Ian Matthew Welch

Achtliederbuch Woodcuts

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This year marks the 500th anniversary of the first Lutheran hymnal, the Achtliederbuch (the Eight Song Book). More a pamplet than a book, the Achtliederbuch contained eight hymns: four by Martin Luther, three by Paul Speratus, and one anonymous. The official title was much longer:

Etlich Cristliche lider Lobgesang / und Psalm / dem rainen wort Gottes gemeß / auß der heyligen schrifft durch mancherley hochgelerter gemacht / in der Kirchen zu singen / wie es dann um tayl berayt zu Wittenberg in übung ist.

Some Christian Hymns, Songs of Praise, and Psalms, According to the Pure Word of God from the Holy Scriptures, by Several Learned Authors, to be Sung in the Churches as Prepared and Practiced in Wittenberg.

To celebrate its anniversary and in conjunction with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod’s National Conference on Worship, Music, and the Arts, I made recreations of the original woodcuts found on the title pages of the first printings.

Variants

Most collections and literature on the Achtliederbuch point to three main variations, which differ in minute details.¹ Sometimes this gets mistakenly described as three printings, but that is not the case. There is evidence of at least four, if not five or more printings in 1524. The following is an overview of those printings with some of their notable differences and corrections.

variants	details
A1a	Woodcuts: Plates 124:1 (top), 120:1 (sides), 120:3 (bottom, upside down)²
	The date on the title page is incorrectly given as “1514” instead of “1524”
	Printed in Nuremberg, not Wittenberg, by Jobst Gutknecht.
	The date following the first hymn has an upside-down “3” in “1523.
A1b	Most remains the same from the previous printing, other than small typographic fixes, such as the “3” in the date after the first hymn.³
A2a	Title page has new top woodcut: 120:1 (upside down)
A2b	Most remains the same from the previous printing, other than the correct date on the title page (1524) and the date change after the first hymn (1524).
A3	Different woodcut and title arrangement from previous printings.
	Printed in Augsburg by Melchior Ramminger, despite “Wittemberg” given as the publication.
	Different typography and spellings used throughout to reflect the difference of dialects between the regions.
	Uses time signatures in the music notation.

Woodcuts

All variants of the Achtliederbuch have a border on the title page. The woodcuts from the first four printings were made by Erhard Schön, a pupil of Albrecht Dürer. These use the same side and bottom panels. The bottom panel is flipped, likely through printing error.

The first two printings show a representation of Christ holding the globus cruciger in the top panel. The third and fourth printings use a floral woodcut, which is flipped. None of these woodcuts are unique to the Achtliederbuch. Title page woodcuts were often reused for various publications.⁴ What is perhaps the most unique about the woodcuts in the Achtliederbuch is the flipped orientation of the top and bottom panels in some of the printings. The fifth printing in Augsburg uses four different panels by an unknown artist.

Variants 1–3 from left to right. The top and bottom panels of variant 2 in the proper orientation shown on the right.

For a limited time, I am offering my recreations of the woodcuts for free, which may be downloaded here. They include panels from the first and second variants, as well as select art from the Augsburg variant. More information about the Achtliederbuch may be found at the links below.

Copies of the Achtliederbuch:

https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de
https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de
https://dia.pitts.emory.edu/image_details.cfm?ID=2525

Luther, Martin. Luthers Werke: Lieder, vol. 35. (Weimar: Weimar: Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolger, 1923), 336–337 ↩
Luther, Johannes. Die Titeleinfassungen der Reformationszeit, vol. 3. 1909-13. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100005763 ↩
Benzing, Josef. Lutherbibliographie. Verzeichnis der gedruckten Schriften Martin Luthers bis zu dessen Tod (Baden-Baden: Heitz, 1966). 2: 282 ↩
Many of Luther’s printed sermons and letters share many of the same panels around 1523–1524. ↩

Playlist: Chillhop

Tue, 07 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Music from the video game OlliOlli World and other chill beats.

Playlist: Thanksgiving

Tue, 22 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A Thanksgiving Day playlist for late-morning social hour and Thanksgiving dinner.

Playlist: Noir

Tue, 12 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A playlist inspired by film noir that’s great for late-night city driving and chill vibes in the evening.

Playlist: Formula 1

Sun, 12 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A playlist to get me excited before and during the Formula 1 season.

Logo Project Questions

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Thinking about creating a new logo for your church or organization? Below, you will find a series of questions to consider and answer. Underneath these questions are notes based on my experiences with other churches and basic information that is related to that particular question.

