A New Look & Promote Page
Over the past month, I've been working on the Paramentics website as I had envisioned it nearly a year ago. The one thing that had always bothered me was the lack of color. When your website's content predominantly consists of black and white images, it can be hard to make it stand out, or rather, it's easy for it to look pretty dull.
In the past, I've made a few tweaks here and there to accommodate the new content and the addition of an integrated shopping cart system, but due to time constraints and other goings-on in my life, I did the simplest thing possible—i.e. white background, black/grey menus, and red links. Even though it functioned well, It sorely needed a slight overhaul in design.
Making the website more colorful was easy to plan out on paper, but implementing the necessary code was not. You'll notice that each major section has its own unique accent color (Art=red, Symbols=green, Elements=yellow, etc.). Red is still used as the main accent color, but it's now a little brighter than the previous red that was used. Pictures cover the top of every page and more will be added/changed as time goes on. The logo was also moved to the top-left corner to make room for the pictures.
The hardest thing to figure out was how to organize the ever-growing sets of art. I decided on showcasing the art with colored backgrounds according to the liturgical color for that particular service. It will hopefully make it easier to spot which art you are looking for if you know the colors of the church year. The difficult ones will be the many Sundays after Pentecost or Ordinary Time, so I'm working on a way to perhaps make a specific Sunday's name visible when hovering over the artwork. If you'd like more information on the colors of the church year, check out The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod's explanation of the colors of the liturgical season.
Help Promote Paramentics
A few of you have asked me about ways in which you can help promote this site and its art and templates. I am constantly looking for ways to expand the reach of Paramentics as a valuable resource for churches, schools, and organizations. So today, I am releasing a page where anyone can download and use this site's logos and banners to help promote Paramentics. You can find the link at the bottom of every page, under Help Promote. If you would like to commission me for special art or service folders for conventions, conferences, or festival services, you may contact me using the form on the About page. I will eventually showcase some of those commissioned works on my personal website in the coming weeks.