Sunday, July 31, 2011

healthy cooking class


what is more important than health? i mean, when you have lost it :) anyway, there are a few enthusiasts that do come to cooking classes for prevention's sake. and when edita teaches them, there is a need to design an invitation.

as it usually happens, this time also, there was a very limited time to accomplish it, so i thought of something that was already available. for another health programme i drew items to build the food pyramid. but i wanted them changed, for they were in bitmap format, and coloured. (the leek has slightly dented outline because it was rotated into horizontal position.)

i processed the drawings to have clean surfaces, but i decided to use negatives. when thinking of health the green colour comes to mind, so the objects would be white on a dark green surface. in this way all illustrations other then the main one were again converted into positives. to be able to make a composition, i made the them semitransparent. the final outcome is (almost) shown below:

the chequered line is just opposite of the idea of fast food (coming possibly from the F1 imagery). it is to remind you of an old-fashioned picnic tablecloth and give you an impression of wholesome eating and homely atmosphere. the latter is additionally stressed by the handwriting styled title which says: healthy is tasty.

edita's desire is to enlighten people concerning the delicious outcome of intentional and well-grounded but creative effort to cook in a way that promotes health. but you will never know - unless you check it yourself. do not just leave it all with the visual attraction. do something about your health! it does taste great.


  

Friday, July 22, 2011

waves

SLOVENŠČINA

if you had a very short period of time to produce an inviting flier for a very important event featuring a friend you have in high esteem, what would you do? i mean, how would you illustrate it?

i could try to find a photo of a keyboard on the internet, but i never use those. as proverbial johnny would say, daddy never buys what he can make himself. :) i go by associations. my friend is a pianist-specialist, and she would accompany corporate congregational singing of the renown christian songs in our church. so: singing > sound > waves... concentric circles. singing together - at least two zero points. as always, ideas teem when you work, so dots on letter j would make a good centre, and would be stressed with an odd colour. the missing one (in slovene text of the title there is only one j and not a single i) is set just outside the paper, but the waves spread onto it anyway and cross those coming from the seen dot.

different thickness of the line symbolizes the diversity of timbers in singing, or, perhaps, various consonants. the colour, once it is not orange :), represents emotions we experience singing uplifting music, soothing words about God's love and forgiveness and enjoy grandiose playing of a gifted expert. the event was scheduled in the evening, so you can read the flier in the following way: finish your day with a treat (in cro and slo idiomatic language you would say, “put a dot on the i“) of heartwarming music, that will bring you closer to other people and connect you with God.      

of course, the invitations to be handed to our neighbours needed to be in inverse colours for practical reasons of cutting four of them from one A4 sheet - which makes a margin necessary, and for diversity. but the question raised from my best and worst critics that i cannot avoid, did not touch colours but forms. in unison, they did not find concentric circles remindful of sound. this is strange, because in cartoons and other graphic representations, whatever emits radio waves, “discharges“ concentric circles.

however, the approval came very soon, for izak found the variation of the illustration on the official site of the ljubljana festival, and honestly reported. needless to say, i did not copy the festival's able designers, neither they copied me. sound is a wave, and concentric circles are an excellent representations thereof.

well, i am glad that the waves of our singing together (don't forget the superb playing) touched quite a few hearts and produced the right colour of emotions. with great joy i can say that the event opened a heart of a precious soul, who, several days later, announced her decision to belong to God for-ever. so let your wave reach out.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

bled is in my heart

slovensko


finally, after almost 25 years of having relatives down under, my parents-in-law visited australia last october. next to the concerns of transoceanic flight and a fear of getting lost in the vast dubai airport came the need to take a present for each member of the family. and the gift was not to be something you could buy just about everywhere. so they thought of a T-shirt with a picture message from the old country, specifically form bled that our relatives once chose to leave, though brokenhearted. and this project my in-laws confided with me. i guess, this is one of the things you can always get me into. and besides, i could never deny them whatever help i am able to provide.




i did not want the T-shirt to be just a souvenir. it needed to convey something on top of the reminder of locality they still cherish, so i added a simple symbol to emphasize their precious memory of the paradise lost (kind of: bled with it's surrounding is called by france prešeren, the most famous slovene poet, and a bled devotee “the image of paradise“) it took another step between natural reflection of the island - the most prominent feature on postcards depicting bled as well as a part of the town's amblem - and the one with the heart to make the message clear.

this time, as i usually draw freehand line in openoffice and convert it to bitmap, polygon and contour to obtain the right quality, i wanted to have clean cut line and the very basic shapes repeated to design the schematic form of the island. the highest point of the church steeple (and the roof as well) reflect in the water as the base point of the heart. to the recipients of the picture message it is meant to mean (as the inscription on the back of the T-shirt states):
bled is in my heart, to everyone else who knows the lake, the island, and it's heavenly surrounding it says: you cannot visit bled and not fall in love with it.

you must judge for yourself, of course, but to help you :) i can tell you an anecdote. when i worked for the adventist world radio, my boss brought his boss, a polish man who has lived in england, had studied in the usa and has travelled around the world. when edita informed him that he has now visited the nicest corner of the globe, he smiled at her perceived local patriotism, and said he knew that this title belongs to switzerland. only then we went sightseeing. as we walked around the lake and watched the many faces of the island, ray said he would need to give his stated position another thought.



the illustration is the winter variety. for the coloured one come back later. it will be used in the planned slovene post.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

helping with your money, time, influence...



otto per mille
(eight per thousand) is an italian legal precept under which taxpayers can choose to whom to transfer a compulsory 0.8% from their annual income tax return. they can give this percentage to one of the churches recognized by the state or, alternatively, to the social assistance plan run by the government. one is not required to indicate to whom the money will go, but the law stipulates that undeclared amounts should be distributed among the recipients according to percentages that are declared.


one of the organizations to which italians can give the fraction of their income tax return is the seventh-day adventist church. i thought their sign to be very creative. as you see the double l is different than other letters. it is because they belong to another logo - the official logotype of the seventh-day adventist church.

there the three lines encircling an implied globe represent two things. the three angels message - the eternal good news of salvation - from revelation 14 to be preached to everyone in the world before the Lord's return (see matthew 34:14). and the Holy Spirit under whose guidance and power only this overwhelming task can be accomplished.  (for more information click here.)

no need to say, i liked the visual play. i guess it can strike a string only in those that recognize the symbol, but our use of money, talents and influence preach a very important fact about us, anyway, doesn't it?

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

time is running out


yes, i know! the dead season lasted too long. but do not think i was idle all this time. no. i did this and that, and a couple of my friends tried to motivate me on, but i was busy with other things.

one of the recent things i needed done was the poster for an event. a pastor from australia visited a town he used to have evangelistic meetings in. the title was time is running out, and i simulated the sheet from the calendar. the very last day possible is highlighted, and it is obvious we live on the verge of the anticipated moment.

it would probably go unnoticed, unless i sate it plainly, that the day after the climactic date is saturday (the biblical sabbath), but in order to see it, you are expected to turn the page, which alludes to the experience of conversion - leaving the old behind and stepping into the covenant with God. (”anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. the past is forgotten, and everything is new.” 2 cor 5:17) it is also a hint at the millennial rest, spoken of in the scriptures.


CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO SEE THE WHOLE!

the lecture listed all the signs Jesus said would happen before his return to the earth, and it is obvious that everything is (or is being) fulfilled, and suggested we need to prepare for the last day in the history of the planet as we know it.

how? by cherishing the truth above all. the bile says that the “lost people will be fooled by his evil deeds. they could be saved, but they will refuse to love the truth and accept it.” (2 th 2:10)


so beware! it only takes sincerity.