Our next assignment is to design a newsletter for your
church or similar sort of organization. (This not a liturgy sheet.) Publisher has a lot of great
newsletter templates to choose from, so picking a good design should be
easy.
Before you pick a template, consider what things are likely to be in
your newsletter. Typical church newsletters (or bulletins) will report
on things like:
- the purpose of the collection,
- upcoming meetings of the church council,
- births, birthdays, sicknesses,
- church expansion plans,
- programs for young, old, men, women,
- whose turn it is to usher,
- who's taking care of the nursery or Sunday school
that day,
- a message from the pastor.
When you put together a newsletter, you're creating an
impression of the church you represent. Consider
the different impressions you're creating of your church if you put the
image on the left on the cover of your newsletter rather than the image
on the right. The picture on your newsletter says volumes about who your
are as a church community. (Church pictures from Morgue File.)
Where are you going to put the different items you've decided to include
in in your church newsletter?
- Whatever appears on the front page will get the
most attention.
- Items in the top left corner are read more quickly (or more often)
than items in the bottom right.
- Stories with a picture draw more attention than stories without one.
Your vision of your church should influence where you
place your articles.
- Is your church trying to welcome outsiders/new
comers/visitors?
- Is your church trying to educate/train its current members?
- Is your church trying to help out with social/religious causes
outside of the congregation?
Each of these would give a different view of your church,
and, as such, a different look to your bulletin.
When you've thought about all this stuff, pick a template (of at least
four pages) and make yourself a church newsletter. Make sure you use:
- appropriate fonts
- usually only two: one for the
headings and one for the text.
- appropriate colors.
- what does
a pink font say about your church as compared to a blue or black one?
- appropriate pictures.
- display a consistent image
of what your church is all about.
Get to work! |
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