Kester at Complex Christ|Signs of Emergence has an interesting post about fonts and churches and typography and branding.
He talks about whether churches should think about the fonts they use, the design of their publications, etc:
So should churches worry about branding / style / design / typography?
I think they should. But not to allow themselves to compete in visual
style terms with the big corporatations, not to ‘market’ themselves
well. But because they have a hugely important message. One that
deserves better than cheeky Comic Sans publications that try to tell
everyone how nice and friendly we are, but send me into palpitations.
This is where I come down with the question of "church marketing". No we shouldn’t be out there elbowing our way into people’s consciousness, competing with other churches for "clients."
But if the medium is the message, and we have the most important message out there, we should definitely be presenting it in a pleasing way. Which is why all churches ought to ban Comic Sans from their font libraries. Actually, do me a favor: go to your font library right now and delete it. The world will be better off.
In all seriousness, though, how often does the message get lost because of the sloppiness or gaudiness of the presentation?
I’m fed up with the whole marketing thing. I’m so tired of Christian’s running after the world. No wonder people don’t want to walk into a church full of shallow presentations.
I had to laugh a little about this one. Not so much about the serious note about “church marketing,” but about the comic sans font. I used to be in a church where the default font in the computer program on the secretary’s desk that was used for the church bulletin was comic sans or at least something very similar! So, this is true! I have no serious statements to offer on church marketing at this time. . .
I had to go open a word document and type something in comic sans to get this, but I think I know what you mean- it’s all about taking yourself and your work seriously, or not apologizing for it.
Having said that I don’t know what font I WOULD use if I were writing the church bulletin. Like everyone else I would probably try to use something that appealed to the most number of people, until I thought about it long enough, and finally used something only I liked, and could trust that the reason I liked it was because God had a plan and a reason for it.
Easy to overthink this and not go with feelings.
So true.
That is a great cartoon!
Yes, I got it here (forgot to link to it in the original post), drawn by Jeph Jacques. Credit where credit is due!
Yes, I got it here (forgot to link to it in the original post – oops!), drawn by Jeph Jacques. Credit where credit is due!