1. What are the church’s mission, vision, and core values?

This is the first and most important question for churches to ask themselves. This is the core of your ‘brand’. It’s what you believe to be the most important things your church should be doing. It’s your annual and future ministry plans based on your present situation. It’s what you plan on communicating to your members and your community. It’s what members and teachers communicate to friends, coworkers, and parents. A logo is just a visual representation of this or a symbol that’s used to rally people to your mission and values.

2. What is the church’s general budget for this project?

Sometimes this is tied to the funds for a new building project, major event, or is already established within the church budget. Sometimes there are no specific funds allocated toward graphic design. The two main reasons I ask this question: 1) So I know what I can do within the limits of the budget, and 2) So that the church understands what can and cannot be done within their budget.

3. What is the timeframe for the completion of this project?

Logo projects can run anywhere from 3-6 months depending on the time it takes to research the project in the early stages and the time it takes the council/committee to respond to various drafts. In some cases, a specific date is set when the final logo is presented to the congregation. Council meeting dates can also be beneficial to keep me and the project on track. However, most correspondence and approvals can be made via email and don’t need a physical meeting to approve designs.

4. What is your budget for the project?

For a logo, most churches fall within the $1200-2000 range (more for full branding). Many churches, because of budgetary concerns, will negotiate with me on a fixed price for the entire project based on the research for the logo, what they wish to do, and what I can do within the confines of their budget. The initial designs with slight variations factor into the pricing. Research and development of those first drafts take up the lion’s share of the project, while the further revisions are much quicker to develop, depending on the timely feedback of the council and committees. I have found that it is easier for churches to decide on a fixed price along with the minimum amount of initial designs expected from me. For example, the flat-rate cost of a project could be decided on as $1500 after the initial discussions and time estimates. It is typical that I ask for 50% of the cost up front and the remaining 50% after the final logo has been approved and files delivered.

5. How many logo variation do you want?

This varies from church to church. Most often, there is a main logo with other variations if there is a school or other ministries within the church. These variations pertain to the text in the logo and not necessarily the graphic/art portion. However, depending on the direction of the drafts and concepts, this can play a big factor in the early stages of the project.

6. Do you want a clean break from your previous logo?

Most churches that I have worked with did not have a logo that was previously tied to their church. For those with a logo already, this is a very big question.

7. What is your target audience?

This is a bit of rhetorical question when asked of Christian churches, but is nonetheless very important. A temptation for many congregations is to focus too much on what they personally want and how the new logo relates to the previous one. However, it’s important to consider how others outside the church view the new logo. Is it inviting and memorable? Does it communicate that this is a church? A logo is indeed a point of pride for church members and a symbol of the community in which they belong, but it is also a symbol that others in the area associate with your church or school. This is more of a question that is asked throughout the entire process of creating a new logo and ties into the very first question relating to the church’s mission.

8. Is there a specific direction you want me to take with the logo?

Some churches have a clear vision for the direction and style of their new logo. Most do not, but it’s something worth asking just in case. I appreciate people’s different viewpoints and opinions. It often helps me to work through the earliest stages of conceptual design. I would also be very clear whether or not the direction is a good one based on my research and understanding of Christian symbolism.

9. Is there a specific color or colors that you would want?

Along the lines of the previous question, this is not entirely necessary for you to answer, especially in the early stages. The majority of the first drafts will be black and white, but I will sometimes add color to help visualize the concept. When choosing a color, it’s important to consider what other colors are used by churches in your area, its symbolism within Christianity, and its connection to the community.

10. How will this logo be applied?

The three main applications of a logo are print, digital, and embroidery. This is important when working on the details of the logo. I try to keep my logos simple and timeless, and as a result, they can be easily transferred to different media with little-to-no changes. You will receive all the necessary print files, web graphics, and files that could be used on a variety of different media. This would also include all the variations of the logo, along with grayscale and one-color versions.

11. Are there any questions you would like to ask of me?

I’m free during the entire process to answer any questions you have. Many of the question come within the first stage of the project and before the project officially begins. The ones I’ve asked above may not cover everything but help me formulate a plan of action and to finalize the details of what is expected of me and of the congregation.

During the first portion of the logo design process, I will be gathering and studying information about your church. This also includes census data of your community. These things may have an impact on the direction of the logo or some of the early concepts. One requirement is the mission and future ministry plans of the congregation that is tied to question #1. Another is historical information about the church, or anything that you find relevant to share with me. Some documents I can acquire through synod archives if your church is affiliated with a large denomination. Others may come from city, township, or county archives. I’ve found that some of the best information is shared with me by the church itself. Feel free to send me anything of importance that is tied to the history of your church either by email or mail.

