Color Me Curious
Advances in Color-Printing Technology Open the Door for Enhanced Church Communications

By Kevin Hunter

From the deep-blue ocean to the vibrant hues of a tropical sunset, color adds depth and meaning. It influences everything from our buying patterns to our moods. Studies show specific colors trigger associations and emotions that affect the majority of people in a particular way — almost as though our responses are hard-wired.

Given these facts, it’s no surprise that color can increase the power of the printed word. There has been a great deal of research in this area, and the results clearly show that documents featuring color stand out from their black-and-white counterparts. Studies indicate use of color can influence opinion, enhance customer loyalty and boost recall by as much as 75 percent.

These findings support what many churches have already determined from anecdotal evidence: Color in their communications makes them stand out and increases the effectiveness of their outreach. That’s important because the lifeblood of a successful, growing church is effective communication with its current and prospective members. Membership is strengthened through regular communications and the effect is synergistic: Strong membership attracts new people to the congregation.

Church communicators are increasingly using color-printing technologies that offer a range of options to reach members, from full color to brilliant spot color. Newsletters, pew bulletins, special-event announcements, youth activity permission slips, collection envelopes — there’s a long list of documents that contribute to the success of a church’s ministry. Most of these can benefit from a splash of color, and advances in digital printing technology are making printing in color more affordable, faster, simpler and more versatile than ever.

Fairview Baptist Church in Greer, S.C., is a good example of how one church is incorporating more color printing into its outreach programs. The church was formally organized in 1885 with just 16 members and met in a log cabin. Today, it’s a thriving, active congregation with more than 1,800 members who enjoy a new, $12-million campus and 144,000-square-foot worship center with a 1,350- seat sanctuary, education facility and 500-seat social hall.

The Rev. Terry Strickland, leadership development pastor and acting administrator, says his goal is seeing each member serve in a ministry that matches his or her spiritual gifts, personality preferences and ministry passion. Good communication, he says, is a key aspect of that mission.

“We’ve been focused on enhancing all our communications tools, from our website to printed materials,” Strickland says.

“The quality is very important — it reflects on our church, and it’s expected in everything [we] do.”

Fairview produces its printed materials in-house and has long-relied-upon digital duplication technology to handle many of its jobs. Last year, church officials heard about the recently introduced RISO HC5000 full-color ComColor™ ink jet printer.

This new technology meshed with the church’s plans to incorporate color into its ministry materials — particularly, its newsletters, which are its primary communication mechanism.

“People are used to color, and we found this system could not only produce high-quality color documents, but also do it very cost-effectively,” Strickland says. “We can print our newsletters with lots of color to get people’s attention.

We’ve found these color pieces stand out from the other mail members receive.”

Additionally, other Fairview pastors produce newsletters aimed at specific age groups within their ministries. This is simple because — aside from the system’s affordability — it’s networked, so anyone can use it to print documents straight from their computers.

The church is also using the HC5000 to print its Sunday worship bulletins, and has begun to incorporate clip art that applies to the weekly sermon to illustrate the theme and set the tone for worship.

Ease of use was another important criterion for Fairview in selecting a fullcolor printing solution. “Having a technology that’s easy to understand and simple to use is important because not everyone uses the machine all the time,” Strickland explains. “This system has a user interface that makes it easy for people to catch on quickly.”

Cost-efficiency is an important consideration for church leaders as well; they face a balancing act in getting their message out effectively, while also being good stewards of their financial resources. New color-printing technologies can be a tremendous help in this area since they can save a church thousands of dollars in printing costs when compared to copiers and outside printing services.

Advances in technology have also increased options for spot-color printing. For example, many churches rely on a printer-duplicator as the backbone of their in-house printing operations. Printer-duplicators have long been lauded for their dependability and cost-effectiveness. (Cost per page is typically just a fraction of a cent.) Most are designed to print spot color.

The newest printer-duplicators offer all these benefits and more. For example, they can now print at incredible speeds. RISO’s MZ790, for one, prints up to 150 pages per minute in either one or two colors. This system is engineered to print two colors in one pass, and also enables the user to print one-color jobs without removing the second ink cylinder. Features like this make operation simpler than ever.

Advances in technology make options for color more attractive than ever. They combine color-output capabilities with unparalleled speed, versatility and cost-containment, providing churches of all sizes with choices never before available.

Kevin Hunter is the director of the full-color business unit of RISO (us.riso.com), a leader in digital printing technology. E-mail him at khunter@riso.com or call 978.739.3667.