The Power of a Parable

[riafekim]

New sermon series starting and I created this in CS4 need some critique. I really don't like the squares but not sure what else to do. Honestly I think it looks bland...

Thanks in advance.

[rev_65]

I'm definitely liking the treatment on your images!! The grain one is the only one that I had to think about a bit before I got it. The light background kinda makes it the odd man out plus all the other images are centered versus left cropped.

As to fixes/improvements, I'd center the items vertically on the page to eleminate the big gap a the bottom. The background is what really needs some attention. Maybe a similarly textured background as your image treatment using a radial gradient starting with a lighter blue in the middle working outward to dark with the lightest central portion encompassing your text.

Also a bit more could be done with your text to emphasize it. Think about playing off of the word power and how would that translate visually to your text.

Good work.

Blessings!

[Gene]

Good thoughts from rev, as usual. The grain image is definitely the odd man out. I'd also consider putting the 4 images 2x2 instead of 3+1. The current arrangement gives the oyster a bit more prominence, unbalancing things. That will leave you with a vertical strip for text, but by getting creative with the text, you can make it work. Maybe one or two words per line:
"The
Power
of a
Parable"
I'd make Power in a larger pointsize to emphasize it a bit, and so it ends up the same width as Parable.

[riafekim]

Thanks for the ideas...I had a chance to play around with it some more and this is what I came up with. I took the seed out altogether. I think I am liking this one much better.

[Gene]

Looking good!

For some fine-tuning, you could:

• kern the P and A in Parable more tightly so the spacing is similar to the other letters (in Photoshop you can select the P and adjust the tracking to a negative number)
• kern the T and H in The more tightly, so the H tucks under the T (ditto)
• maybe lower the P in Power, so the top of it lines up with the other letters and it kind of snugs around Parable (in Photoshop you can select the P and adjust the baseline shift to a negative number)

[csandy]

I like this. If you want to do a little more with the images, I'd suggest having no background space between them and see how that looks. You could also try making it a single banner by overlapping the images at the edges and feather blend them together at the seams.