CULTURAL EVENT – REVIEW 3

Church on Sunday and the visual merits of the local parish newsletter

‘O SHE WAS THE SUNDAY IN EVERY WEEK’
The Planters’ Daughter, Austin Clarke

At the outset let it be clear that I have a degree of unease in dealing with this topic, pertaining as it does to Sunday Mass, as I am not a mass goer nor do I have any great affinity with the Church. However, the subject interested me from a purely visual and typographic standpoint and in relation to the theme of engaging with your audience that my last two reviews have touched upon.

There‘s something special about Sunday, a day of rest, a day of reflection, quiet, all stop. For many people this day begins with the weekly pilgrimage to the parish church, to take care of their Christianly duty and for the rest – cuttin’ a dash’ in your Sunday best; who won the match - it’s all about community.

The parish newsletter is an important piece of that community. It’s where the tittle tattle of daily parish life is played out on a folded piece of A4 paper… a months mind mass; a local sale of work; the time of the under 12s match on Saturday. It’s the most traditional of mediums and embodies how Church and community still are bound, in rural Ireland at least. The front cover of this most modest of communications usually has a more ecclesiastical theme and grounds the newsletters’ function as Church document. An opportunity to speak to the converted.

Herein lies the kernel of the matter. The newsletter provides the Church with a rare and unique opportunity to ‘speak’ to the parishioners and it appears that the Church has lost its voice, visually in any case. Just think for one moment of the vast and rich visual heritage of the Church. Some of the most pivotal masterpieces in history are derived from biblical stories and metaphors of Church and religion, from the Sistine Chapel to the illuminated manuscripts.

The function of religious art, directly or indirectly, is to win converts. With architecture to inspire, teach and house a congregation, while interior mosaics and stained glass illustrate divine stories - not unimportant in ages where illiteracy was the norm. It came at a price and Papal overspending on art was an important cause of the Reformation, as it led to higher taxes on the common people, and greater corruption among the officers of the Church. Even so, during at least the nine centuries between 800 and 1700, the Church of Rome was by far the largest patron of the arts. With art the Church wooed its’ audience and used it’s vast collections and grandiose architecture to impress upon them the Churchs’ power and wealth.

The Sistine Chapel

This creativity and visual exuberance was continued across illuminated manuscripts, and into the age of printing, with the first book off Gothenburg’s’ (and the worlds’) printing press being the Holy Bible.

So how is it, that amid all this visual grandeur and with centuries of a suitably seduced and impressed public, have we arrived with our contemporary parish newsletter? How has all that high art been reduced to clichéd images of sunsets, silhouettes and bad clip art? What a lost opportunity to engage your audience, if only visually seduce us.

Why so little regard for creating a degree of impact? Why no thought for the layout, font choice, imagery, atmosphere? Why no attempt towards typographic sensibility? It could be argued that the newsletter is a simple communication, produced by a local priest with the assistance of a parish committee and on a minimal budget, however there is no escaping the fact that this humble item carries huge potential to engage with a dwindling and often under stimulated audience. Ultimately, irrespective of budget and the local scale, this is an opportunity. Not just locally, but for the wider Church. Given the preponderence of visual communication today the Church has used the same channels of communication for decades, if not longer – architecture, iconography, written and spoken word. Some improvement could doubtless be achieved by using centrally available templates. These templates could offer contemporary design and layout and give the viewing public a more compelling and aesthetic form. See the work below for inspirational directions from some contemporary practitioners of “word”.

Sample of some of Phil Baines' work





Illumination inspired samples of the work of Marian Bantjes,

(The top image created tongue in cheek using pasta - a reference to Rome perhaps?)

Contemporary typefaces designed by Jon Barnbrook, with a decidedly ecclesiastical feel
Typefaces: Mason, Priori, Exocet

On a simpler level, a quick online search led me to faithclipart.com An American site offering “34,000 Worship Templates to help you communicate with relevance – for only $129/year!” The site offers newsletter templates and clip art under a vast array of titles from the kitsch ‘Virgin Mary clipart” to the intriguing sounding “Transfiguration clipart”. While I’ll not debate the merits of what’s available here below are a few examples, in the land of the cliché no doubt, but perhaps an improvement on what currently blands our eyes at the average Sunday service.

At a time when the Church is in crises with mass numbers ever decreasing, vocations at an all time low, and with the country itself in a depressed recessionary state, the potential for the sense of community that this weekly 'cultural event' has traditionally brought seems clear. Now, for the first time in a number of years, and perhaps despite the revelations of the Murphy and Ryan Reports, people are once again seeking comfort, direction and camaraderie. It has always been during these times that the Church has fared well. The parish newsletter speaks to, and of, the fabric of every town and village across the land and the Church who are responsible for its publication would benefit from giving it greater attention.