Three Steps for Creating Consistency in Your Publications

I caught up with a friend, from UMR Communications, on facebook chat the other day and we began talking about style guides and the importance of consistency in church publications.

Wikipedia defines a style guide as "a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization or field. The implementation of a style guide provides uniformity in style and formatting of a document."

Because creating a complete style guide for all of your publications can be a seemingly impossible task, I asked if she could suggest a few things church communicators can do now to begin building consistency. Here were three of her suggestions: 

1. If your church has a logo, make sure it is used consistently on everything you do.

2. Try not to use more than 2-3 fonts on any one piece.

3. Edit all content that comes in for external publication, Maintain a consistent voice that is not child-llike, not rambling, not conversational.

As we talked, the evident theme was to be consistent. Pay attention to things like how you format dates and times. Make sure that you abbreviate the same way. Keep a consistent theme in your fonts, sizes and spacing. When you choose photos make sure they they are similarly formatted with borders, sizes, and colors.


The great thing is that none of these things require a high powered computer, or special software. They just require you to sit down and take some time to edit, and format.


Does your church have a style guide? What other suggestions do you have?


Photo from the article 20 Do's and Don'ts of Effective Web Typography