Evolution of the Bulletin - Part 1.
Over the next couple of days, I’ll share with you how our church bulletin has evolved over the past couple of years. When I came on staff here at CCV, over 2 years ago, one of my primary tasks was to design and layout the weekly bulletin. Joanna, the amazing and talented designer who preceded me, had brought the bulletin to a place of extremely high quality, and it was my job to maintain that standard of excellence and quality.
Here’s what one of my first bulletin layouts looked like shortly after I came on staff here in 2006:
And the inside:
A few months and many bulletin designs later, we were able to get a deal from our local printer to add full color printing to the inside of our bulletins without an increase in cost. Of course, we jumped on that opportunity. Over the next several months, the artwork that used to be designed only for the cover, made its way into a theme that eventually became the backdrop for the inside of our bulletin layouts. This was the first step in taking the bulletin to the “next level” at CCV.
Here is an example of a bulletin layout shortly after we decided to go full color on the inside layout in 2007:
And the inside:
This was a great step for us in the continual process of evolving our bulletin. As you can see, this was really only a small part of the transition. The content still existed on white-based backdrops. We wanted to make the transition gradual so as to not cause too much of an uproar amongst our people. I can just hear it now “Why are the words so hard to read? Why is that font so small? It must cost a fortune for you to print these in full color.” Etc. Etc. Looking back, I’m so glad we never rushed this evolution process… we were patient, and because of that - we never really heard any backlash when things were changing.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series, I’ll be sharing the expansive evolution that took us to 3 different sizes and shapes and a cost decrease by as much as 30% per year!!
8 Responses to “Evolution of the Bulletin - Part 1.”
Leave a Reply
Flickr Photostream
Blogroll
Church Media & Marketing
Graphic Design
Recent Posts
Popular Posts
- Evolution of the Bulletin... 8 comment(s) | 6068 view(s)
- 5 Ways To Ruin A Great De... 14 comment(s) | 4500 view(s)
- Evolution of The Bulletin... 8 comment(s) | 3727 view(s)
- CCV - The Warrior.... 9 comment(s) | 3218 view(s)
- about me.... 0 comment(s) | 2103 view(s)
[...] Evolution of the Bulletin - Part 1. [...]
I think you are doing a great job on the bulletin Cameron. It’s the first thing I inspect each weekend at church, mostly out of habit. I like the how the theme runs thru on the inside with each series. The inside used to be the blah part, but not it’s the eye catching part. I love it - keep up the great work!
Thanks for the encouraging words Joanna! I couldn’t have done any of this without the standard that you had already established. Just taking the baton and running with it… Thanks!
Man… you do a great job with the Bulletin at CCV! I had wished I had gotten over to check out one of your services when I was I there for the Granger Workshop.
I might email you and talk to you more about your process… I’m currently doing a redesign of the bulletin at our church (it’s looking like it will be a tri-fold also) and I am very interested in how you cut costs so much. Look for an email from me soon!
[...] Artist Space. [...] 4 comment(s) | 1 view(s)A-List Christians. [...] 4 comment(s) | 3 view(s)Evolution of the Bulletin [...] 4 comment(s) | 39 view(s)Dropbox. [...] 3 comment(s) | 1 view(s)Legacy. [...] 3 comment(s) | 2 [...]
Hi Cameron- Nice job on the bulletin. I too am in process on a new church bulletin and I’m collecting samples for all over. Not only looking at design but more so, looking at type and quantity of content. Would you mind sending me a pdf of your bulletin? I would like to look it over and use it in our brainstorming session. We’re in California, so no competition!
Thanks,
Stephanie
Stephanie - thanks for the kind words. I hope my posts about the bulletin will be helpful for you and your church. You can download a PDF of a more recent bulletin at this link… http://www.cameronsmithblog.com/CCV_Bulletin.pdf
Also, you can download the InDesign files at http://www.cameronsmithblog.com/CCV_BulletinSource.zip
Good luck! You can email me if you have any questions.
Cameron,
Tim Halberg hooked me up with your blog URL, and I must say I’m impressed; I have a similar job to yours, but have been unaware of resources out there specific to our field. Your blog and the links on it are really helpful!