brand guide Archives - SALT Community

The 4 Essentials of Multi-Campus Church Branding

kamil_hopeware — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 09:59:20 +0000

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]When I came on staff at Brentwood Baptist, we two campuses and we were in the process of dreaming about third. Well, that dreaming quickly turned into doing, which then in turned into us launching three more campuses in 45 days.

Yes, you read that right, we went from two campuses to five campuses in 45 days. On top of that, we had yet to establish church branding guidelines and we were working out of a branding guidebook that was at least five years old. So, we had a lot of work to do.

Through that process and the addition of three more campuses (8 total), there are four essential things we have learned about multi-campus branding and keeping every consistent. This list is small snapshot of what we’ve learned, and we continue to refine as we grow.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][luv_dropcaps style=”luv-dropcaps-square” font_family=”Poppins” color_scheme=”default” letter=”1″][vc_column_text]Establish what is core to the brand. You need to determine what are the essential parts of the church branding. Think through the core elements like color schemes, typography and icons.Don’t assume that people will pick up on the small nuances of your branding, use examples to show what you mean. The more visual you are with your explanations and guides, the more you can mitigate any future issues you may have with someone going off brand.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][luv_dropcaps style=”luv-dropcaps-square” font_family=”Poppins” color_scheme=”default” letter=”2″][vc_column_text]Define when and how something can deviate from the brand, and what that process looks like. Yes, there are times when you’re going to need to contextualize your brand in different settings, and you’ll want to give yourself and those you work with the option to create alternative solutions.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]For example, we have a campus located in an urban area of town. It’s couched between bars, coffee shops, and local restaurants. It’s also located in building that historical to our city. So when we’re designing for a campus, we often allow ourselves to deviate from the pre-defined look. It may be something small like that texture of background, or it may be situation where we create something that’s completely different from everyone else because that’s what needed.

(Pro-tip: If a campus complains about another campus getting special treatment when it comes to design, just tell them that you’re “beta-testing” something. That aways seems to work.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][luv_dropcaps style=”luv-dropcaps-square” font_family=”Poppins” color_scheme=”default” letter=”3″][vc_column_text]Determine future checkpoints to let your brand evolve. One of things that we’ve learned that as we grow as an organization, we have let the brand evolve with the growth. That’s why we have monthly design review meetings to determine if the brand is still meeting our needs or if we need provide some small nudges in a different direction.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”middle” css=”.vc_custom_1554999285203{border-top-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 10px !important;padding-bottom: 10px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-top-color: #ff6902 !important;border-top-style: solid !important;border-bottom-color: #ff6902 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”5788″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1559572759630{padding-right: 10px !important;}”]EXCLUSIVE BONUS:
Looking to build a brand for your church? Check out this FREE brand guide from SALT Conference. Just the thing to help you begin to build your own church’s brand. DOWNLOAD NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Just recently, we met and decided that we’re going to officially kill all use of stock photos. The previous branding guidelines called for a lot stock photography to be used in our designs (it was from previous staff). However, it was finally time for us to officially so no more to stock photography and invest in a photographer to help us evolve the brand.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][luv_dropcaps style=”luv-dropcaps-square” font_family=”Poppins” color_scheme=”default” letter=”4″][vc_column_text]Learn to establish your authority in design from your relationships and not in title. One of the mistakes that I see a lot of young creatives make is that they believe that need some sort of formal authority in order to maintain church branding consistency across campuses. I understand that. The job of branding would be a lot easier if we could all just hand edicts down from on high and let that be the final word.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]The problem is that leadership doesn’t work that way. Sure you can do that for a short amount of time. But after a while, you’re simply known as the “no” person on your staff. Instead, you have to work to form strong relationships with all of your campuses. If these relationships are in place, then they’ll see you as a ministry partner and not as an adversary to what they want to get accomplished.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I know it can seem like you’re managing a giant hairball when it comes to branding across multiple campuses. But if you take a deep breath and the time to on the four things above, you’ll eventually lay the groundwork that will let you brand scale as your church grows.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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3 Reasons Brand Standards Are Needed in the Church

kamil_hopeware — Tue, 10 Jul 2018 09:59:51 +0000

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Innovation. Sounds cool and sexy.

Disrupters. The word drips from one’s lips.

Change agent. Sign me up.

Standardization?

Sounds like the chaperone who makes everyone uncomfortable at the dance.

Innovation and standardization are two sides of the organizational coin. Without one, the other fails. Innovation without standardization is like playing tag with no home base. From what does innovation leap from? To where does innovation land?

Most enterprises understand this fact, but many churches still lag behind when it comes to finding this balance. I’ve met so many great leaders who are doing amazing things to inspire people with the hope of the gospel. They have a clear vision, but lack clear visuals or a clear voice.

