Flagship Projects / St Matthew’s Church Wolverhampton, Brand Development
St Matthew’s Church
Initiation: St Matthew’s Church made contact with JH Designs after discerning their new vision throughout 2022-2023. The project had a short timeline, with only two months to complete the re-brand, and then an additional period to work on the website and other elements.
Branding phase One
From the client: “Jack really understood our church vision from the outset and captured it brilliantly in our rebranding project. He was really clear in communicating the process and great at keeping us updated. As the designs developed we could see that our input and ideas had been listened to and factored in.”
Intiation
Having been a member of the church for a number of years, I developed a three-phased process to be completed over the course of a few months, breaking down the large project into managable chunks. The PCC delegated to a branding group to expidite the process and agree the initial designs.
Existing identity
The church did not want any specific part of the existing brand being encorporated into the new branding. I began to look at what was already noticable or recognised about the building, community or surrounding area, and came to land on the crossroads that the church building was located.
Moving Quickly
From a few different designs, the branding group loved the design using the geographical location of the church building, so we moved forward with the design, deciding colours, fonts and logo within weeks of the start of the project. The logo captured the church’s heart for the community, it’s Christian identity, and it’s location.
Wider Brand
The colours and fonts were chosen to be accessible and representative of the church community. The green, gold and blue are welcoming, warm and friendly, as well as being contemporary and complimenting the logo itself. A great priority was placed on the colours and fonts being readable on projection screens.
Finalising
The first phase of the branding process came to a close with me pulling all of the assets together, and to present the brand to the wider church. The branding was unanimously liked, and I then got to work on phase two, developing the brand and consdiering how the vision may be communicated better.
Branding phase two
From the client: “We love our new logo – it’s so smart and simple yet holds multiple layers of meaning for us. The finished package of deliverables has been really easy to use, and all the elements work well together. Hard to think of any improvements – everything went so smoothly and was delivered on a tight schedule too.”
Vision Icons
To communicate the vision, I designed icons to sit alongside each aspect of the vision. I’m really pleased that, due to their simplicity, these icons are also able to be expressed physically, making them more accessible & memorable. These icons make up the wider brand and are used throughout the brand application process.
Application
Once the brand was finalised, we bagan to explore the ways in which we wanted to apply the brand to support the vision of the church, communicating internally to church members as well as externally to the communiuty. We did this with banners inside and outside the church, as well as other print materials.
Finalising
Finally, I produced a 3D printed sign foir the entrance of the church. It was a pleasure to work on this branding, and I am really pleased with the outcome. Read below about the other aspects of the process. See below to hear about what the client had to say about developing branding inline with the church vision.