Graphic Design for Worship and Outreach

Thu, 12 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This article originally appeared in the July 2015 newsletter, “Worship the Lord,” published by the WELS Commission on Worship.

Visual communication is a vital part of how we interact with the world around us and it is also an important method by which we connect the people and the gospel in worship. Spectacular art, architecture, stained-glass windows, paraments, and vestments are used within the worship space because visual art has a powerful impact on our minds. Visual communication has been embedded in the life and culture of the Christian church for centuries, and in today’s digital age the need for excellent visual communication remains.

Much like traditional visual art, the printed materials and visual displays we produce at church visually communicate to the churched and unchurched. The art of producing such materials is called graphic design. Graphic design, when done well, ultimately supports the gospel, and doing it well is not impossible. You do not need to be hip with the latest trends, or do you have to be innovative. Graphic design is not plucking ideas out of thin air, it’s applying art and communication principles to real-world problems.

Bad graphic design is not the real problem. The real problem is that many people do not know Jesus as their Savior. The solution is the gospel. By his grace and mercy, God sent his Son to pay for our sins, therefore offering us forgiveness of sins and eternal life.¹ Sensory art supports God’s answer. We taste the bread and wine. We hear the music. We feel the ashes driven into our foreheads or hands. We smell the incense as we pray. We see the cross, stained glass, banners, and artwork. In the same way, graphic design is not the solution, but it is used to communicate the gospel to those online, our local communities, and in our sanctuaries.

This is how we approach graphic design, whether we are making flyers for canvassing, logos and branding for church, digital media, or worship folders.²

Church Branding

A church’s external visual identity is its brand. The term ‘brand’ can make some squirm, worrying that it falls too closely to a church-as-a-business model of marketing. And they are not entirely wrong, since secular business-marketing principles don’t always align with the mission of the Church. However, branding is one of those concepts that can help a church understand and establish a healthy, mission-focused visual identity and message—something that is important for both new and established missions. Simply put, your church’s brand is the visual identity and message people associate with your church’s name and its people. It merely supports the ministry of the gospel. The Holy Spirit through the gospel alone works on hearts, not branding. Your visual identity (branding, logos, graphics, website, etc.) is therefore treated similarly to how you would go about choosing a new organ, church building, paraments, banners, etc. They support the gospel, and therefore, we strive for a high level of quality in our approach to them. Here are five basic principles why branding is valuable and can help support your ministry and the gospel.

Branding visually defines who you are. It’s not just about the logo. Branding is, “when people look at us what are the key things we want them to see about us?”
Branding clearly states your mission and values. Branding forces a congregation to internally ask important and mission-centered questions, and then how to relate those answers in a clear and concise way to the community. What is our mission? What are the values we offer to our community? How do we articulate these things clearly? Does this make sense to a person who has never been to church?³
Branding helps to intentionally communicate your mission and values. Whether you have a defined brand or not, those outside the church will already have a perception of who you are. It’s a matter of whether that brand is perceived as relevant to them or not. By having a specific brand, you are being intentional about visually communicating who you are.
Branding is unique to you. This is often the hardest part and takes a great amount of effort from a designer. Hours upon hours are spent poring over census data, demographic studies, church history, and other important church documents. A designer will look at the other churches in the area and what would distinguish your particular congregation from them, while still adhering to your congregation’s mission statement and keeping that at the forefront of all decision making.
Your brand comes from what you already do. Logos, mission statements, tag lines, and outreach materials are simply ways of expressing who you are and the values you offer to the community and your members. What you already do as a church establishes your brand. Every visual interaction you have with your community, from your logo, your website, or even social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) must match what you do.

Planning a Graphic Design Project

As with any major project—be it a new organ, stained glass windows, or tiling on the sanctuary floor—you’ll want to formulate a plan when considering a new graphic design project. This applies to both small designs (flyers, stationery, web graphics) and large undertakings (logos, branding, websites). Good graphic design takes a lot of time, and therefore it is rarely cheap. You’ll want to consider things like your church’s budget, the timeframe in which you’d want the project completed, who will be the designer, and the leader or committee operating the project.

Budget

A budget can make or break a graphic design project, much as it would in any other substantial addition to your church. If you choose to use a professional graphic designer, it’s wise to have money already set aside. It’s also beneficial for the designer to know what this amount is, so that they can fully understand what can and cannot be done within the confines of the budget. This helps set clear expectations for both parties.

