Impromtu lite fair

by Frank Turk

Yeah, so we get a lot of e-mail, and the one thing that comes up all the time is the comment (in words to this effect), "You know: your graphics blow me away."

Now, I don't know about the rest of the guys, but while I am pleased with our graphics, that's the condiment for the blog, not the main course. That's like saying, "I really love that A-1 sauce you served with that porterhouse steak." Yeah: good sauce. What about the steak?

So to sorta have a one-day sesssion of the TeamPyro GodBlogCon, let me help you and your blog with graphics tips, including the tool set you'll need to be even marginally proficient.

[1] STOP USING ANY ITERATION OR FORM OF "MS PAINT". This tool is like using a hammer to make an omlette -- it can break the eggs, but that's it. There is no reason on this earth to have to use paint to manipulate graphics, no matter what your budget is. Which leads me to ...

[2] DOWNLOAD "GiMP" RIGHT NOW. It doesn't matter if you are a Mac user or a PC user: GiMP comes in both flavors, as well as in generic UNIX and a coupla other geek flavors so the whole world can manipulate graphics with some level of panache. GiMP is about as powerful as Photoshop version 5.0 for the Mac, and it is utterly and perfectly FREE -- not "I tricked the shareware guy into giving me free software" free, but "I never have to pay for it". Its web site says "It is a freely distributed piece of software".

Once you install it, spend some time learning how to use it. Particularly, learn how to use it to cut and paste, to select one color, using the magic wand, and so forth.

[2a] IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY, I STRONGLY SUGGEST PHOTOSHOP AND ILLUSTRATOR by ADOBE. Personally, I own PS 6.0 and Illustrator 9.0, and there is frankly nothing short of 3D rendering and Flash animation I cannot do with these tools. However, they are expensive, so once you buy them you are making a long-term commitment to being a better web designer and artist. I use Illustrator to design logos and custom objects that need to be scalable; I use Photoshop for all the heavy lifting, such as causing a flat object to look like it's on the floor rather than standing straight up on your screen, dropping shadows, making objects poke through other objects, etc.

[3] CREATE A BASE IMAGE. You recognize our base image (to the left over there, with the screws in it). It's sort of a unifying theme. For my blog, I have chosen to unify by using one narrow band of comic book art in a particular style. But you can do it in a variety of ways. Choosing your logo as a unifying theme is sort of a short cut. The trick there is that it has to be a good looking logo in the first place.

[4] BECOME OBSESSED WITH CREATING VARIATIONS ON THE THEME. Between me and Phil, we have created thousands of images for use on TeamPyro; on my blog, I have a meager 700-800 images that make the rounds. In either case, get past boring. Get past having 5 or 6 pictures in the same way you want to have a personal vocabulary of 20-30 thousand words.

[5] BECOME PROFICIENT WITH HTML and CSS and JAVASCRIPT and DOM. The first reason to do that is so you know what I'm talking about. The second reason is that, unless you want to pay Challies to make your template and then modify it every time you have a great idea, you need some basic understanding of the tools at your disposal to make your blog look like something more than the generic blogger templates.

Rest assured that your earliest attempts at creating a web site will horrify you when you look back on them. There is no other greater tutor than trial and error. However, if you become a layout junkie, you can do whatever you want -- even start from scratch and not let the man tell you how to lay out your blog.

All I'm really saying is that, like anything else, really cool graphics just takes time. Stop watching golf on TV or something and you could use that time to be more than a fanboy of cool blog design.

---

Founders Conference, Addendum

by Frank Turk

One thing we didn't blog about was the session after the final session on Thursday night where Tom Ascol moderated a very cozy discussion of what TheoBlogging is like -- Joe Thorn was there, as was Timmy "babyface" Brister. It lasted about an hour, I guess, and the most profitable thing to come from it, I thought, was the discussion on the down-side of blogging. Since everyone agreed with me on this one, I'm going to sum up my comments here, and then let the slavering critics do their worst as I go on vacation for a week and stay away from blogging as much as humanly possible.

The NUMBER ONE down-side of blogging is that YOU WILL BECOME A PUBLIC PERSON. By "public person", that means that you will be saying things in public and not in your living room when you blog some piece of writing. People who don't know you personally will read it, and then they will either think [a] now they know you and are your personal friend, or [b] now they have the opportunity to take a shot.

In one respect, both [a] and [b] are correct. So if you want to post something in which you are fictionalizing who you are, don't be surprised if people treat you like the person you have portrayed yourself to be; if you don't want anyone to criticize you, don't post at all. You're going to take some flack even if you post pictures of bunnies and puppies all the time.

Which leads to the NUMBER TWO down-side of blogging: YOU NEED A THICK SKIN. If you're sensitive about being wrong, or can't admit it when you are, or take everything personally rather than as an opportunity to grow, you prolly don't belong in a public forum.

The NUMBER THREE down-side of blogging is that YOU NEED TO BE SOMEONE WHO JUST WRITES ANYWAY. If you want to become a writer by blogging, well, that's like saying you want to become a pro ball player by joining the Cubs: if you haven't ever played before, you're prolly not gonna make the Cubs because they don't need someone who would like to play: they need someone who has been playing all his life and is a player. If you journal or write or compose now, and you want to go digital, blogging is a good go for that. If you want to figure out if anyone will read your writing because you really always wanted to write, try writing first before you inflict, um, I mean publish your writing on the world.

That also answers the question of where you get the time to write a blog: you get the time by blogging what you have already budgeted as writing time. Personally, I'm a compulsive writer. I'm always writing something -- have been since College. Now I write and it gets blogged rather than stuck in a box in my garage.

And the NUMBER FOUR down-side of blogging is content burn-out. You know: there are three or four guys writing on TeamPyro, and we can't hardly make a post every day of the week. When I was solo blogging, I averaged one post a day -- but that included throw-away posts which were links to other stuff. Eventually, you run out of things to say. You can't help it. You only have so many words, and sometimes you're just happy with life and there's no reason to say anything at all.

There's nothing wrong with that -- until your blog stops getting hits ... then you start to wonder what you're going to do to top the great Santa Controversy of 2005 or whatever. And there's the problem of being glorifying to God, which means you can blog ads for casinos or whatever.

Joe and Phil expressed a lot of content burn-out last night. Then, after the session, I reminded Phil about GUTS church, and he realized that he was only out of old stuff. There are plenty of new reasons to blog every day.

Which is, of course, why you come here every day.

Hope that helps. be with God's people in God's house on God's day this weekend, and try not to get distracted by what's going to happen in the blogosphere while you're there. The blogosphere will pass away like a blade of grass, but you're going to have to spend eternity with those people there (if you're blessed and highly favored, that is). Try to think about them a little more.

---