Google’s analytics tell me “no, not really,” as I haven’t had more than one or two hits a day in the last two weeks. So what’s the point? My hope in starting up a blog again is that it would be read, and a a result of reading my blog, internet surfing citizens would be informed, inspired, entertained and/or challenged. So what kind of posts accomplish those sort of things? How do I write posts like that? And the bigger question is: even if I do write posts like that, will people read them?

Well, it’s my turn soon so I’ll stop rambling aimlessly. Obviously posts like this won’t draw any more readers, but I was bored and thought I’d share my thoughts on the blog.

Rushing. Waiting.
Irritating.

Bleeding. Paler.
Fear of failure.

Stealing. Lying.
Multiplying.

I hate life but I love you.
I hate life but I love you.

Seeping. Sighing.
Broken crying.

Spending. Playing.
Never saving.

Looking. Shudder.
Not another.

Hoping. Praying.
Bright white flagging.

I hate life but I love you.
I hate life but I love you.

Breathe. Peace.
Breathe. Strength.
Breathe. Christ.

I hate life but I love You.

Taken from Blog [Song] Two

The thing that God wants us to do the most, besides love him, is to love other people. (See Matthew 22:34–40 if you don’t believe me.) I’ve been a “Christian” as long as I can remember. I go to church, I listen to Christian music, I read Christian books, I’ve even forsaken a secure salary by answering God’s call in my life to serve him working for a non-profit Christian organization. But I honestly don’t think God cares very much about all of that. What He really wants from me is for me to love him, and to love other people. And the truth is, I suck at loving other people.

Now, it’s not that I hate people. I like people. In fact, part of the problem is that I’m really good at liking people. I’m really good at being nice and friendly and funny and getting along well with people. But that’s not really loving people. What I know that God really wants me to work on is learning how to truly love people. Instead of just smiling and being friendly, to genuinely take a deep interest in their lives, their hopes and dreams, their struggles and failures and their joys and successes. Simply put, to make their lives matter more than my own. And I don’t do that very well at the moment.

So I don’t really know where I’m going with this post, except to say that I want to change. And to initiate that change, I think I just need to admit openly that I know it’s an area I fall short in. My other intention in posting this is that perhaps in reading this, you’ll be challenged as well. What area of your life does God want you to work on?

I purchased the movie Slumdog Millionaire on DVD a few days ago. It’s a fantastic movie that I saw twice in theatres, falling in love with the beautiful cinematography, wonderful soundtrack and unique storytelling. Consequently, I was looking forward to not only watching it again, but also viewing the making-of featurette and deleted scenes that were advertised on the back of the DVD. In a frustrating discovery after watching the movie, I found that none of the special features were on the disc.

After some quick research, I learned that Fox had made a mistake and shipped the wrong discs with the retail versions. If you encountered the same issue that I did, you can visit this website and sign up to be sent a replacement disc. I wanted to inform others of that, but I also thought that the reason this mistake was possible in the first place might make an interesting topic for discussion…

Apparently this whole thing is an error in the implementation of a new plan that Fox Studios has to start differentiating between retail DVDs and rental DVDs. Slumdog Millionaire was the first movie to adopt this strategy, where the discs available for rent are stripped of the special features, increasing the incentive to buy, rather than rent movies. This also decreases the incentive to wait until a movie is “previously viewed” to purchase it, as you would still get more bang for your buck by buying at a retail outlet and having all the special features (if special features are important to you).

Personally, I don’t mind the idea, and I kinda wonder why it took the studios so long to implement it. It seems logical to me to offer a little extra incentive to buy versus rent. I usually don’t have the time to go through special features and commentary tracks anyways in the short day or two you’re given with a rental movie. That being said, I can see this being an issue for a lot of people. There are many who don’t buy a lot of DVDs, preferring to be more budget-conscious, and I even talked to someone today who buys DVDs through his rental store. He rents a movie and if he likes it, pays the difference to purchase it. Obviously there would be less appeal to do that if this strategy is adopted by more studios and more major releases.

So what do you think? I’m curious to see what others make of this new idea. I find it ironic that a tactic Fox obviously hoped would boost new DVD sales is likely going to cannibalize sales of the Slumdog DVD once replacement discs are sent out and those who receive them give their old discs to friends. That is unless Fox is really smart and decides to ship only the special features on the disc, excluding the feature film. I guess we’ll see. But let me know your opinions. Do you buy DVDs at retail or wait until they’re previously viewed? Do you even watch the special features? Does anyone sit through commentary tracks?

