church life 

Guidelines for Words Projection

Readability must always be prioritised over any artistic considerations.
Use a consistent non-serif font in white, with shadow and outlining turned on with a dark colour: this means that the text will be readable against almost any background.

Spelling

Prefer modern British English to Sixteenth Century English (thou wilt be ever thankful for heeding this wise word), and...
NEVER use American spelling. We have a text editor, so it can easily be Anglicised: Saviour, honour, colour, favour.
Honour your audience by using British spelling versions of the Bible wherever possible. For the NIV in EasyWorship, this is the "NIVA" version.

Sun, Moon and Earth have capital letters when they refer to the Sun, the Moon and the Earth. They are names, so they should have capitals. With lowercase letters they would refer to non-specific sun(s), moon(s) etc., which is grammatically correct but probably not what is meant. Likewise "stars" should normally have lowercase 's'.
It's the same distinction between God and god(s).
Also, "earth" with a lowercase letter 'e' refers to the brown stuff we grow carrots in, (or indeed bury our ancestors in).

In general use capitals for the North, the South, the East, the West when they are nouns, but north, south, east, west, when they are relative or used as adjectives. So for example: "They came from the East", "Travelling west, they came across a stable". "Shout to the North and the South", "As far as the East is from the West..."
Days of the week and months of the year should start with capitals.

Layout

  • Titles may be centred (centre justification is like shouting, and is very emphatic)
  • Poetry (inc lyrics) and prose is left-justified, because it's far easier to read, as we are all taught to read that way, and the eye finds it easier to find the start of the next line if it is aligned to a common margin. Readability must always be prioritised over any artistic considerations.
  • If multiple lines of centred text must be used for any reason, then try to keep the lengths of lines as near as possible the same.
  • Never have 8 or more lines on the screen at once:

  • If splitting verses, then always do it according to the musical phrasing, not just because the screen fills up.
  • In verses with 8 lines, split screen 4+4 unless the music phrasing suggests otherwise.
  • Never split lines contrary to musical phrasing. Treat it as poetry, not prose... but
  • There is no need to capitalise the start of every line if gramatically that does not make sense
  • Always have chorus on separate screen. Convention is that the chorus is in italics
  • Try to include punctuation so that the words actually make sense; otherwise they can reduce to just meaningless religio-babble.
  • And when we sing a line repeatedly over and over again, we don't need to have each repetition written out for us, as this just looks like a tedious grid of words. Once is enough; and if it's left up there, then people just sing it again.
    Likewise, don't put things like "(x3)" or "repeat" on the screen. It is up to you to put the right words up, so these are instructions for you not for the congregation.


    Simon Bramwell, 05/06/2011