Introduction

It doesn’t get much more American then coke and I love it. I know we already did a section on logos but this design is so recognizable by so many people I couldn’t pass it up! The design was created by Frank Mason Robinson back in 1885. It was back then that he created the look for the cursive within the logo.

First Typeface

The first typeface used appears to be a sans serif type face. It is identified by because there are no serifs or strokes anywhere within the font. It is all uniform and mono weight. There are also no thick to thin transitions which also make it easy to identify.

Second Typeface

The second typeface within the design is script. It is cursive and is easily identified due to its appearance of being hand printed. It looks like someone hand wrote coca-cola and you can see that like all scripts, it is not all capital letters. It is also visually appealing because it is larger grabs the attention of everyone.

Contrasts

There is such a drastic difference between the two typefaces. One has no appearance of strokes while the other is full of them. One appear to be created by hand while the other looks like it was created by a machine in order to be perfect.

Conclusion

I believe that the contrasts make this a very recognizable design but also bring a deepness to the logo that many overlook. The sans serif typeface to me symbolizes that everyone will enjoy it. It is perfect and attracts everyone. The script typeface makes you feel at home and that what you are about to experience has a familiarity to it and you begin to look have an emotional connection to it.

This question is one that is very personal to me.  I think that being close to my in-laws is very important in a marriage.  However, I have a unique situation where I feel like it is even more important.  My father in law passed away about 16 years ago.  I never had a chance to know him but I have seen the impact of what he taught my wife and it is something that we will carry on in our family.  As a result of my father in laws death, I always think about how he would want her to be treated.  I think of how he would treat her and the relationship that he would want her to have with her son in laws.  Because of this I feel even more of an obligation to have a good relationship with my mother in law because she is alone.  She doesn’t have someone to take care of her and that is definitely something that she deserves.  Sometimes it is hard though.  We have differing views on quite a few things and that can make it difficult to build the relationship.  However, it is important to build the relationship because I want my children to have a good relationship with their grandmother.  I want them to recognize how generous she is with her time and her money.  She is one of the most generous people that I have ever met.  She has her flaws, but she loves them and I want them to see how they should treat her from my actions.

I think having a couple council is very important.  This is something that my wife and I already do but we call it couple inventory.  It is something that I learned on my mission and it is something that we have tried to do this year.  One of the reasons that we started to do implement this over the course of the year is that we realized that we were not meeting our goals as a couple.  In fact, we didn’t even really have goals.  A couple council gives us the opportunity to have some one on one time, something that we don’t get nearly enough of with 3 small kids, 2 full time jobs, school, and church callings.  During that time, we have an agenda of how we want the time to be spent.  We start with a prayer and begin to talk about the things that we believe that we are doing well.  We then move into things that we want to improve on for our next meeting.  We write down our goals and remind each other throughout the month what our goals are.  This can be something as simple or something deep.  One thing to know is that you have to be open to receiving criticism.  You also have to recognize the strengths and weaknesses that you each possess.  Last, we tell each other how much we love each other.  This helps us end on a happy note and understand that even though there are things that we believe we can improve, the most important thing is that we love each other, even when times are difficult.

In the world that we live in, there are so many temptations.  Unfortunately, one of those temptations can ruin your marriage.  More than likely, you know someone who has cheated on their spouse, or been cheated on.  This can happen for different reasons and in many different ways.  Even with so much temptation around, there are some things that my wife and I do that you can do to protect yourself and your marriage.

Early on in our marriage, my wife and I promised to be faithful to one another and wanted to take precautions to make sure that we put ourselves in a position to succeed.  One way that we help each other is that we share social media accounts.  We have had friends that just “wanted to catch up” with an old friend of the opposite sex.  It started out innocent enough but after many conversations, they went out on dates, and later began an affair.  When asked how they met, they said it was through facebook and if it hadn’t been for that, they never would have reached out to each other.  Another thing that we share is our email account.  That allows for communication to be monitored on all fronts without the idea that you can hide something from your spouse.  The last thing that my wife and I do is we have a couple’s inventory every month.  That allows us to know how we can improve as spouses and helps us to know what we can to do to support each other that we may not otherwise be doing.

