Worship Aid Design (multiple Masses in one)
  • JT_Fields
    Posts: 16
    Say you want to only print one worship aid for the weekend, but you have different Masses with different music. Your 5 PM Anticipatory may be a contemporary guitar/piano thing with a different ordinary/different hymns/ not all propers — unlike the principal Mass on Sunday. But sometimes there may be a lot of overlap.

    At what point do you make 2 worship aids? When is the overlap just enough to justify the extra work? Just wondering if anybody has been in this situation before and if they have found ways to make differences between Masses visually clear and easy to follow. What I’ve seen from others is usually some sort of document so confusing it seems like the user manual for my Honda civic.
    Thanked by 1NihilNominis
  • irishtenoririshtenor
    Posts: 1,341
    Sounds like 2 worship aids would be best, based on what you've described
  • NihilNominisNihilNominis
    Posts: 1,029
    Just to clarify, I assume we’re talking about a situation where everything, from all the liturgical text to the notes for the music, is contained in the document. It’s not augmented by a hymnal or anything, correct?
  • JT_Fields
    Posts: 16
    Yes, as much as possible. Right now I do not have a hymnal to supplement with (which would make this easier).
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,394
    I am pretty capable at following and still get lost in this situation when visiting other parishes, especially because there seems to be a belief that the worship aid is a guide not a rubric once it’s written down. That is, I have gone to Masses where the tone between the two covered by a single worship aid was supposed to be different but as only one worship aid was printed, the more traditional/conservative Mass still got stuff from the other Mass. :(

    I don’t want to preemptively say that you would do this…but if you do two, you take away that temptation entirely. And maybe someone will read my comment and learn.
  • JT_Fields
    Posts: 16
    No that makes sense. In a perfect world with unlimited resources and time, I would make 2. It’s just a pain to make 2 - and perhaps there is something stylistic one can do to differentiate in a way that is beautiful. Thinking about different fonts, groupings, etc. But I think once the ordinary changes it becomes too difficult to do (unless you can reference a hymnal).
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,394
    Oh I get it. I make a sheet for Vespers and that’s annoying enough. Necessary and the end can be pleasing. But I want to do other things haha.
    Thanked by 1JT_Fields
  • GambaGamba
    Posts: 551
    It can be done “decently, and in good order”. Unfortunately the church whose worship aid I’d use as an example just had cantors on duty for the past two weekends and so the files currently on their site don’t have any variations. Let me try to demonstrate here:

    (Where || symbolizes the left margin, and everything left-aligned):

    ||Communion Rite
    at 5:30 || One bread, one body
    ||(Graphic of song)
    at 9 and 12 || Manducaverunt
    || (text of antiphon)
    at 9 and 12 || Jesus, my Lord, my God, my All
    || (graphic)
    || Prayer after Communion

    Thanked by 1JT_Fields
  • CGM
    Posts: 708
    Dear JT, just DM'd four different layout options for your perusal.
    Thanked by 1JT_Fields
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