Typophile

Help with a church bulletin

Tomufied

Greetings everyone!

I am presently interning at a church and have been assigned the task of updating our order of service bulletin. I am not at all a design professional and so was wondering if anyone could suggest a more elegant way of defining the header than I have done (here is the pdf).

Thanks in advance!

- Tomas

It appears that no one is interested in this topic. Surprising. I thought a church bulletin would draw a big crowd :)
Regardless of people's interest levels, for the sake of sharing I thought I would post what I came up with after tinkering all afternoon:

I would keep it typographic. And British.

This is Adobe Caslon Book and Semi Bold. I just took a liberty to change that 't'.

I'm a preacher's kid and have made many bulletins over the years, so I hope you don't mind my comment...

I did a quick Google for your church, and, if I found the right website, it appears that this bulletin is for short, outdoor services for homeless people.

With that in mind, your entire bulletin looks a tad formal to me. Yes, I know it's a worship service, but it's an outdoor service which probably has a fairly casual atmosphere, and perhaps the worshipers themselves (who apparently are primarily homeless folks) are folks who prefer a more casual atmosphere.

In fact I've been to many casual and/or outdoor services which were structured so that no bulletin was needed at all.

But anyway, you might want to consider experimenting with a slightly more informal design. You might try avoiding all caps, have larger type, shorter line lengths, maybe even trying breaking it into 2 columns instead of 1, etc.

Just a thought.

Forgot to mention that I like your idea of putting "of Cambridge" on a separate line. and also Tomi's use of upper & lower case which gives it a more approachable look than the original all caps.

...perhaps the worshipers themselves (who apparently are primarily homeless folks) are folks who prefer a more casual atmosphere.

Then again, perhaps they would appreciate one thing in their lives with some formal structure?

Thanks for all the comments!

@ Tomi - Thanks for the suggestion. What did you think of the italics on the "the" and the "of Cambridge"? I thought it set of the "Outdoor Church" a bit but did you find it messy or distracting?

@ JamesM - You indeed found the right website. I considered going the informal route but decided against for a few reasons:
1) although it is outdoors the liturgy we use is relatively formal (it's lifted almost word for word out of the Book of Common Prayer)
2) in line with what John Hudson suggested, this is one of the few opportunities that many of our congregants have to participate in a community where their views, and to a large extent their personhood, are respected so I wanted that respect to carry over even into our bulletins.
- I like the the two column idea. I'll give it a go.

> I considered going the informal
> route but decided against...

I understand. Sounds like your church is providing a real service to your community and I congratulate you for it.

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