One of the greatest things that you can learn in marriage is to truly love your spouse.  Recently while studying “Drawing Heaving into Your Marriage,” by H Wallace Goddard PhD I had the opportunity to study about charity.  Charity is defined as the pure love of Christ.  That means that we attempt to love others as we know that our Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ love us.  Imagine what that must feel like!  I bet you’re asking yourself, “What is the difference between love and charity?”.  Charity in my opinion is the ability to overlook and forgive others for their shortcomings and love them unconditionally.  Think about your relationship with spouse.  When you first got married, were there things that he or she did that annoyed you to the core?  Are those things still something that you deal with?  What is the difference between now and then?  The difference is that you have found a different way to love.  This doesn’t just come with time though.  You have to put in the work.  My wife and I have done this in different ways over the years.  One of the best ways that we have been able to have charity for one another is to pray for opportunities to show love for each other.  Those opportunities present themselves in a myriad of ways.  It could be from making dinner, getting up in the middle of the night with the kids, to something as simple as a hug.  I encourage you to pray for help to know how you can show charity to your spouse, and then act on the opportunities when they arise.  I promise that you won’t be disappointed!

I’ve been thinking a lot about agency as it pertains to marriage and relationships.  Elder L.G. Robbins, a member of the quorum of the Seventy in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, gave an inspired talk about anger and agency.  One of the biggest takeaways that I had from the talk was that we choose how we react to what happens around us.  Satan knows that in order to destroy God’s plan, he must destroy the family.  However, he is sly and cunning, and does his best to “dissociate anger from agency, making us believe that we are victims of an emotion that we cannot control.”.  As I contemplated what this means, I began to ponder my relationship with my wife.  There are times that I lose my temper and blame my reaction on something that someone else did.  However, we are taught that this is not true.  We can choose to not react in that way, but rather in a way that will help build the relationship while at the same time fixing the problem.  One way that I recently learned is to make sure you treat the person that you are experiencing conflict with as a person and not an object.  That way you don’t feel the need to dominate them, but rather work with them to come up with a solution that is amiable for both parties.  I know that this works with my wife.  We have had our fair share of fights, but I’ve noticed that when I remember how much I love and care for her, my anger is diminished.  I see her as my wife and I want to do whatever is best for her.

Pride is something that many people do not recognize in themselves and when others recognize it, it can cause contention.  However, for marriage to be successful both the husband and the wife must recognize pride among each other.  Pride is something that I personally have a problem seeing in myself.  One of the little ways that pride works itself into marriage is when one of those in the relationship fail to compromise or see the other’s point of view.  This can be done in something small such as how to load a dishwasher or in larger ways like how to discipline children.  When pride is present, there is an absence of love.  We begin to objectify our spouse, rather than loving them.  We don’t see them as a person but rather as something that we have to conquer.  We become more worried about BEING right, rather than DOING what is right.  President Ezra Taft Benson, prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, said, “Another major portion of this is prevalent sin of pride is enmity toward our fellowmen.  We are tempted daily to elevate ourselves above others and diminish them.”  When we put ourselves above our spouses, we are showing that we believe we are more important for them.  We are saying that our opinion is more important and that they should just do as we say.  The opposite of pride is love.  When love is present, we put the needs of our spouse above our own.  We have a desire to make their burdens lighter, no matter the cost.

Let’s start off by talking about what it means to turn towards one another.  Turning towards one another means to interact with your spouse instead of brushing them off, even in moments that may seem to be little or unimportant.  When I was first married, I worked long hours.  I was working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.  I would get home at about 9pm and just want to relax and have some time for myself.  My wife on the other hand was so excited to see me that she would immediately begin asking me how I was doing, how my day was, and tell me how much she missed me.  At the time, I felt annoyed by her actions.  I thought to myself, “Can you please leave me alone for 15 minutes?!”.  It wasn’t that I wasn’t excited to see my wife, I just wanted some time where I could just be by myself.  Looking back, I wish that I had understood that my wife was turning towards me and wanted to connect with me.  One of the biggest challenges of turning towards your spouse, is realizing how selfish you are with your time.  In order to turn to one another, it will require sacrifice of your time.  It will require you to make a conscious decision to be more involved with your spouse, and not just be idly standing by.  However, that sacrifice is well worth it because of the increased connection, trust, and compassion that you have for your spouse.  Its amazing what giving up a little bit of time for yourself will do for a relationship.