Sermon series graphics: plan the set before week one

The best time to make your sermon series graphics is before the first sermon, not the Saturday night before it. Make one title image, then make every other piece from it: the title slide, the background behind the sermon points, the square for social and the bulletin cover. If you do that once, the series looks the same from week one to week six without anyone having to think about it again.

What follows is the order to do it in, and the few decisions that save you trouble later.

Start with one title image

A series graphic is really one image wearing different outfits. Everything else you make for the series should look like it came from that picture: the same colours, the same type, the same main shape or photo.

So make that one first, and make it at 1920 × 1080, the widescreen 16:9 size your screens most likely use. It’s the biggest and widest piece, and it’s the one the most people will see, on the main screen as the service starts. If your room still runs an older 4:3 projector at 1024 × 768, make the 16:9 version anyway and check how it crops. Keep the title away from the edges so it survives.

Give the image room. A series title is usually two to five words. It should be big enough to read from the back row without squinting, which means fewer things around it, not more. One strong photo or texture, the title, and maybe a short line underneath for the subtitle or the book of the Bible. That’s plenty.

The pieces a series actually needs

Once the title image exists, you need four things from it. Not a dozen. Four.

The title slide and the point background are not the same image, and this is the part people skip. The title slide carries the series name in big type. The point background is the same picture with the title taken off, darkened or softened, and with clear space where the words go. If you put sermon points over the full title slide, you end up with the series name fighting every verse on screen. For more on keeping text readable over a picture, see how to choose a background that doesn’t fight the words.

If your church posts stories as well as feed posts, add a tall 9:16 version at 1080 × 1920. Same picture, title moved to the middle third so phone screen buttons don’t cover it. There’s more on reshaping one design for each shape in one design, three shapes.

Keep it consistent across the weeks

A six-week series has six Sundays of slides, and the temptation is to freshen it up around week three. Resist it. The point of a series graphic is that people recognise it. Someone who missed week two should see the screen in week three and know at once it’s the same series.

Consistency mostly comes down to three things staying put: the colours, the typeface and the position of the title. If those don’t move, you can change almost anything else.

What can change week to week is the small stuff. A week number (“Part 3”) or that week’s sermon title can go on the title slide, in a smaller line under the series name. Keep it in the same spot every week. If a volunteer is making that change on Wednesday, they should be swapping one line of text, not rearranging a slide.

There’s an exception worth knowing about. Some series are built to change each week on purpose, like one Sunday for each “I am” saying in John, or each of the seven letters in Revelation. Even then, plan all the variations at the start, from one design, so they look like a family. Don’t let week five be the week someone invented a new look because the old file was hard to find.

What not to put on the series graphic

Don’t put the date on the series graphic. It’s the most common mistake, and it costs you twice. First, dates are wrong as soon as anything shifts: a guest speaker, a snow Sunday, the pastor deciding the series needs a seventh week. Second, a dated graphic can’t be reused. When someone wants to run the same series at the midweek study, or bring it back two years later, the date has to come off, and nobody can find the file without it.

Put dates where dates belong: on the announcement slide, the social caption and the bulletin text. Those change every week anyway.

The same goes for a few other things that tend to creep onto series art:

• Service times and the church address. They belong on announcements and the website.
• The full scripture reference for every week. Put the book, if anything, and let the weekly slides carry the verses.
• The pastor’s name, unless the series is genuinely about them.
• A long tagline. If the subtitle needs a comma and a second clause, it’s a paragraph, not a subtitle.

Every one of these makes the title smaller and the graphic busier, and none of them helps someone recognise the series from across the room.

Working with the pastor’s title

The title usually arrives from the pastor, and sometimes it arrives long. “Living Faithfully in an Uncertain World: Lessons from the Life of Daniel” is a fine sermon title. It’s a hard series graphic.

You don’t have to rewrite it, and you shouldn’t on your own. But it’s fair to ask a simple question: which part is the title and which part is the subtitle? Most long titles split cleanly. “Faithful” or “Daniel” goes big. “Living faithfully in an uncertain world” goes small underneath. The pastor keeps every word, and the screen gets something readable.

Ask early, too. If you get the title in the week before the series starts, there’s no time for a second draft. Say your series runs six weeks starting the first Sunday of the month: ask for the title and a one-line summary three or four weeks before that. The summary matters more than you’d think. It tells you the mood. A series on grief and a series on generosity might both be called “Open Hands,” and they should not look the same.

If the pastor has a strong picture in mind, use it. If they don’t, show two directions rather than one, and let them pick. People find it much easier to choose than to describe.

Make it once, keep it somewhere you’ll find it

When the set is done, put all the pieces in one place with the series name on it: the title slide, the point background, the square, the story and the print file. That way the person running slides on week four isn’t hunting through downloads, and the person planning a repeat of the series next year can find it. There’s a short guide to where to keep your church’s graphics if you don’t have a system yet.

If you’d rather not build the set from scratch, Congregate’s Design asks five picture questions (what it’s for, how it should feel, the subject, the colours and the words) and gives you four options to pick from. Whatever you keep stays in your Library and re-downloads at 1920 × 1080, 1080 × 1080 or 1080 × 1920.

Before week one, run a quick check. Put the title slide on the actual screen in the actual room, walk to the back row and read it. Then put a long scripture verse over the point background and read that too. If both are easy from the back, you’re ready for six Sundays.