People connect visually before they consume the content they are presented. If it is engaging even before they come into focus with the words on the page, you have a higher chance of gaining and keeping someone’s attention.
But an all-text flyer with 5 different fonts in 4 different font sizes doesn’t really count.
One of the easiest ways to raise the bar in your ministry’s communications is to use stock photography and other graphics that are of professional quality. So illustrations, photography and other graphics is something I regularly try to use in all my communications. What most people don’t know is that there are great resources on the web that are either free or reallllllly cheap (like $1!).
I’m constantly in search of decent royalty-free stock photography / graphics sites. Of course, some of the sites I use regularly aren’t explicitly Christian sites (like www.sxc.hu).
And now, there is a small crop of Christian stock graphics and image sites out there that are worth bookmarking and searching for the next public document you produce in your church or ministry. . .
CreativeMYK.com is one of them:
If you’re not accustomed to using graphics in your normal routine for producing documents, you might be at a loss for where you can use these types of graphics?
But once you start to think visually whenever you create anything that will be distributed, your message will taken on a new life. Here’s just some of the immediate places you might want to revisit and see how images can refresh and renew the content which you want people to read and consume:
- Church flyers / bulletins
- Sermon PowerPoint slides
- Business cards
- Retreat agenda/programs
- Church membership documents
- Blog posts
- Worship media (praise song lyrics backgrounds)
- Volunteer sign-up sheets
Once you start to make your message visually exciting, you’ll see how useful it is to get someone’s attention first. Paying attention to this first little matter will let you really hold onto it with the content you want to share with them.
What other stock graphics sites do you know about or use? Please share them below in the comments section.
I agree. It was a preacher that said, “I learned you can’t seperate the message from the presentation of that message.”
I also agree because I believe in an “entertainment” value. The root meaning for “entertain” is “to hold together.” So I do believe in using any and all means to hold people together.
And…so do you:)
Good post.