Araldo is a headline font with spunk for today. I needed something with a little life for my new book production group: Biblia Serif, Dreatha, and now Araldo. This new font family is doing well for me. Biblia Serif and Draetha are both excellent book production font families. In other words, they are not memorable. In fact, if they do their job well, you don’t even notice them. But as I mention in the flyer to the … Continue reading →
Some unspoken assumptions rarely admitted for believers in America these days should be mentioned. I noticed one of my bumper stickers for sale & chuckled. Yeshua Adonai LIKE IT OR NOT. Just a straightforward statement of Truth—right? I regularly see someone on the tube—usually a maker on YouTube—and wish to myself that I could just say to him or her, “You know, it really doesn’t matter what you personally like or believe. The Truth is that Jesus … Continue reading →
Change brings opportunity every time —that’s my summation of 2020 and 2021, so far. Suddenly I’m a writer of fiction. It’s been a fun ride. Nine novels since the first of January 2020. But that doesn’t even begin to mention the change in my spiritual walk. With Pat’s death, I turned to Jesus. He has responded with love and power. It’s been amazing. I was always told, draw near to Him and He’ll draw near to you. … Continue reading →
Throughout my life as an artist/designer I have been struck with how black and white often provides focus. It’s beautiful visual decision, but it tends to be more difficult than color. Elegance and simplicity are very hard to achieve without being stark and lifeless. The painting on the left is the first one I painted after I met Jesus in January, 1974. Being left-handed, it reads from right to left. The simple exuberance of leaving the chaos … Continue reading →
I received a solid article on presentation design this morning. Building powerful presentations with type requires good typographic knowledge and a clear understanding of readability. I don’t think Illene went far enough on some points, but basically, keep it simple and clean with legible fonts. Simple, right? Certainly not! You’re fighting habitual reader/listener issues—boredom, attention deficit, ignorance, and a host of other issues. Your presentation needs to be one of your most powerful tools. You need superior tools—and … Continue reading →
There’s a lot of confusion among authors today. Primarily, it shows as: are digital books still increasing? The answer shouts back: Of Course! Here’s a quote from Jane Friedman’s post this morning Looking Back at 2016: “The market for adult fiction is primarily a digital one “It’s commonly said that in the United States, overall trade book sales are divided about 70-30 print-digital, and that ebook sales at traditional publishing houses are flat to declining. (You’ve probably … Continue reading →
One of the main troubles we have in setting books for readability is the set of largely subconscious rules we’ve learned over the years. In an entertaining and useful article today by Jonathan Hoefler named: How to Use Clashing Fonts He gives us several examples showing why it is necessary to break common “rules” in the interest of both style and readability. In the example he gives above, he shows the use of two virtually identical Dutch Old … Continue reading →
I found this today, going through my emails. It is beautiful and wonderful. About five minutes… Dan Nelson’s delightful Cross Hatching library teaching ink illustration Does this take a lot of time? Duh! Is it satisfying? Yes. How does it compare to knitting, embroidery, painting, and all the rest? It’s just another opportunity to learn to get in touch with the things which matter in your life. It can be cathartic therapy, all the way to gentle … Continue reading →
CREATIVE PRO HAS AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE TODAY on poster design. I mention this because authors without the trained eye of the designer make embarrassing design mistakes because this knowledge is not part of their understanding. Self-publishers must train their eyes Books like Ellen’s shown above are a real help as you expand your knowledge beyond the narrow confines of writing and editing. What writers are normally not aware of is the constant visual input which is the … Continue reading →
I ran across this one today. It’s certainly further than I want to go. But it makes the point. Going off the grid What unique strategies do you use? Creatives commonly need to face up to the fact that the world does not understand us—and doesn’t really want to know. Finding a time, place, and method of being creative is very important to those of us called to share or help another craft a vision.
Continue reading →