Effective Church Communications

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and a Biblical Perspective to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. Our tools constantly change; our task doesn’t; Effective Church Communications can help.

Video: How to create Custom Headers for websites with MS Publisher

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Create your own website header with MS Publisher--it's easier than you think!
Create your own website header with MS Publisher--it's easier than you think!

Creating a custom header for a website can be an expensive and difficult process, but it can be a very simple process if you do it with MS Publisher. This video does not teach you how to do websites, but if you already have one, for example with WordPress, this will show you how to create your own custom header for it.

If you don't have a website as yet, not knowing how to create a custom header can hold some folks back because of the perceived cost or impossibility of doing your own. This short video (it is SO easy) will solve one possible concern...and it is really fun! [Read more...]

How to create resizable graphics with MS Publisher, Webinar, On-Demand

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Wouldn't it be great to have graphic images you could resize and use both on the web and in print? Wouldn't it be great to use something like that for a unified graphics look for holidays or ministry campaigns? Wouldn't it be great to be able to create something like that inexpensively without using an expensive program like Photoshop?

YOU CAN! With MS Publisher! This video and PDF tutorial will show you how.

Use either one or both to see how to do it--they cover the same process.

How to create customizable graphics with msPub
PDF Tutorial: How to create customizeable graphics with MS Publisher

Graphics: lines, screens, clipart overview

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PDF of some Graphic Design Basics: lines, screens, clipart
PDF of some Graphic Design Basics: lines, screens, clipart

This PDF is the chapter from my first book on desktop publishing that gives you some ideas on how you can use the most basic elements of graphic design to help tell your story.

You may never have thought about how a line can actually tell a story, but it can and one of the sections here shows you how. Screens and reverses are graphic design tools that look great in high end printing, but in lower resolution materials you print in the church office they don't always come out looking as good as you want—this chapter will help you understand why.

It also has some tips on matching the style of your clip art to the style of the type in your communication piece.

Though we can do so much with some of the high-quality images we download from the web, you'll use them most effectively if you understand some of the basics taught in this PDF.

To download it, click here or on the image.

note: this PDF is from Yvon Prehn's archives and is the only format of this article available presently. Not the greatest quality to be sure, but shared with the belief that the content is useful.

Captions define what we see, never publish a photo without them

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Captions define what we see, never publish a photo without them
Captions define what we see, never publish a photo without them

We've all heard the saying: "A picture is worth a thousand words."

That is one of the dumbest statements ever because without a complete and clear caption, the question is, "which thousand?" No picture is self-explanatory. We have to tell people what to see in a photograph.

This PDF illustrates how a variety of captions can give completely different meanings to a picture.

Keep the lessons here in mind not only when you create print communications, but when you create PowerPoint and web pieces where you use a lot of images. You can never be sure that your images will mean the same thing to your audience as they do to you.

Sometimes (especially on websites with lots of little pictures) the images don't add clarity, but sometimes distraction and confusion. The addition of unnecessary little images to websites reminds me of the early days of desktop publishing when people were so excited to be able to use clipart that they often added lots of little clipart images to every church publication whether they were needed or not.

So many of the websites and blogs where people seem compelled to add an image (and many templates come with "thumbnail placeholders") results in many images that have little to do with the content of the text and sometimes result in a "what does that have to do with anything?" distraction for the reader. Your readers are not little children to have to be entertained by pictures if you have content worth reading.

Click here or on the image to download the PDF.

note: this PDF is from Yvon Prehn's archives and is the only format of this article available presently. Not the greatest quality to be sure, but shared with the belief that the content is useful.