A Church Voice

Issue #11: Color & Inspiration

April 29, 2001 - Third Sunday of Easter

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From Barbara’s Keyboard

Spring has sprung here in Oklahoma, and I´m eagerly awaiting the arrival of fireflies in a few weeks so I can enjoy them with my two sons, 5 years old and 14 months old. In the meantime, we have a garden to put in (that phrase conceals how rough this garden will be...) and plenty of "easy" seeds to plant. Ah, the imperatives of eager children!

Speaking of growing, we're now at 516 subscribers; thank you so much for subscribing, and to the newest subscribers, welcome! As always, I invite you to pass along this ezine to a friend, colleague, church staff member, pastor, denominational resource person, or anyone else who would enjoy this newsletter. I appreciate your support.

Here's a good article about church-related domain names: "Naming in the online Anglican world," by Brian Reid of Anglicans Online.

For discussion boards, church Web site reviews, and a well-organized resource area, visit our partner, ChurchSite: Resources for Webmasters.

In this issue are tips on controlling colors on your Web site, and some inspiring resources. Dig in!

blessings,
Barbara Laufersweiler
cveditor@laufers.com

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C O N T E N T S

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Do you rely on the default colors for your Web page background color, text, and links (unvisited, active, and visited)? If so, your site is at the mercy of people like me who change our default colors. I bet you weren't counting on your text in purple against a background in light yellow, with links in variations of hot pink; those are my defaults.

Of course, I picked unusual default colors so that, as a Web designer, I could easily see whether those details of Web sites are controlled properly, but you never know when a visitor has changed his or her browser defaults to some peculiar combination that looks terrible with your graphics and background graphic. It definitely happens, when the designer doesn't set those colors for a Web site.

The solution is very easy: control the colors of the background, text, and links. In HTML, all of these colors can be set in the Body tag. If you're using CSS -- cascading style sheets -- you can set these colors with styles.

Experiment to find a set of colors that works well with the color scheme already in place on your Web site. Text can be standard black, or try navy blue or dark brown instead. Links (unvisited, active, and visited) could be a set of bright, pale, and medium blue, respectively... or a set of purples, or greens, or reds -- deep pinks might even work! But make sure the colors are very readable against your background.

Try it out, set your colors, make sure they work well -- and rest easy afterward.

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When working on a Web site, I always include a background color in case something happens and the background graphic doesn't load properly. I choose a color that complements the background graphic so the text and graphics still look pretty good. For instance, cream or ivory "behind" a pale cream paper-look background.

This also helps those visitors whose connection is slow enough that their browser displays the background color for a moment before adding the background graphic.

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A d s

Explore and enjoy your faith with your kids!
Faith at Home has great ideas for playtime, stories, Godly play, art, lots more. Tips for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter at home. Great articles and book recommendations!
Faith at Home

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Seek out ideas, information, and great examples to keep yourself learning and thinking creatively about your parish or church newsletter. Here are two great online article banks to browse through for insight and inspiration: