Lower-third design tips for church streams

Presentation · design

A lower-third is the band of text along the bottom of your stream — a speaker's name, a scripture reference, a service note. Done well, it makes your broadcast look polished and helps online viewers follow along. Done badly, it's distracting or unreadable. Here's how to get it right.

Keep it readable above all

• Big, clean fonts — a clear sans-serif at a generous size. If you squint on your monitor, it's far worse on a phone.
• High contrast — light text on a dark or semi-transparent band. Never light-on-light.
• A backing panel — a solid or blurred bar behind the text keeps it legible over any background.

Respect the safe area

Different screens crop the edges slightly. Keep text within the title-safe area — a small margin in from every edge — so nothing gets cut off on a TV or phone. Don't let the lower-third cover the speaker's face or clash with captions.

Full-width vs boxed

For scripture especially, a full-width bar that spans the whole frame looks more like broadcast television and fits longer verses without wrapping awkwardly. A small boxed lower-third suits short labels like a name. Match the style to the content.

Time it right

• Leave it up long enough to read — a full verse needs several seconds, not a flash.
• Animate gently — a soft slide or fade in and out. Flashy spins age badly.
• Don't stack — one lower-third at a time; two competing bars is chaos.

Stay on brand

Use your church's colors and one consistent style across every lower-third so the stream feels designed, not thrown together. Consistency reads as professionalism.

The easy way for scripture

Designing and cueing verse lower-thirds by hand during a live sermon is the hard part. TajiCast generates full-width, broadcast-ready scripture lower-thirds automatically — the verse being preached appears over your vMix or OBS program with no one building or timing it.

Related: NDI for churches · For live-streaming churches