe the key in it all is HUMILITY. And this humility can only come from Christ. Are you up for the challenge of our generation? Are you up to hurt alongside me and come out refine by the fire as we take the torch from the generation before us into out own calling? I hope so, cause I need you.
I started to think of an interesting consequence. Since Jesus is truth and where Jesus is, there is truth, and since Jesus Christ is omnipresent (again, everywhere), that means that truth is in different places at the same time. Then I started think back to my Theological Foundations of Mission class at Westmont with professor Farhadian. I remember studying that truth is also relevant to culture. Sooooo, what happens when (and this DOES happen) two or more Christian people from different cultures are from different areas of the world and these two cultures start talking and living together and then their two Christian truths rooted in their culture are in opposition to each other? Which one "wins"? Does either of the two "win"? How do the two reconcile their opposing truths? Can there be opposing truths? Isn't that illogical?
I mean, let's break it down a little bit. Math is supposed to be universal. But what happens if there is a culture somewhere in the Earth where they were always taught that the symbol used for the number "1' means 10? Therefore, while 1+1=2 to most of the world, 1+1=20 for them. I seem to think that just because the majority thinks one way, that the minority isn't necessarily wrong. I guess that's why I'm usually that rebel in the crowd that doesn't always agree with the crowd ;-)
Anyways, this culturally opposing truths happen all the time in the United States. There are people immigrating constantly and they bring with them opposing lifestyles and cultures. And with those different life views come different views on Christianity and how their faith is lived out.
What I think will eventually happens... and IS happening... is the same thing that happened in biblical times. The Deuteronominc writer of the Pentateuch generation interpreted God in their way and wrote history as they saw and experienced it. However, the Chronicles generation rewrote history as they interpreted because their calling as a new generation and their understanding of God as a new generation was different. So, in much the same way, we as a generation of US born and non-US born people need to recognize that we are a new generation that will interpret God a little differently than our parents did. Hence, non-US culturally-influenced truths and US culturally-influenced truths need to combine. I believe that as we do that, we will get to see more of the image of God on Earth NOW! That's SO EXCITING TO ME!
The "trick" will be in how we handle it. There will be a lot of pain and suffering as we work through it but I believe the key in it all is HUMILITY. And this humility can only come from Christ. Are you up for the challenge of our generation? Are you up to hurt alongside me and come out refine by the fire as we take the torch from the generation before us into out own calling? I hope so, cause I need you.
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