Another Howdy from the Volunteer State!

[brucer16]

Hello Everyone,

I'm not new to the site, but am new to posting on it. I usually visit this site at least once every day as there is a lot of great information here. I have been working on my congregation's website for about five or six years and the site has come a long way since I first took over the reins.

I still consider myself a newbie because I have never had any formal training in website design or graphics or anything like that, so I'm constantly trying to learn the new stuff. I currently hand code most everything, but I have started venturing out and trying to learn various content management systems. I may eventually convert our site over to one of these in the future, just not ready for that right now.

David, I think this forum is a great service and ministry for all church webmasters and I wanted to thank you for it.

I'm also thinking about starting a small business doing some websites for churches and small businesses. Anyone have any good advice??

Thanks,

Bruce Richardson
Highland Heights Church of Christ
www.highlandheights.net (http://www.highlandheights.net)

[David Gillaspey]

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for posting.

I still consider myself a newbie because I have never had any formal training in website design or graphics or anything like that ... This is true of probably 85% of church webmasters! I say this based on my research of 11,000 church websites to date.

As for HTML and programming, I don't attempt to match on my website the huge amount of resources about these topics already available on the web. I am planning to do something about (what I perceive to be) a lack of knowledge about the basics of graphic design among church webmasters. (Again, I say this based on my research of church websites. I've seen a lot of poorly designed ones.) So, as I've stated before on this forum, I'm working on launching a new site, www.discovergraphicdesign.com, which currently points back to this site. This will be an online learning site obviously devoted to the subject of graphic design. (Not, therefore, a collection of articles or a collection of tutorials.) I hope to launch the beta version of the website in a month or two. At that time, I will ask/give the opportunity to forum members to evaluate the site and its effectiveness.

(I'm currently working on a degree in graphic design from The Art Institute of Portland [Oregon], but I already hold a master's degree in photojournalism and I have worked for a number of publications in my life as a graphic designer. Thus I have a passion for and some experience with graphic design already.)

David, I think this forum is a great service and ministry for all church webmasters and I wanted to thank you for it.Thanks for the encouragement!


Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites
and forum administrator