Blog

Michael Buckingham is the Experience Pastor at Victory World Church in Atlanta and President of Holy Cow! Creative.

A Brief Branding Overview

• Your brand is the emotional and psychological relationship people have with your church.
• Your logo is a visual representation of that relationship.
• Your logo has to say something because you don’t have the money of big brands like Nike to constantly market to people.
• Your logo sets the tone of what people think and feel about your church.  Driving by people can tell something about your church by the logo.  At that moment their perception is reality.

The Process of Logo Design

• Discovery
  • People think this is the boring part.
  • Lots of questions to answer.  What are you great at? Why do people leave the church? Describe your church in two words? What do people love about the church? If your church was a movie, who would be the leading actor.
  • Next, survey church members and the community to get a feel who they think you really are.  This is compared to what church leaders say about the church.
  • What kind of words do you want people to associate with your church?  What do these words really mean?
  • Look at pictures to see what does your church looks like graphically.
  • To get a feel of your church style, look at logos you love, or hate or love but would never work for your church.
  • All of this gives you a feel for your personality.

• Pencils
  • Just start with a pencil and paper and sketch.
  • Initially this can help you get rid of some of the worst, literal ideas.
  • If your church is near a mountain, there are lots of churches around that landmark too, so it doesn’t make for the best logo.
  • These are sketches for the artist making the logo and not really for people picking the final product.

• Execution
  • Needs to be done in Adobe Illustrator mainly for scalability.  Printers will ask for it.  It’s tough to make Photoshop files bigger.
  • Don’t promise how many concepts you’ll show someone.  Only present the best regardless of number.
  • It’s okay to present concepts in color but don’t let people rule something out on color alone.  That can be changed.

• Typography
  • Choose a font that supports the brand.
  • If you’re not a designer or don’t have the money to hire someone, a text only logo can get you by. 

Multiple logos lead to church A.D.D. 

• Multiple ministry logos scatter the brand.
• It lessens the value of the church brand.
• It’s hard to get them to all look like they go together.
• If you must have them, everything needs to be redesigned at once for consistency.
• Example: Lawton First Assembly

Closing Thoughts

• Have a brand overlord.  One person who oversees and protects the brand.  If you leave it up to other people they will morph it into something different.
• Create a one page style guide that shows how the logo can and can’t be used so everyone knows.  One page is easy to post at someone’s desk.
• The measurement of your church brand should be the spiritual growth of those that walk through your doors.