Worship Aid Design

locus_iste

This forum and the resources on the Musica Sacra site have been invaluable to me (long-time reader, first time writer), so I wanted to share some of that fruit and hopefully help others tasked with the design of Worship Aids / Orders of Service. I recently published two blog posts about my design process for booklets for my local parish:

Orders of Service: Liturgical Principles
The first part discusses the three guiding liturgical principles in these designs: accessibility of the actual liturgy, in order to support “the fully conscious and actual/active participation by all people” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 14; Pius X, Tra le Sollecitudini); catechesis, because “the liturgy as the first school of spiritual life” (Paul VI, address at the closing of the second session of the Council, 4 December 1963); and noble simplicity, because the liturgy is “clear and obvious, yet stimulating and erudite” (Romano Guardini, The Spirit of the Liturgy)

Orders of Service: Design Strategies
The second part has more practical suggestions related to form factor, font selection, typography, etc. More importantly, it discusses an approach to design that keeps the liturgy and usability at the forefront of design decisions.

These are not perfect, so I would be interested in feedback. I have seen threads asking for advice on creating these on this forum, so I hope this is a useful resource.

Thanks!
jason john paul haskins.
http://locusiste.org

Adam Wood

Nice work.

For those who won't go read your stuff in detail, I want to highlight your link to:
http://practicaltypography.com/

This is a great resource. People who think they don't know or care about fonts should explore it a little bit.

francis

Bravo!

I recently started a thread to discuss the same issue.

I specifically like the format you chose as

The finished size of the Triduum booklets was 5.5″× 12″ created by trimming a tabloid size sheet. The extra length saved a number of sheets.

Programs that I design are very similar in style and appearance, and they lend themselves to ease of handling as opposed to the usual folded size of 5.5 x 8 which is most common among those who create 'worship aids'.

Another option I have used is a trifold tabloid, which is very similar to your size and layout. I am including a sample here in pdf format.

Carl D

Super useful! Thank you!

Richard Mix

I'm still open to a considered argument agains Times New Roman, but this doesn't quite fit the bill:

...it’s hard to complain about Times New Roman [but it has] a dark side. When Times New Roman appears in a book, document, or advertisement, it connotes apathy. It says, “I submitted to the font of least resistance.” Times New Roman is not a font choice so much as the absence of a font choice, like the blackness of deep space is not a color. To look at Times New Roman is to gaze into the void.

Being an Ivory-soap kind of guy I like to think that due energy has gone into careful proofreading, and I don't necessarily get that reassurance just from the font choice. I realize Jason didn't illustrate all his examples at actual size, but when I see the banner for the mandatum halfway down this page I can't help briefly thinking it's an inserted add for some kind of scented product ;-)

locus_iste

Thanks!

Mandatum would be a great name for a soap... It does rather stand out on the blog; what works in print design does not necessarily work on the web. Those headers/banners are the part of this design with which I am the least satisfied. Similar to my critique of the font papyrus, they try a little to much to be something they are not. And though the border elements are pulled from the same images, they treat the edges and interplay of positive/negative space differently than the rest of the design. But here is one in context:

The inspiration for these proportions did come from trifold tabloids, which are the best option for maximizing content on a single sheet. Very useful for producing documents in-house. Although some don't like the extra rustling of folding the pages over, and the order of the panels can be confusing.

I do not entirely agree with Butterick's reasons for disliking Times New Roman (and the similar argument he makes against Minion). For me, the problems with TNR are more to do with the proportions of the letterforms and that they don't assemble well into words. And that is more an issue with the digital version of the font Microsoft has disseminated than with the original typeface.

francis

Very nice program!

Yes. TNR in the Postscript type 1 (I have a Linotype library) is an excellent and classic font that is simply 'Timeless'. (So is the Roman religion for that fact.) Another issue that many do not understand or are even aware of is pair kerning that is handled in InDesign as opposed to Word or another amateur publishing application. One MUST have control of kerning and tracking to control the finese of typography. It's all been lost on the PC DIY typesetter who knows nothing about typography. I learned as an apprentice under a very skilled man who originally worked with the old hot metal typesetters and then to the Linotronic (which I used to run myself for the Feds). That time was invaluable to getting a professional grasp of the art.

Macintosh does it very well. I started on Quark Xpress (1.0 in 1990), and that was the standard for years. But once Adobe jumped into the game with InDesign and CS, that became the ultimate tool.

Of course, lllustrator is THE tool for creating all the vector counterparts one needs in any publishing effort. I am working on an illuminated Drop Cap for a piece on another thread. (attached). This represents about three hours or more work. The bottom angel will be the common Six winged seraph and then the two angels at the top will have wings that extend upwards beyond the border of the letter S. This will be dropped into a manuscript in another thread called 'Hybrid Chant Notation'. I am putting these angels in this particular drop cap because it is fitting for a Sanctus.

If you zoom in as close as possible (especially the wing detail of the seraph), you will see why this takes hours to illustrate, not unlike the manuscripts of old.

BTW... I set the footer in Times Roman to demonstrate how well it truly sets when one is using a professional typesetting program (InDesign) and the Type 1 font.

Welcome to the MusicaSacra Forum!

Categories