Many churches these days are just beginning to wake up to the necessity of well-designed material to promote the Gospel of Christ to reach out to their community. However, insecurity of what one needs to have good graphics, the importance of having good graphics, and how to make good graphics design, leaves many churches at a disadvantage – Especially small churches that can’t afford to hire a graphics designer. As a graphics designer, I consider myself an evangelist of sorts. I have been commissioned by God (Matthew 28:18-20) to reach the world with the Gospel of Christ. I intend to use my God-given talents to accomplish as much as He allows me to in reaching the lost for Him. So with that I want to pass on to you some steps toward developing a graphical edge to your sword.
The Graphics Designer
As I pointed out earlier most churches are too small to hire a graphics designer. But if you can hire a graphics designer you must first bathe this decision in prayer. I believe in being Spirit-led in everything I do, including graphics design. God is the Creator, and creativity ultimately comes from God. You need a designer that is Spirit-led. He must be in line with your church’s mission. Designers are creative and therefore may not line up with you exactly in practice. For example I know some churches are anti-social networking. Your going to be hard pressed to find a designer who is willing to give up his Facebook for you. But if he is Godly he will use his skills in social networking to promote your ministry. Also, he needs to be talented. I have had many interviews with people who claimed to be graphics designers, that may have played in Windows Paint and made a church bulletin once in Publisher, but that does not make them a talented designer who will take your ministry to new heights.
Now, if you can’t afford a graphics designer there are some solutions. You can send your graphics work outside to someone to design. I recommend staying away from many secular design companies who don’t understand your mission and will give you a very plain standardized church look that’s not eye catching, as well as charge an arm and a leg. There are some really good church design companies out there. I recommend Fundamental Media. Also Fundamental Media is it’s online editing solution for customizing designs. Another good site for stock church designs is Fundamental Media and Print Place, Next Day Fliers.
The Design
It is also important for you to get a feel for good design to help your designer. You can look at what other people are doing to give you some ideas, but I want to give you some design tips.
Never use more than two or three fonts. The more fonts the more confusing and crowded your design begins to look. Don’t use standard Microsoft Word fonts like Ariel and Times New Roman. Stay away from cheesy fonts such as Papyrus, and Comic Sans. A good font resource is Colour Lovers .
Choose professional images. Unless you have a professional photographer on hand, you may find it better to go with stock images. One of the best sites on the web for this is iStock Photo . Avoid google image search at all cost. Images have copyrights on them. You don’t want to use just any image from google, it could lead to legal issues.
Be careful of the heavy uses of glows and drop shadows. These can be nice when done right, but they should be subtle.
One final tip is that you may find there is more talent in your church than you think. I suggest looking toward your youth group for talent in this area. Many youth these days are surrounded by computers and may pick up some skills here and there.
I hope all this is helpful. The message of Christ deserves our best presentation. That is why good graphics design is so important.
By: Benjamin Smith (Head Graphics Designer for Reformers Unanimous Recovery Ministries)
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post.
"One final tip is that you may find there is more talent in your church than you think. I suggest looking toward your youth group for talent in this area. Many youth these days are surrounded by computers and may pick up some skills here and there."
I would VERY STRONGLY advise against this. Although it seems like getting work done by volunteers is a good idea, take it from someone that was one of those 'youths', they have no idea. The longer I am in this industry, the more I realize how little I knew about web design. Even a year into it, doing it 24×7, I still had a lot to learn.
I've been involved in Web Development for about 12 years now. I finally chose it as my full-time career 4 years ago. I can attest that there is simply no comparison between a Web Design Hobbyist and a dedicated full-time Designer. Again, I've been in both places.
Dollar for dollar, there is no better investment than a ministry website. Many tracts find their way to the trash, audio CD's are listened to a couple times and discarded, banners and fliers are very short-lived. A website can proclaim Christ for you ministry 24 hours a day… and it never goes out of town for the winter.
So, if I were in charge of a ministry, what advice would I give?
1) Invest in a really good designer.
I mean REALLY good. We live in a visual society, so your site MUST look it's best. Start with a handful of pages: About, Ministries, Contact, and a Wordpress Blog. More can be added later.
2) Invest in a good coder.
You need a coder that understands website optimization. Take it from a designer, most of us don't know a lot about optimization… we just know how to make it look pretty.
3) Invest in a website marketer.
Your site is done, but people need to find you. A search engine marketer will increase your rank. Need more proof? If your site is not #1 on Google for your area, you are missing TONS of visits. Believe me, a site is useless without all those visits.
A professionally developed website will cost you a bit of cash, but the long-term benefits are will worth it.
I agree, Nick! This is a huge benefit to churches, as well as an amazing asset for reaching the world.
Yes this is so true, Andrew Wikel and I are teaching a class to some young people in our christian school on media with the intent to plug them into our church services and other media service opportunities.