Part of my job at work is making sure that the media for the church is coordinated. Which is not as simple as it sounds. The bulletin must be print resolution, the screens have to stand up to 2 completely different sizes (actually aspects, not just size,) and coordinate, because two screens are visible at all times; and at no time can we show the same exact image on all the screens at once. Further complicating that, the extra wide screen (2048 x 768) cannot have too plain of graphics on it, or the bleeding image overlay in the center shows up. Can’t be too light, either; and too dark has the same streak down the center. [It's a feature...]
Pastor Keith likes to teach in a series of messages about a particular topic. This week that was brought to a screeching … pause … while he traveled out of town for meetings and a guest pastor taught.
That meant all the screens had to change, because the subject would not be the same thing. So I landed on some Fall imagery as a fairly safe thing to go with. It’s the end of October, after all. Even here in California, the leaves are turning. So here’s what I did…
I found this wonderful image to start with over at Stockxpert.com by Javarman, a talented graphic artist from Russia.
There were only a few wee challenges to overcome in making it useful to my specific needs:
- It was too light in color
- The aspect ratio was off for both screens and the bulletin cover
But it was still close enough and I felt it could be shoe-horned into the sizes I’d need, so I purchased it (it was either the medium or large one-I forget, that was days ago, and I’ve slept since then…) and started to work to use this as our theme. If all went well, it’d be able to be in use for any single, stand alone Sunday messages this Fall or next fall.Fall; leaves and branches in reds, oranges, browns, and a smattering of gold.
A couple hours later, I had a preliminary design I could run with for the main screen and the bulletin, and concepts for the rest of the coordinating screens.
Javarman’s image textures were deepened and highlighted with the usual Photoshop tricks in multiple layers until this dramatic darker image was born. First for the bulletin cover, 8.5 x 7.10 inches at 300dpi; Then for the center screen that’s double wide, in 2048×768 pixels. Coordinating side screens were added for Worship, Prayer, Miscellaneous texts, and the sermon outline in the same colors with a leafy backdrop and various layers blended over it.
So, there, it’s done and it’ll get me through the 2 times we’ll need a Fall image this year, and whatever we may need one for next year. After that, I’ll probably have to come back and re-visit a generic Fall screen. I don’t really like using the same thing more than 2 years.
Note: Awesome praying hands photo by eyebiz, at stock.xchng.
A couple of the major center screens:
Coordinating side screens:
