Dove & Light
The gentle default: soft light, fine gold rules, quiet serif dignity.
Printing this design
The cover is a pale wash that fades to almost nothing by the middle of the page, so it uses very little toner and costs the same as plain text at a copy shop. The filigree corners are fine lines, though, and a photocopier that is due a service will thin them to grey. Print from the PDF rather than copying a copy, and they hold.
Choosing the photograph
The arch crop rounds off the top of the frame, so leave headroom above the head — a photograph cropped tight to the hairline loses the crown of the head to the curve. A three-quarter studio portrait or a church photograph works best. Slightly soft images are forgiving here in a way they are not in the photo-led designs.
Questions about Dove & Light
- Is this design tied to a denomination?
- No. The arch and the dove are read as gentle rather than doctrinal, and there is no cross or liturgical mark anywhere in the layout. It is used comfortably at Methodist, Anglican, Baptist and entirely secular services.
- Will the gold rules print properly in black and white?
- They come out as a light grey hairline, which still reads as a rule rather than disappearing. If the whole run is going to be photocopied in mono, the designs with heavier frames will hold their structure better.
- Why is this the most-chosen design?
- Because it is never wrong. When a family has no strong feeling about how the booklet should look — which is most families, in the first days — this one carries dignity without asking them to make an aesthetic decision they do not want to make.