You know the drill- if you can use them, use them.  If you would like a .pdf of any of these- send me an email.

We are starting a new series this Sunday at Tidal Creek.  We are talking about our core values.  

Its incredibly important for every person apart of our church to know the core values of Tidal Creek.  Because, let's face it: a bad core ruins the entire fruit.  The core of an apple holds the seeds- holds the life of future apples.  I believe the same exists in churches: bad core, bad values, bad theology, ruins it all.  And a good core should hold life for future churches and generations.


This Sunday, the core value we are talking about is 'Story Telling'.   If we are in Christ we have experienced lifechange.  The Gospel Story meshes with our story and becomes a story that we need to tell the world. 


As you prepare for Sunday, read John 9: the story of Jesus restoring sight to a blind man.  The Pharisees ask the man about Jesus, trying to get him to denounce Jesus, and the man says, ""Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." (v25)
The Pharisees are not satisfied, and ask details of what Jesus did.  This is what I love about this story- he starts arguing with them about if Jesus is of God, and that this miracle should not be a big deal because the Pharisees thought Jesus was a sinner.  The man replied:

"Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind.  If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." (John 9:30-33)

This man went through a lifechange, and he couldn't help but tell everyone.  By telling the Pharisees, he was at risk of being thrown out of the synagogue, and he didn't care! He stuck to his convictions, and told the story of his lifechange!

What is your story?  


If you would like to download the sermon graphics set, you can download the .jpgs here for free, to use for your church services.

This video is from Blaine Hogan.  He made a project for the Global Leadership Summit that has blown me away. Take a look.



BE HERE NOW from blaine hogan on Vimeo.

I love the message behind this, the creative process, and the overall feel.  Everything here is on the same level of excellence.

If you let one part of your project not meet your level of excellence, the entire project will show it.  And it is very evident that he stayed true to his level of excellence.

I heard this quote and couldn't get it out of my head, so this morning I decided to go ahead and make it into an graphic.

Music truly does speak universally.  It doesn't matter what the song is about, or what language it is in- anyone can find a way to connect with it somehow.  Whether it be through melody, rhythm, lyrics, or simply the overall feel of the song.  It doesn't matter how simplistic or complex you make it- you can connect.

A Portrait of Christ from Jeremy Cowart on Vimeo.

You can follow Jeremy on twitter here.

Built a header for whenever I make my personal website today.

Looking for feedback:

Thoughts? Criticism?  I have my opinions on it, and I like it, but I would rather replace it with a photo of me (to bring a personal touch to the site), but we work with what we have. :)

Last week I worked on building a site for Fountain Inn's Community Egg Drop.  I used Adobe Dreamweaver for the first time, and had a template I found to work from.  From there I changed many things- but it was fun because it really stretched who I was as a designer.  I don't consider myself a 'graphic designer' by any means.  I consider myself someone who if needed to can put together something that will suffice, but that there could always be better.

Above is a screenshot of the home page.  Once I got the hang of Dreamweaver, it was alot of fun to design!  The site features a picture gallery, tables, text, and custom links that I had to design and organize.

I'm still not great with FTP uploading.  It took my a while to actually figure out what files and in what order I needed to upload the files so the file paths would remain the same.  I really wish that whoever hosted the site would have an option where you could just upload each file. For example: there would be a upload section where you could upload pages, a place to upload CSS, images.  I know that FTP programs like Filezilla do that with relative ease, but it first takes you understanding what folders need to be there.  But anyway- I got it done, and it was actually fun.  All in all, it took me about 3 days of working around a few hours a day, and then tinkering with it every now and then.

One glitch on the site that I have found is that if you go to the About, or Contact page, the header is blank, but once you refresh the page, the text comes up.

Before you click refresh

After refresh

Does anyone know what could cause this?  If you look carefully at the first picture, you can see the text, but its in green in the background, and the refresh bring the text to white and to the front.  Strange.

What is up with epic album covers lately? Will 2011 be the year of epic album covers?  Take a look at the album artwork above- it is for Ben Harper's new album 'Give Till It's Gone' (if you couldn't tell).  This is awesome for several reasons:
1) The red white and blue.  You can't argue with patriotic colors.  Seriously- try.
2) The artwork lines up with the message of the album name in a great artistic way.
3) Its simplistic.

It seems like album artwork in 2011 is no joking matter.  I know it really makes no difference on the music itself, but it looks awesome.

Take a look at this one, from Daniel Bashta:
 This album cover is great because:
1) It has a lion head with the body of a man screaming fire while beating a war drum standing on a mountain of skulls.
2) It is a worship album with a lion head/man body screaming fire while beating a war drum standing on a mountain of skulls!!!
3) It is a great use of colors.
4) Bashta's song 'Like A Lion' has gained popularity by being covered by David Crowder and by Kristian Stanfill.  This album artwork definitely is a representation of that song in a great way.




Or what about this one from The Script from their album "Science and Faith"

This album artwork is good because:
1) It shows the balance that they are trying to describe in the title.
2) It is simplistic.  It isn't a overused photo of the band looking in different directions.  It is simple not in the design but in the lack of unneeded things.  I can't put a finger specifically on it, but I like it.


So what about you?  What album artwork do you really like this year?  What don't you like?

NBC has gotten rid of the familiar Peacock logo.  With the Comcast merger came a new logo, one that I believe is hideous.

Take a look:

I liked the Peacock, not because it showed what NBC did, stood for, or anything like that- but because it was branded.  You didn't have to see the letters "NBC" to know what station you were on.  The peacock was there.  the NBC chimes matched perfectly with the Peacock's feathers.  

What are your thoughts on the new NBC logo?  You can't really even call it a logo.  Its just words.  

Creation Swap is now live!  I'm pretty excited about this.   Formerly www.creativemyk.com, this website is a gathering place for church still media.  People can post photos and designs for sermon slides, worship slides, announcement, you can even download bulletins!  You can download .pdf's,  .ai's, .jpg's.  Its perfect.

Go check it out!

I saw this video a few months ago and fell in love with it.  The creativity used to create this video is amazing, and if I had kids- this commercial would have successfully worked on me (unless they werre expensive, then I would say 'Hey- that's cool.  Still won't buy your product, but its cool.')




Take a look at the detail.  This is not just a commercial where the face grows and changed faces- but the arms move.  This commercial had to execute excellence and precision!  And they're working with kids! Kids are known to take acting unprofessionally ;)

What do you think of this? Are you as amazed as I apparently am?

A look at Capstone Church's journey over the past 2 years.  Set to the tunes of Daniel Bashta.

Two Year Slide Show from Capstone on Vimeo.

more graphics I've made for Capstone Church. If you can use any of these, feel free.

Some new announcement slides...

Here are some of the graphics I made for this week's Gathering at Capstone.