Whew! Everyone take a deep breath — this is it! The conclusion of my first series (note to self: shorter series next time) on church media and design. This series has only touched on these 10 subjects briefly. This list was actually “born” over the years as I’ve been asked to provide input, teach training sessions, and through my own trials and errors. While the examination of each topic isn’t comprehensive, as this blog continues we’ll explore these topics, and others, more closely.
So all that said — let’s get to it! The last on our list of ways to improve your church media right now is:
Pay attention to the balance and emphasis of your design.
Now that’s a broad statement, and composition is too big an idea to be fully explored in one blog post. For the purpose of this series, I’m going to speak to volunteers who probably aren’t full-time, and aren’t professional designers. So this is a very basic, cursory approach to composition and, more specifically, composition for church media.
First, let’s talk about balance. Some might refer to this as gravity or opposition. It’s the idea of how the pieces of your composition play against or with each other, and it’s a big idea to wrap your brain around. In it’s most simplistic form, think of your design in terms of black and white or shades of gray. Contrast. Can you read the text from a distance? Are you leaving enough room for the lettering or artwork to breath?
The other part of balance comes from what I’ll call gravity. Does your design have a distinct gravity? If the letters each represented, say, solid wood blocks would they be positioned in such a way that feels natural? This doesn’t necessarily mean everything is lying at the bottom of your composition — maybe the point of gravity is in the center of your design. Wherever it is, the objects in your composition should feel naturally placed and spaced.
To make this even more simple, and if you have no idea what I’m talking about but want to improve I’ll give you this tip: work from the center out. I don’t mean centering your text, necessarily. In fact, depending on your title or the emphasis of your graphic, centering your text may be a terrible decision. Rather, I mean that the elements of your design, especially text, should live within the center area of your design.
For the sake of your composition you have to pay attention to how the title or text, as a whole, plays with or against the background or secondary elements. This is not a hard & fast rule, and isn’t the best solution for every situation. What I’m saying is that if you don’t know where to start, try working the center and then start experimenting from there.
Also, while we’re using the gravity analogy, not only should the overall design have a gravity and balance, but the individual elements should have a certain gravity. In my post on text, I mentioned that bringing the letters closer together makes them appear more natural and esthetically pleasing. The same is true with words and blocks of text. Don’t go overboard and squish everything together, but in a 1024×768 space, you do need to be space conscious. More often than not, it will be to your advantage to play what I like to call “Word Tetris.” If you look at the design and you see gaps or holes that would make you say “D’OH!” in Tetris, move them around until the pieces fit together and are balanced.
Finally, when I talk about emphasis, I mean just that – what is the message of this graphic? If your audience can only take one word, one impression away from your graphic, what will it be?
Many times, you’ll accomplish this by making sure that the emphasis is correctly reflected in the proportions of your text. Other times, you’ll make that impression through a graphic with understated or simple text. However you accomplish it, you need to be able to step away from your graphic and say, “This communicates my message.”
It’s ultimately not important that your graphic is cool or trendy. If it doesn’t communicate the message and enhance worship or the presentation of the gospel, you’ve failed.
There’s a lot more to be said on the subject of composition that we’ll have to address another day. That said, if you’ll follow these tips to improve the balance and emphasis you’ll see an immediate payoff in the quality and reception of your church media.
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