You can expect a logo to be $1200-5000 when done professionally by a freelance designer or small studio. Branding can be from $2000-8000 that includes the logo, stationery, and other supporting materials. Websites can be $3000-10,000, depending on what you want to have done and how elaborate it is. Other print materials can cost $250-1500. This would include stationery, t-shirts, posters, outdoor banners, and brochures.

Don’t forget to factor in printing costs as well. You wouldn’t want to use up all your budget on design only to have a few dollars left for printing the materials. Local printers can give you quotes and online print companies can give you a pretty accurate dollar amount for what you wish to print.

Timeframe

Set strict goals for the completion of logos, websites, and print materials. Sometimes you’ll want the design finished for a church anniversary, the new school year, or another major event. For large projects, 6-12 months out is a good start date. Smaller projects could start a few months before its planned completion. Keep in mind that designers schedules vary and that they often work on several projects at once, so plan accordingly.

Deadlines are also good for large projects in order to keep it on track. This helps the designer plan the execution of a project and can provide the church council or committee with positive anticipation for the new designs.

Designer

Decide whether or not to hire someone to do the design for you. Hiring a professional designer is almost always the best route to go when considering graphic design projects. Not only do they have knowledge and expertise, but from a church’s perspective, you can build a long-term relationship with a designer who gets to know your congregation and its values.⁴ Yes, it is more expensive than say, using a salaried worker at church or using cookie-cutter graphic design companies on the internet, but the end result will be worth every penny.

If you have a graphic designer in your congregation, use their gifts to serve your congregation. It’s truly a blessing to have someone in the graphic design profession in your church, even if they do it part-time. If they are willing to do the work pro bono, consider paying them for their work nonetheless. It doesn’t have to be a substantial sum of money, but it certainly goes a long way in showing the church’s appreciation for their work, and the time, money, and education it takes to achieve it. It always pays to invest in the gifts and skills that benefit the church.

Stay away from websites that offer to make logos and print materials for dirt cheap (a couple hundred dollars). They are quite often reused or copied designs and the results are frequently sub-par. You will not be receiving something that is unique to your church. The same can be said for crowd-sourced, winner-takes-all logos. The quality will be the same, and therefore does little to effectively communicate your brand to your community.

If you are hiring someone or using someone from the church, it’s important that you set clear expectations and remain very transparent with what you want to accomplish. Here is a list of things to consider with any designer:

Do they have experience with churches? This can be significant factor in deciding which designer to hire. Look at their portfolio. Ask them questions. There are far too many church logos out there that were obviously made by designers who predominantly work with corporations and have no knowledge of Christian symbolism and churches. Some churches pay $5,000 for a logo that looks like it would work better for a tech startup in Silicon Valley. Not only is this important with how a design is made, a designer with this experience will know how a church operates and can ease the overall process.
What is their design process? Are they simply going to sketch out designs or create drafts before presenting them to the committee? Or are they going to take the time to research your church, pore over census and demographic data, and ask you multiple questions about your congregation, its mission, and church life? Research can span half the timeframe of a project or more. Will they be doing what is expected of them?
Are they a good communicator? Chances are if they are a bad communicator, they won’t be good at graphic design since graphic design is communication. A good graphic designer needs to know how to communicate well with their clients, as well as communicate your content through graphic design. It’s not so much about good verbal skills—although, that’s a plus. A good communicator will be transparent with their client and also keep in steady contact throughout the entire process, especially around project deadlines. Those first phone calls or emails can usually give you an idea of how well the designer communicates.

Leader

Assign a liaison to bring questions to the designer and relay their comments to the committee if necessary during the project. This person could be a pastor, committee member, or councilman. This will ensure that communication is focused and the graphic designer will not be bombarded with emails and phone calls that may potentially have conflicting messages. A conference call may be scheduled at the very beginning for a Q & A session, but limit the communication channel to just one person afterwards. Design by committee rarely works.

A good leader will make sure to keep in contact with the designer during the entire process. Communication goes both ways. When you have a designer and project leader who can communicate well, then you are setting yourself up for a smooth and painless process.

Conclusion

Even though the production methods have changed and communication channels have been extended over the centuries, the fundamental concepts of graphic design and how we understand human communication remain largely the same. Graphic design provides yet another way to present to your members and your community the life-changing message of Christ. Utilizing graphic design to its full potential does not come overnight, but through prayer, planning, faithful research and much trial and error you will improve your visual communication.

In the end, it glorifies God by using the gifts he has given to the Church. May you find this article useful for you and your ministry as you use graphic design to support the gospel.

