So you’re thinking about revamping your church’s logo. Maybe it’s outdated, maybe impractical, maybe it no longer reflects the mission and vision of your church. Whatever the reason, you know that your church’s visual elements could use some work.
Your logo is important to your church for so many reasons and helps you to convey your message without even using words. It helps to tell the story of your church to your members and to potential new visitors, who may see your logo on your website, on a flyer, or on your church sign while driving down the road. When you decide to take the step of working with a designer or collaborating within your own church staff, let me offer you a piece of advice: don’t just focus on getting a single, standalone logo, focus on your brand kit.
What is a Brand Kit?
A brand kit is a guide to all of the visual elements, including logo variations, fonts, colors, and messaging, used by your church. This is especially important for an organization when there are many people accessing these files, like volunteers, church leaders in different ministries, and within the administration team. Having a clear concise document that holds all acceptable content and guidelines for the use of your logo and visual identity helps to ensure that people won’t take it upon themselves to play with things because “the logo really just does look better in neon orange.”
Questions to Ask When Designing a Brand Kit
Consistency is key when building a brand for your church, allowing you to clarify your message and reach more people. When working through the brand kit design process, some important branding questions to consider that go beyond your primary logo design include:
- How will this logo look in print? How will it respond digitally? Will it look good on merch like t-shirts?
- Will we have more than one logo variation? What will those variations be used for? Do we need a horizontal and a vertical lockup?
- What is our color pallet? How many colors will be included? What will this look like in black and white if we can’t print in color?
- What fonts are used in our logo, and what fonts will we use on our website, in our print material, etc?
- Does this fit the mission and congregation of our church? Do these visual elements accurately reflect what we are trying to convey?
- Are there any images that reflect the mood we are trying to achieve? Can this same style be achieved in our own photography?
- Is there anything that we consider to be unacceptable?
It is important to really think through the process before you dive into it, because a brand defines people’s perceptions of an organization, and this is especially important for a church that is trying to attract new members.
In order to help you through this process, we have created a sample brand kit. In this file, you will find a glimpse of what your church’s brand kit should include. Of course, brand kits come in many forms, and the format is not such a big deal, so long as it is easy to access and easy to understand.
