Funeral Program Themes

To some a funeral program isn't that big a deal, just insert the content and print it up.  I would argue the complete opposite.  A funeral program is in a sense, the summary of ones life.  Its a keepsake that will be kept and cherished by those surviving the deceased for years to come.

Over the years I have had the opportunity of seeing many excellent funeral programs, but also some that were very poorly designed and had little to no thought put into them.  A good funeral program starts with a theme that will set the mood for the memorial service and reflect the personality, life, beliefs and character of the deceased.

When selecting a theme for a funeral program, the number one consideration should be that the theme doesn't conflict with the beliefs of the deceased.  Religions that would have very different funeral program themes would include:

• Catholics
• Protestants
• LDS (mormons)
• Jews

I'm sure that there are many more religions with specific religious icons, the point being... make sure that the images displayed on your funeral theme reflect the beliefs of the deceased.  If it comes down to it, its probably better to just display a field or some other landscape if you don't know the specific religious orientation of the deceased.

When It comes to creating funeral programs, there are several solutions out there.  Most of them aren't customizable at all... more templates where you pick the background theme and then drag and drop the pictures of the deceased into pre-set boxes spread throughout the program.  This works great a lot of the time, but if you want something that's truly unique and has your personal touch, you're going to have to create a completely custom funeral program.  This can be done in Photoshop, but a much cheaper and easier way is ZacharyDouglass.com.  Zachary Douglass has online software that lets you create your funeral programs with little work and in just a couple minutes.  I know of several funeral homes who have switched from paying someone to do all their layouts in photoshop, and now use Zachary Douglass to do all their funeral programs, check em out, they are definitely worth giving a look.