Legacy Church is a small, non-denominational Christian church in Pickerington, Ohio. For the past several years, I have worked as a graphic designer and art director on a variety of projects, the most notable being the 2018 rebranding. This project began with a new logo mark, brand feel, sub brands, signage, and website, and continues to grow week in and week out
Graphic Designer
As the in-house graphic designer, I worked with the church leadership team to develop a new logo and visual identity. I continue to use and extend this updated branding as of fall 2020 to create a variety of designs
Legacy Church needed something that would accurately reflect the non-visual vibe of their community and events.
Applying the new brand to print and digital signage and merch was vital for Legacy's relaunch in a new building.
This brand relaunch was the right time to transition to a new website platform (Built on Mission) and consider how the new brand would extend to the online world.
More on-brand signage, merch, promotional materials, social media posts, digital graphics, sermon series graphics, videos, and photography.
Problem
Legacy's existing branding was restricting. The logo was difficult to scale and adjust for print and digital mediums. The colors and brand elements left something to be desired and did not accurately reflect the non-visual elements of the existing brand.
Objective
The two main objectives for this rebrand were to create new brand elements that were flexible enough to support the diverse endeavors of Legacy Church and to accurately represent the culture of the church community.
Brand Words
The first step toward defining a new brand for Legacy Church was to work with the leadership team to pin down a few words that would help us make decisions about brand visuals.
Legacy Church pursues truth and honesty as an organization and encourages members to engage with one another as equals through service, small groups, and other community events.
"Love God, love people, love life," is Legacy's tagline, and being a small community Church means relationships with God and one another are the foundation of the church.
Legacy's mission is "to help those who are far from God realize they don't have to be." Getting people from A to B requires growth—for them and for the Legacy team.
There were several struggles with our previous logo that we wanted to solve in the redesign. Firstly, with such a masculine logo, our team consistently struggled to balance the strength and structure with softer touches without leaning too far in either direction, so the new logo would have to feel more neutral. Next, the old logo did not scale well, so the new one would have to have multiple versions and flexible layouts. Finally, the colors and feel of the logo did not represent the passionate, welcoming, family-oriented culture of the church. Starting with these issues, I sketched and iterated many lockups and color variations for the new mark.
Ultimately, the leadership team landed on a concept that we felt represented growth and relationship and chose vermillion as the main brand color to depict the passion and authenticity of the church community.
This rebrand definitely didn't stop with the logo and colors. There are many different groups and efforts within the church that needed to be branded, including Growth Track, Legacy Kids and Youth ministries, small groups, the volunteer team, and baptisms. These marks use a combination of brand fonts and variations of the Legacy Church logo icon.
To further emphasize the passion and authenticity of the church community, we paired the logo icon with a high contrast sans serif work mark and rough, handwritten design elements. Keeping a minimal main brand palette and broad sub brand palette maintains flexibility over time and a wide variety of brand applications.
Relaunching the church in a new building, a new town, and with new branding meant new directional signage, informational graphics, promotional materials, and merchandise.
Outdoor and indoor branded directional signage helps visitors understand where they are and where they need to go. Digital slides roll before and after service to keep them in the loop on Legacy community events. Bright colors in the right places help important information stand out in their environments.
Rebranding and moving meant Legacy was essentially starting from scratch. Social posts and invite cards for existing members to hand out were key to a successful launch day. Baseline brand elements helped establish the new visual treatments.
The existing community has always loved their Legacy Church merch! Simple, branded gear helped make our vision real for the entire church.
With this website redesign, it was important to use photography, color, and copy to communicate, "authenticity," "relationships," and, "growth," clearly. Layered collages of bright, welcoming photography, and the brand vermillion color communicate the warmth of the Legacy Church community. The home page helps guide potential visitors to the content that best fits their needs, further contributing to Legacy's growth mentality.
As Legacy Church grows, tries new things, and creates new content, this branding has been able to flex with it. There has been a lot to learn from this rebrand process and working with Legacy over the years. Firstly, if I could go back in time, I would have built in a little more restriction to the brand and finalized an actual brand guide. Today, the brand mostly exists in my head and can be seen through elements I have designed, but the actual guidelines are very loose. Further, I would clarify color hierarchy more specifically. The existing palette has too many colors in the secondary palette that should be tertiary, but there is not another secondary palette. This means generally branded elements are mostly restricted to black, white, and vermillion, which gets old after a while. Next, I have learned a lot about how to give and receive feedback in a mostly remote environment. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, our communications team has been working together mostly remotely since the start due to everyone's schedules. If it takes more than a few minutes to write a message, it is better to pick up the phone!
