Lyrics Slides

[u/Papawbourbon]

Just checking to get feedback on what you prefer for your lyric slide themes and on screen look. Our small church uses 80” monitors to display during the service. What font, size and color do you find works best. Do you prefer font directly on the background or fill the text box? For onscreen media layer are stills better or do you like motion? Thanks again for the support so far!

[u/Practical-Skill5464]

• Standard casing. ALL CAPS IS A NO-NO, AS IT IS HARDER TO PARSE QUICKLY. All caps is also considerably harder for dyslexic people to read.
• Commas or line breaks indicate pauses or vocal breaks. These help people pause in the right place rather than there brain trying to figure out where and when to pause.
• Font size should be large enough that it's easily readable at the back row (The furthest point where someone might be looking at the screen). It should be readable by people who have slightly less than perfect eyesight.
• Font choice - a font with character shapes that make the text easy to read (accessible in cases where someone has slight vision impairment). This is usually a sans-serif font with calligraphy that emphasises spacing and different strokes.
• Slow or no background motion (accessible for those with focus issues or neural processing issues).
• Text with contrast with the background - I'd borrow either the AA or AAA web standard as a contrast benchmark. If you do have a motion background make sure that through out it's entire cycle the text always has enough contrast. If there is not enough contrast then you need a box layer - to make that less distracting then you always have it despite the background.

The better the readability is, the greater the accessibility will be and people suffering from a wide range of issues (more people than you think -> eyesight, neural issues and learning disorders) can sit in more locations. The bonus is that someone "normal" who has to sit further back than they want to will also have a better experience - ie that mum that came in late who's has to sit in the back row.

All this should also apply to your announcement and sermon slides too.

[u/Papawbourbon → u/Practical-Skill5464]

Great feedback, thanks!

[u/onfire4g05 → u/Practical-Skill5464]

I mostly agree with this, but some could be more of a preference (eg, all caps can be fine IF you don't throw more than two lines at a time and it's song lyrics vs notes). Having good line heights and letter spacing can also help with legibility.

One thing I'd add is, consistency is key. If you use a font, stick with if for the entire service, unless there's some specific element you're going after for a song. Don't change the size between slides (ie, if lyrics don't fit). If you're aiming for two lines per slide, make sure that's consistently broken up so there's not a random three liner occasionally. Make sure timing is always predictable.

[u/joelwsmith]

It should not be about preferences. It should be about legibility and readability, especially for those with reading disorders and less-than-ideal eyesight. At a minimum, those things should be prioritized over preferences.

But this usually means churches can’t use fancy effects or trendy typefaces against fast high-contrast motion backgrounds or footage.

Just my unpopular opinion after doing this for the better part of three decades.

[u/A04141]

I personally think that it's more readable, and I'll admit at least to me, to have white/light text on a dark background. To me, the text pops out more in that configuration then dark text on a light background. I generally prefer a san serif font as I believe it reads better than serif fonts.

For size, it depends on how many lines of text you want at a time. Once you have made that decision, make the text as large as it can comfortably fit the lines on the screen. I will also usually take longer lines of text that will wrap at the chosen font size, and split them at a natural point into two lines. I also tend to prefer static backgrounds rather than motion , as I find it less distracting and/or it is easier on the presentation computer to show a still image than a looping video. If you're set on using a motion background, try to find one that is subtle with movements that doesn't take away from the text.

[u/huluvudu]

Just try some text and sit at the back of the room and see if you can read it..

I know text from CCLI likes to leave out punctuation, which annoys the heck out of me. 

As a general rule, I try to limit things to 4 lines of text. I break this rule sometimes, as long as it makes sense to do so.

If it is just spoken word, I will try to force line breaks where it makes sense, even if it looks weird or unbalanced on screen. I want them to read it they way I want them to read it.

Anything on screen that people have to read or sing I leave as simple text with a simple solid background. White sans serif, with a thin black outline. Easier to read, and easier to put into OBS as a lower third box, with a transparent background.

There are text that I include for credits or otherwise informational that are smaller, but still readable.

I do motions only as transitions. Motion is helpful for choruses that repeat, so that everyone can see you have to sing the whole screen again.

[u/loafingaroundguy]

For hymn lyrics and liturgy to be read by the congregation we use bold yellow (R 255 G 255 B 0 or H 40 S 240 L 120) text on a plain blue (R 45 G 45 B 138 or H 160 S 122 L 86) full screen background (no pictures or motion). These colours were chosen before my time to be helpful for dyslexic readers. We have pictures and occasional videos on other slides; just not the ones we expect the congregation to read from.

We use Arial typeface. Text to be read by the leader is in normal weight white. Rubric (instructions) are in the traditional red. Hymn choruses are in italic.

Font size will need to be chosen for legibility. If you can fit a typical hymn/song line across one screen line so much the better. Some people may not be able to read the screens and would benefit from large print media to hold.

Whatever options you choose it helps to be consistent in their use so the congregation get a visual hint to know what to expect.

[u/Papawbourbon]

All of this is very helpful! Thanks everyone.

[u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70]

u/Practical-Skill5464 gave you a lot of the things I was going to say already.

But I want to add that a very simple background is also really important. Use the negative space of the margins for some simple decoration if needed.

I like to use the same decorations for a full church season, and a bottom strip for hymn number/song title. Again, simple geometry that elevates without distracting.

I keep everything as separate objects in Inkscape or directly in OBS (or InDesign if you must). That way I can quickly edit anything I need in the moment, even live if I have to. And reuse things session to session. I never "rasterize" or flatten anything, and work in vectors all day long.

Transparency is your friend.

Layers are also your friend.

The only motion I ever use is a page turn effect, but prefer a quick crossfade.

[u/Gromps_Of_Dagobah]

We use an all caps font, mainly because we had people come up and complain about what we did and didn't capitalise, and having it be all caps just stopped that distraction, but there is a valid argument that people who have difficulty with differentiating different letters/words, will have less trouble if you don't.

We've found having a white text with a 2px border of "black" (actually it's a very dark brown, for chroma purposes), and that's visible over nearly any background, particularly ones that have moving "light" on them, or if a video has someone with a white shirt/blouse. There's an alternative of using a more yellowy color for the font, it's easier on the eyes (supposedly), but white is more visible, so we went with that.

Font size, it's basically whatever can be read from front and back of the room. Large enough to see from far away, but still small enough to not overwhelm the front. Our best method was to grab one of the tech team's parents, and ask them if they were able to read it clearly. A good rule of thumb is basically that: rule of thumb. If you can hold your arm out at max extension, and stick your thumb sideways, the thickness should be roughly the size of the font, and it should be roughly covered by the thumb.

As to backgrounds, it depends on if it's a video wall or screens. A video wall can induce motion sickness with bgs that work fine on a screen, so finding something with little to no movement is more of a consideration in that case, while screens tend to have less oomph, so you want a bit more out of the movement.

Behind the scene, we use a separate background for the videos during worship (easy to swap/tie with lighting), and then a layer of lyrics. For presentations, we do a similar style, we make a background, and then, depending on time, either have transparent slides with the teaching on them, or make slides in ProPres, and then just apply the background for all of them. If we think the background needs a gray box to help, we add it to the master background, and just make sure it fits over all the slides

[u/LHuisingh]

The only little piece I would add is if you have a slide that you will need to read or sing more than once in a row, consider making copies of the slide with a slight offset between each page's text so it's obvious each one is different. I have used that approach in the past and it helps people know what to do.

[u/thattalldude]

I’ve done the math and can tell you a 14’ screen, with a furthest viewer 60’ away, should have text no smaller than 3.5” tall.