How do we carve out a democratic future in these highly uncertain times? My partner on the Purple State project wrote a brilliant analysis of where we are now. As we’ve traveled the country screening our little movie that could, we’ve found audiences are desperate for some viable ways to work together across our political/religious/cultural divides. With television’s talking heads continuing to turn up the volume (Tea parties! Swine flu!, etc.), where can we find both sanity and creativity?

 A bright student of mine, John Lui, sent me this practical suggestion: try Pecha Kucha—an onomonopoetic Japanese word for good old fashioned “chit chat.”

Have you ever suffered through a PowerPoint presentation that felt as if it would never end? Maybe even in one of my classes?! Two Tokyo-based architects came up with a refreshing alternative. They offered a microphone and a projector to creative types with particular restraints. Presenters were allowed to show 20 powerpoint slides for 20 seconds each—just six minutes and forty seconds to make your point, state your case, and dazzle your audience. But this is more than an accommodation to audiences with shorter attention spans.  It is a dynamic way to pack lots of ideas into a compact space and place.   Topics range from “Social Change through Creation with Prison Inmate” to “Kafkanistan.” It may include fashion designers, filmmakers or skateboarders.  But the event is low-fi throwback to the days of magic lanterns and putting on a slide show.

One of the more consistent issues I've seen in the Christian web design world (and artistic world in general) has been the "standards" we tend to use for what is good. In the Christian world, we tend to compare our art and creativity with other Christians who are doing the same thing. Unfortunately, a lot of times it's like playing sports at a small school. You know, those schools where you can be a half-way athletic person and play varsity football, basketball, tennis, lacrosse, golf, be chess team captain, voted prom king, student body president, and even most likely to succeed. I propose it's time we begin looking a little further outside our creative comfort zone. Here's a great place to start... As a church or para-church, the easiest (and maybe most obvious) place to look when searching for design ideas is at other church or ministry websites. This is why websites such as www.churchbeauty.com are so popular to churches. Instead of perusing sites like this (which are still good sites that fulfill a big need for churches), check out sites like www.strangefruits.nl. Anyone can tell the difference in design abilities between these two sites:

Hey everyone.

We thought it would be great to start this blog out with some proper introductions. We wanted to let you know who actually makes up the voice of "The Regime".

We started The Regime (our custom design company - www.theregime.com) two years ago with clients made up of some big-name bands, some resaurants, a handful of tech clients, and some ministries. It was a good time, and in May we launched a second company called "Clover". Clover provides beautiful websites for ministries at a super inexpensive rate, as well as a custom CMS (content management system for the non-techies) that we wrote from scratch so that a 65-year-old church admin can create and update the website. You can check it all out (and even demo it) at www.cloversites.com.