John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 5:19 ↩
For more information that’s specific to worship folders and their design, you can view the WELS CCC resources at connect.wels.net/ccc and my personal collection of resources at ianmwelch.com/worship. ↩
The WELS Commission on Congregational Counseling (CCC) helps congregations plan and develop these kinds of planning tools. I highly recommend contacting the CCC if you do not have any of these tools established at your congregation. They are invaluable, especially if you plan on using graphic design. ↩
As is the case in other fields of design, graphic design is interdisciplinary. Therefore a graphic designer needs to have knowledge in other areas such as photography, typography, and visual perception. ↩

St. Michael and All Angels

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Next month marks a very important milestone for me. It will be exactly one year since I started Paramentics, creating weekly art for the readings of the church year. It’s hard to imagine that it’s been this long, especially when considering the months of preparation before I even got the website up and running. But here we are—with the first series nearly complete, a large collection of templates, and other useful artwork—and it’s only the beginning.

To celebrate this occasion and to answer one of the most frequent questions that was asked from the many emails I’ve received, I will walk you through my creative process when making each set of art. I will be using the art for the festival of St. Michael and All Angels as the basis for this article.

Research

Every Sunday evening, I plan out my week and the art that I will be making. I briefly look over my custom lectionary database to see what the lessons are for a particular service. Over 90% of the time, the art will be based on the Gospel lesson, and if I want to make text art based on a verse, I will look at the psalm of the day.

After reading the lesson—in this case, Revelation 12:7-12—I’ll begin taking notes. Sometimes I find it beneficial to look at the original Greek (or Hebrew for O.T.) and read through my seminary notes on a particular section of Scripture. This also keeps me active in these languages to avoid the risk of forgetting them.

By this time, I already have some idea of what I want to sketch out and the way I want it arranged. I then head to the internet and research the art that’s based on the text. Artists like Dürer, Cranach, and others from the Reformation era are useful for me when looking for symbolism and how they used the images to capture a scriptural truth. Stylistically, I look at Byzantine art and the icons of the Eastern Orthodox church. This process doesn’t take long, since much of the art has already been conceptualized after reading through the text.

Sketches

After about an hour or two or research, I then begin to sketch out the preliminary framework for the art on a plain piece of paper. You can see in the image to the right that I originally wanted the wings to bend downward, but I still wasn’t sure if I wanted them that way, so I lightly drew other configurations.

The final sketch is made in my Moleskine notebook, but since this piece is much larger, I used a large 17” x 11” piece of paper to make the final copy which was scanned and uploaded to my computer (You can see this sketch in the gallery at the end of the post). I only make a wireframe version of the art and always keep in mind how it will look when certain elements are eventually filled in with black. This is crucial, since there must be a proper balance between the black and white space in the art.

Illustrator

Now for the most time-consuming part of the project. The sketch is now scanned and opened with Adobe Illustrator on my MacBook Pro. In Illustrator, every line is traced over manually using the Pen tool. I try to follow the lines of the sketch accurately, but in some cases I will alter the design a little. I then begin filling spaces in with black and changing a few of the lines from black to white. For this particular piece, many of the lines were changed to white for the angels’ wings.

I then systematically start to make minor alterations to each individual vector. This amounts to about 300-500 adjustments that I manually adjust to create a more stylized rendition of the art, and also to maintain a good balance between black and white. Other elements are also added that may not have been included in the original sketch. Art is now separated from the main art board to create the smaller pieces of art included in the set. If there is text art, I’ll begin making it at this time.

The near-final art is printed on regular copy paper to test how it physically looks when used for worship folders. I will mark with a red marker any corrections that need to be made and fix them in Illustrator. I attempted something new for this set and made the wings extend out of the 4 x 6 frame. This decision was made after printing it out and realizing that it would actually work quite well if done this way.

Watch the video below for a time-lapse of the entire process of making the art in Adobe Illustrator. I cut out large sections from the video to keep it short, but it will at least give you an idea of how much labor goes into making one set of art. The clips were sped up to about 4000-times their original speed.

Finishing Up

Once the art is done, I then add my initials to one of the bottom corners and export the art as PNG, JPG, TIF, and EPS files. I go through my checklist of things that need to be done after exporting the art and eventually the art is uploaded to Paramentics for you to purchase.

That’s pretty much it. Each set takes about 6-12 hours to complete, including the research and early sketches. This set took longer (about 16 hours) due to the fact it was much larger than a normal set, and I produced a video and music to coincide with the release of the art..