About the new look for the website:
I am writing to you all about some changes that are coming to the Anglican Life website, or may have already come depending on when you’re reading this. I have been part of a digital working group from across the country since the early fall of 2021, and we have been working towards the launch of an exciting new project called Anglican News Canada.
Anglican News Canada is a completely new digital platform, and works to bring together the Anglican Journal and a growing number of diocesan (or tri-diocesan in our case) publications. They will be together under this single “umbrella,” but also still separate and unique. The purpose of this platform it to allow Anglicans to more easily connect with each other from across Canada and beyond. With a few clicks of your mouse, you will be able to access information from all of the Anglican Church of Canada publications, as well as international news, spiritual reflections, opinion pieces, and much more.
In addition to these exciting things, our own Anglican Life website is getting a redesign. You’ll still be able to read the paper online, and download a PDF of it to print out if you want to, but you’ll also be able to more easily access individual articles and columns within the paper, and share those with friends by email, or on social media. It’s hoped that this will greatly improve our online readership, but it doesn’t not spell out an end to the print paper. At present, there is no plan to stop printing Anglican Life, but this gives you a better way to enjoy it even more, and to share it digitally with those who might enjoy it too!
So when you get the chance, please do check out the “new look” website for Anglican Life. We’re keeping the same address: anglicanlife.ca, so we aren’t changing everything, and it shoud be just as easy to find us online as ever. Back issues will also be available as PDFs, as they have been since the website was set up a few years ago. Feel free to let me know what you think about it by writing to: [email protected]. I hope that you enjoy the new website and also take time to explore anglicannews.ca.
About the new logo for Anglican Life:
As I have worked towards becoming a part of this new national digital platform, I have been noticing that some of the other papers from across the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) have logos that are instantly recognizable, and that can be used as a handy graphic in web design as well as for print publication. I thought, “Well, if they can have that, then so should we.” But what to chose as a symbol for Anglican Life?
At a meeting with the digital working group, I suggested that fish were the obvious choice for a paper from Newfoudland and Labrador. You’ll all be proud of me to hear that when they asked what kind of fish, I responded with “There is only one fish, and that’s cod. Everything else is called by its name: haddock, sole, trout, etc. But when you say ‘fish,’ you mean cod and cod only.”
After the meeting, I took some time to think about the idea of a logo, and while I had just thrown the idea of fish out there, the more that I thought about it, the better it sounded to me. I reached out to the Joint Committee Officer, the Rev’d Fred Marshall, and he agreed that it’s a good choice for Anglican Life, and he then reached out to representatives from the three dioceses to see what they thought.
When everyone had agreed that fish were both a good representation of the province of NL, and also a good Biblical reference for a Church publication, the next step was to reach out to Saskia Rowley who is the head of the graphics and print production department for the national office of the ACC. For anyone who has had the chance to work with Saskia, you’ll agree with me that she is a worker of miracles and is also one of the loveliest people in the world. I sent her a rough sketch of a fish, and she sent me several amazing options for Anglican Life’s use. In consultation with the three dioceses, I chose the one that you see in this month’s paper. You’ll have to forgive me that they aren’t exactly codfish: the addition of fins and the beard-like barbel made the logo feel too busy. I hope that you like it, and the new colours for Anglican Life, and thank you all for the support that you give to your paper.
