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by Don Chapman
As I've said many times, contemporary worship
is >not< business as usual! Gone are
the days of three hymns and a sermon. Today's
worship leader must know a little bit about
everything: pop music, praise bands, worship
flow...
and design.
There's a bunch of bad
PowerPoint out there.
But you don't do art, you
say? If you have
enough creative energy
in you to be involved
with worship, you have
enough creativity
to maintain decent graphics.
You might not
be able to produce the
graphics yourself
(although I believe anyone
can learn to create
good, basic graphics) but
you should at least
be able to recognize graphics
that >aren't<
good.
More and more churches
are combining worship
with video and presentation
software for
wonderfully professional
results that would
have cost a fortune a few
years ago.
However, I'm afraid the
technology is getting
ahead of us. We have the
latest bells and
whistles, yet with this
incredible technology
I've seen the most horrific
cheesiness projected
on some church screens!
Let's start with a few
basics. Of all places,
I ran into a nice, quick
and concise art
lesson at the US Post Office
in the form
of a pamphlet. They've
put a copy online,
take a look:
http://www.zairmail.com/articles/simpleformula7.asp
There are a few things
here we can apply
to church graphics.
1. One thing dominates the page (or screen.) Don't try to cram the entire song/sermon
on one slide.
2. Minimize typeface variety. Don't mix and match 5 fonts just because
you can. Stay away from weird type styles
- you don't want your worship to resemble
a used car commercial.
Choose one or two nice,
readable fonts and
stick with them throughout
your service.
Times Roman is bland -
start with Helvetica,
Arial or Verdana. Whenever
you use a new
font, try it out on the
screen before worship.
What looks good on your
computer monitor
might not look so hot enlarged.
3. Easy to read text. Tiny text is hard to read on screen. Centering
lyrics is the trend, but in my Art 101 college
class I learned that this tires the eye -
lyrics should be "flush left" -
like a newspaper column. See how hard it
is to read the following. The eye has to
search for the beginning of each line:
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In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth. And the earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was upon the face
of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there
was light.
And God saw the light,
that it was good:
and God divided the
light from the darkness.
And God called the
light Day, and the
darkness
he called Night.
And the evening and
the
morning were the
first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in
the midst of the waters, and let it divide
the waters from the waters.
And God made the
firmament, and divided
the
waters which were
under the firmament
from
the waters which
were above the firmament:
and it was so.
And God called the
firmament Heaven.
And
the evening and the
morning were the
second
day. |
4. Use relevant illustrations. Avoid cartoonish, goofy clip art (unless
you're preparing slides for a junior high
lock- in!)
Take a look at your PowerPoint
or overhead
master for this coming
week. What can you
tweak that would make the
presentation cleaner
and more professional?
More tips: marketing guru Seth Godin has a few great
PowerPoint tips of his own. Read more at his blog. Here's a PDF you can download of the same
material.
>Bottom Line: Avoid graphic cheese in church!
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