Archive for the 'Design and typography' Category

4-star Service Committee

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

I got a solicitation letter from the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) today. I’m normally sour about solicitation letters and the UUSC hasn’t been so hot in recent years, having a weird-ambiguous relationship with congregational Unitarian Universalism and a less-than-perfect efficiency rating by services like Charity Navigator. But the print piece and its new logo […]

Tiny church administration: making booklets

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

OK gang: I’m going to show you how to do something useful. Making booklets.

It takes essentially the same effort to make a four page order of service (folded over from a piece of letter paper/A4) as a 36 page booklet, and the uses shouldn’t be hard to imagine. Including a meditation guide or church directory. […]

Unicode? If you have a well-stocked font . . .

Thursday, January 17th, 2008

you should see these “miscellaneous symbols” that might be useful to any number of religious congregations. Just a sampling, in Unicode order.

☕ Hot Beverage ☎ Solid Telephone ☏ Outline Telephone ☧ Chi Rho ☪ Star and Crescent ☸ Wheel of Dharma ♿ Universal Access

Only need one typeface

Monday, January 14th, 2008

Hubby and I went galivanting this past weekend, riding Metro to get to our destinations. We entered the Dupont Circle station, which he dubbed Helevticaland. The reason is obvious: the Metro system relies exclusively on that mid-century typographic heavy-weight and, in that context, makes everything seem serene and ideal, even when (as was the […]

Wrapping, carrying gifts? Not paper, but furoshiki

Sunday, December 23rd, 2007

I mentioned furoshiki last year: traditional Japanese wrapping cloths that bundle, decorate and make parcels portable. Since a lot of us have square table cloths (or even large napkins) and packages to wrap, this might be an attractive alternative to using a lot of paper and whatnot. Furoshiki can be used to carry about anything […]

Flannelgraph for the YouTube generation

Friday, December 7th, 2007

I have the scantest, dimmest personal memories of flannelgraph: probably from some Vacation Bible School experience. To review, flannelgraph is a visual aid for teaching Bible and other lessons using printed felt cutouts that stick to a cloth frame. Gentle and simple and still around, it seems, in some quarters. (You can buy flannelgraph figures […]

A new bag, made in Philadelphia

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

Victoria Weinstein, better known as PeaceBang, asks her readers about a computer bag she likes the looks of.

I’ve been think about getting a new bag myself, but of a very different style. I don’t really need one, but Hubby and I came across a very hip custom messenger bag shop when we were vacationing in […]

Christian emblems not a cross: the seven-pointed star

Friday, September 28th, 2007

Some times you want a Christian emblem that’s not a cross: not a Latin cross, not a Greek cross, not a Byzantine cross. Nothing — and I think this is the reason for the desire — to be crucified on. I can’t blame anyone for being especially weary and queasy with describing one’s faith with […]

Microformats on Unitarian Universalist sites?

Monday, September 17th, 2007

Does anyone know of (or apply) microformats to Unitarian Universalist Web sites?  Might be good to be ahead of this before the release of Firefox 3, which will support them natively.

Request: Really clever orders of worship

Thursday, September 13th, 2007

Has anyone seen (or better, produced) really clever orders of worship (service) — feel free to brag with some detail, and include a link if it exists somewhere on the Web.


Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States