My sister, Kimi, is starting up a non-profit organization in Uganda to provide sponsorship for orphans in need of schooling, clothes and food. She needed a logo and asked if I could come up with one for her. Since designing logos is one of my favorite things in the world, I was thrilled to fulfill her request. I thought I’d share a little bit on my blog about the logo design process I went through.

She hadn’t yet settled on a name, but her ideas revolved around the words Hands, Heart, Hope, and His (referring to God). I grabbed some pieces of paper and started sketching. I’m ashamed to say I only ended up with three pages, totaling a little over a dozen different ideas. It’s usually good to have more than that when sketching ideas for a logo, but unfortunately I had settled upon a favorite already, and I couldn’t get my mind to go past that idea.

Normally at this point I would take the most promising sketches and develop them a little further on the computer, but since this was just before Christmas, I had another idea: to present to my sister the raw sketches instead of more refined versions, and to make them a part of her Christmas present, which was a mix CD I had put together of missions-related songs. I designed a booklet to accompany the CD and scattered the sketches amongst the lyrics, so that she could see the various concepts and give me feedback on the ideas.

After seeing the different ideas, she decided she wanted to move forward with the main idea shown on the spread above. It happened to be the one that I had grown attached to, which was great. So the next step was to bring it into the computer, clean it up and make it digital. I scanned in the sketch and got to work in Illustrator: tracing the shapes, smoothing out the curves and balancing the line thicknesses. Perfecting the line thicknesses ended up taking longer than I expected, but despite that I still had a pretty final version within about an hour.

For the type, I wanted something that looked like it was handwritten by a kid. Something I always try to do if I’m using handwritten letters in a logo is to actually do them by hand. The number of characters in a logo is minimal, which makes custom handwriting doable, and it’s much more unique and versatile than using a font. I was working from home, but I keep my tablet at the office, so I selected a basic brush in Illustrator and resorted to drawing out the letters with a mouse instead of my preferred tablet. Using the mouse gave the letters a slightly uncontrolled look, like a kid’s handwriting, so it ended up being an advantage.

The final name decided upon was “His Hope” since it seemed to be the most unique amongst all of the combinations we could think of. We registered hishope.org and plan to have a simple webpage up there in the future. I suppose that’s my next big project for my sister’s organization, although I’d also like to attempt turning the type I’ve created for the logo into a font. I’ve always wanted to try creating a font, and I figure this might be a perfect opportunity. We’ll see if I can find the time.

I’m working on a larger format brochure at work, something with a more high-end feel to it, that I’m starting to get excited about. It’s been in progress for quite some time, but just today it started coming together as I combed through our massive library of unsorted trip photos on our server, searching for some shots that would work well in the brochure. I’d like to post some in-progress imagery of it, when I get a chance.

I recently threw together a logo for my sister. She’s traveling to Uganda at the end of this week to take up residence and set up a child sponsorship program. She needed a logo to put things under, so I designed the logo currently viewable at hishope.org. I thought I’d post some of the initial sketches and a bit of the process in case anyone was interested.

Jenn and I have been living in our new townhouse for nearly a year, and we’re still lacking photos on most of the walls. The main reason for this is my perfectionistic nature when choosing art and photos for our walls. I have this need to overthink everything and try to consider every option, as this is something that I’m going to be looking at on my wall for years to come. It drives Jenn nuts. We’re finally making slow progress (but at least it’s progress) with an idea I had to adorn our bedroom walls with color-graded photos from our Hawaii trip. I’ve done four test shots, which turned out pretty good, and now I just have to do five or six more, order them and hang them, after which point I’ll take photos and post them for the world to see, with a bit of insight into the process I used to get the duotoning the way I wanted it, for those who are interested.

For the non-design geeks out there, I also plan to post some music and movie reviews, as well as some spiritual thoughts or thoughts about life in general in the midst of the design stuff. A website is only as good as its content, so hopefully I can get moving on these things pretty soon.

So what’s changed? Well, I’ve recently helped to set up a website for Pockets of Change that required me to dive back into the world of blog creation and customizing websites. I liked the taste, and I decided that I wanted a blog for myself again. So here it is.

What will become of this blog? I hope for it to become a place where I post my thoughts and opinions about life, music, design and God, and perhaps some tutorials and tips on design and photography. I also want it to become an outlet for my creativity, which I’ve been holding back from doing at Facebook recently because of the whole Terms of Service uncertainty. It’s not that I’m scared that Facebook will mess with my photos, but I realized that I don’t have a lot of freedom with posting creative content to Facebook, so I’d rather post it on my own site anyway.

So there you have it. One small post, with hopefully many to follow. This first post feels rather rough, but I just wanted to get something out there. With luck someone will see it, like it, and return to read another.