by bryan chalker | Feb 17, 2014 | Website |
Are you a Christian web designer? One whose primary role is church web design or faith-focused design? I’m not sure about your situation, but for me – I didn’t start learning web design to become the next Jeffrey Zeldman (the first web guy I was in awe of. A geek’s rock star). I started it as a hobby. I always loved messing with my Commodore64 and TI-99, and when I heard of “html”, well, I had to check it out. Sitting at work one day, I read pages of “learning html” on one of the countless sites that gave free webspace to anyone. I was giddy at my first attempt…an embedded spinning globe animated .gif, stuck on a page of glittering stars. Beautiful. Not the look, but the potential. I was hooked. I knew what I wanted to spend time learning and developing. But I no idea how to implement what I was learning about, in my everyday life. One minute backstory – when I was 19, I felt a specific calling in my life to enter into “full-time” ministry. It was a clear and powerful call. God would be using my skills and talents for his purpose. I spent the next 10 years praying and seeking where I would be used. Preacher? Teacher? Missionary? I never felt a peace about any of that, though the importance of each was always apparent. Fast-forward to around early 2000. I was asked by my supervisor at MediaOne (a regional cable/isp that I worked at in Jacksonville), based on my new found interest in web code, to help him develop an intranet site...
by bryan chalker | Feb 16, 2014 | Website |
Save with a non-profit discount: Email Marketing Vendors Churches and other 501(c)(3) non-profits have a unique need for discounts. As their name implies…they are not out to make a profit. They do not survive from a recurring source of income provided by products and services. They are a charitable-focused entity. I personally love the fact that they’re given tax breaks and money-saving opportunities. I even give a hourly discount on design and dev work I do for church and non-profit projects. Partnering with vendors who offer discounts like these is a perfect way equip yourself with some incredibly useful tools and appease the financial powers-that-be on staff at the same time. Remember that before you can take advantage of any of these offers, you need to have your 501(c)(3) paperwork and use your work email for communication with them. Makes things easy. There will always be the “Vendor A vs. Vendor B vs. blah didi blah didi blah“. This is not in any way a comparison of services. Many of these are all ones which I’ve personally used and know are valuable tools; while others are popular, but untested by me. Here we go…this week deals with: Email Marketing Vendors Why do I need one? First off – do NOT send mass emails out using you own in-house servers. I’ll touch on why in a future post, but in short, if you have a spam-reporting issue, it will shut down your ability to send out emails – anywhere. You don’t want this. To counter that concern, sign-up to with an email marketing vendor. They basically handle the heavy-lifting – spam...
by bryan chalker | Feb 12, 2014 | Low-Cost Solutions, Non-Profit Discounts |
As mentioned in the previous non-profit discount post on Email Marketing Vendors, there are numerous ways to save if you’re a non-profit, with valid 501(c)(3) documentation. We even give a special discounted rate for non-profits and churches. This week, I’ll touch on software savings. This is where a huge bite can be taken out of a budget. Not a pretty thing to look at the licensing costs of using higher-end software for your day-to-day tasks. In an upcoming post, I’ll cover several free or low-cost alternatives to these products, which will save even more money for you in the long run. I need to address something right off the bat, though. You may be tempted to either use a version of these software products you found “free to download” off of a site on line. Please don’t give in to that. Not only would you be opening yourself up to all sorts of legal tangles, but the potential viruses, spyware, malicious code, etc. that can be placed (very easily) on those “free downloads” will make your life a living nightmare in the days to come. Believe me. You do not want to do that. Graphics and Web Tools Adobe (www.adobe.com) THE master class of software. I use it every day, and can’t imaging life without it. Photoshop, Fireworks, Illustrator, Bridge…all the software that comes in the Adobe Creative Suite package are insanely valueable… and insanely expensive. The discount given by Adobe is hefty – 40% – but the transaction MUST be processed by an Authorized Non-Profit/Education Reseller. That basically means, don’t buy it off Craigslist. View the qualifications | Find...
by bryan chalker | Feb 10, 2014 | Website |
I love designing web pages and web sites. It’s a wonderful process that involves wrapping the latest technologies together with creative ideas and design. Who doesn’t love that combination. Well apparently Microsoft, Google, and the rest of the motley bunch of email client creators. The are firmly “stuck in the 90s”. You need to lobotomize your web approach, to remove all those pesky standards that guide your web designs. Things to know when you design email templates: Designing email “templates” are not the same as designing web pages. If they are, then you need to seriously adjust how you design web pages. Initial web pages, all through the 1990’s, and early 2000’s were designed using “<table>” elements to layout the content. Then design evolved, and tables were looked at with disdain – as developers understood they should only hold tabular data, and not be used for layouts. Now, proper websites and pages are developed using “<div>” elements to lay them out, and for HTML5 use, the “<section>“, “<header>“, and “<menu>” tags. That’s why, to design the proper and consistent email template, you gotta kick it old school. “Tables are your best friend” (pardon me…I have to wash my mouth out with soap for a moment. Ok. Back). The reason I say this, is that tables are what you must use to contain your layout. It is not yet an option. To keep the look of a template you simply have to do this. Tables are not the only thing differentiating email code from web code. Desktop email clients such as Microsoft Outlook and even online clients such as GMail or...
by bryan chalker | Feb 3, 2014 | Website |
You are a pastor, small business owner, admin, regardless – you are not a graphic designer. You don’t like one, and you certainly don’t want to start now. But the guy designing your website piece, has asked you for your logo in order to start work on your project. Unfortunately, the first thing many clients tend to do in this case, is go to a web browser – pull up their web site – and right-click to save the logo. Let me get this out of the way – that this is probably the worst thing you can do. And what’s more, it will probably cost you more money in the project, than if you took a few moments to find the “right” one to provide, as the cost for fixing the “wrong” one will not be billed. Lesson #1: Do NOT send a file named anything “.jpeg” (or .jpg) Lesson #2: Read lesson #1 Problem #1 A “jpeg”, is a typical file format used for many photos and graphics online. It allows for proper saturation and color gradients to be used, without an large file size. It’s great for photos – terrible for logos. There are several important reasons for this, none of which should be discounted: They are a “compressed” file format. This essentially means all the elements of the logo have been analyzed, then info about the logo is dumped, in order to fit it into a specific file size, or a quality percentage. In short, it is never the same as the original. Never. On top of that, much like how a copy of a copy of...
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