Presenting some work from over the year

Click here for a larger view of the slideshow, including captions.

When I was in Michigan last month I created this slide show with some of the projects I've worked on this past year. I've posted it here for those of you who weren't able to come or who don't live in Michigan. Hopefully this will help give you an idea of what I do from day to day (and month to month, sometimes!), and the variety of ministries I get to be involved with.

Design is Funny

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One of the more fun things I've been doing these past couple of months has been creating and designing 2100's "Infographic of the Week."

Infographics are basically just visual ways of displaying information. Sometimes they communicate real data but others times they are used to express something humorous. Our infographics have been the latter, and our aim is to show the humor that can arise when you intersect faith or InterVarsity's ministry with campus culture.

The one we created this week was especially fun and funny. Since Easter is so late this year, we thought it would be fun to see how Holy Week and Finals Week are different and similar. Surprisingly there is a lot of overlap! ;)

To view past infographics, or to follow our future infographics, make sure you go to our Facebook page and "like" us.

Making information understandable

part of my job as a designer is to make information understandable. the beauty of design is that we can take a fairly complex set of ideas, and organize it into something that you can look at and quickly understand all the main ideas. (well, good design does this anyway. it's a work in progress for me.)

i worked on these 2 diagrams recently for International Student Ministry. the first diagram shows the level of satisfaction of a person who encounters transitions in moving from their home to a foreign culture, and back again. in both cases, there is a cycle of fun, flight, fight and fit responses that happen throughout the experience.

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this second diagram is a widely used model that helps us see what happens whenever anyone is in a situation where more than one culture is involved (which is nearly all the time, actually). it shows that you can either approach these situations on a green line (desired) or red line (not desired). how you approach will largely effect how you respond, although there are certain aspects that are inevitable.

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we made both of these diagrams into 2-sided bookmark that will be sold at an upcoming conference. i'm looking forward to helping communicate these two ideas to people so that they can learn and grow in engaging new and different cultures. as people who are called to be a witness to the world, these are important things to know and understand!