Having a standards manual/ style guide/ brand standards (interchangeable phrases for this article’s purposes) can be the first leap into creating a solid foundation from which your church can leap. The importance of this document and the ideas captured within cannot be over expressed. Without one, the look, feel and voice of your church will be a diluted, ever changing and unimpressive mess.

Innovation and standardization are two sides of the organizational coin. Without one, the other fails.

A brand standards manual becomes the dictionary for your church’s vocabulary. It becomes the Constitution for your church’s grand experiment. It becomes the Magna Carta that quells the internal “How do we say that?” and “Is it ok if I use this color?” wars that are probably already brewing if you’ve existed without one.

I could go on and on like this, but here are 3 quick things that a brand guide allows you to do:[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Frame your story so others can tell their story.

We all know that Disneyland is the Happiest place on Earth. We can almost feel the burn in the backs of our throats just by seeing the red and white logo of Coke classic. We have ambitions to be faster, stronger runners when we see the ads for Nike shoes and gear.

Those connections aren’t just marketing ploys. They are rooted in the stories each of these brands tell. We’ve may have never run a 4:00 mile or felt the runners high in our lives, but we feel connected to the stories of the many who have because of choices made long before the race was run.

When we connect life change to logos, people start to connect the dots. When we limit our vocabulary it begins to stand out from the crowd. But it’s not possible for the curious to know what to connect with when the usage isn’t clearly dictated. Someone has to stand up and say, “Here’s exactly who we are and this is exactly how we say who we are.” Once people in your community can see you standing out thanks to clearly defined brand standards, they can begin to connect with the stories you tell. They can begin to imagine their own lives being changed in your church. Then the rock starts to roll downhill:

the card you left at the coffee shop has a well designed logo and clearly defined info for your website
the website has your well designed logo and copy written in clearly defined vocabulary that help introduce them to who you are and authenticates the choice to investigate the info on the card
they come to the church that looks like the site and hear the host and communicator sound like what they read on the site, reinforcing their choice to go to the website
their experience at the church opens their hearts and ears to hear the good news of Jesus, establishing them and their story as a part of our story
they begin to re-tell their story using the established tools you standardized a while ago

We know that Christ gets to people’s hearts in a myriad of ways, so please don’t read this as a formula. Instead, I’m trying to make the point that our creative choices can create an ecosystem that informs and influences people. When you can clearly tell your story, they can use these tools to tell their story. That’s how it becomes our story.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Define the yes. Avoid the no.

I tell our creative teams at Sandals Church to always get to a yes. By that I mean, let’s continue to explore creative options so that any request results in a “Yes!” Sometimes that means re-routing original requests or generating different ideas that achieve the same goal. But we try to avoid no’s at all costs.

With that said, there are a lot of no’s.

“Can I use pink instead of black on the logo? It’s my favorite color.” No.

“I’m not sure how to crop this, can I just stretch it?” No.

“The kids love comic sans.” No. No. No.

So, how do we say no? We define clear usage in the standards manual. In great detail we let everyone in our organization know, “Do this, not this. Use this, not that. Say this, don’t ever say that.” We reiterate the importance of the standards and can back up our choices with data that say “These choices work. Those choices don’t work.”

If we run into a snag and find that people are using language, images, fonts or other assets that don’t feel like us, we balance that against the standards manual. If it’s a gray area, we make a choice and communicate that choice. We update the manual to reflect the choice we made and we create whatever resources people need so that they can make good choices.

It may sound restrictive, but someone has to be the guard dog for the brand. If you can clearly define the yes and resource people well so they can avoid the no, then that someone should be you.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1486579867689{background-color: rgba(232,232,33,0.32) !important;*background-color: rgb(232,232,33) !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1530207165725{padding-top: 10px !important;padding-right: 10px !important;padding-bottom: 10px !important;padding-left: 10px !important;}”]EXCLUSIVE BONUS:
Looking for some inspiration on creating a brand standards for your church. Check out the free SALT16 Brand Guide and get some great ideas on creating your own brand guide. Click here to download[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Serve the people who serve the people.

Ultimately, our goal in creative services is to serve the people who serve the people. If I can help campus pastors avoid choices that distract them from the main goal of their ministry, then I’m doing my job. If Family ministries team members can focus on loving kids all the way to Christ and not get dragged into design challenges, I’m doing my job. If people know exactly how to say what they want to say so they can quickly talk about what God is doing to change lives in our community, I’m doing my job.

Me focusing on my main thing (maintaining and advancing our brand) means they can focus on their main thing (advancing the cause of Christ in their areas.) If I’m unclear on my main thing, then they have to pull time from their main thing resulting in a lessened impact in their area of ministry. I’ve benefitted from the gifted leaders in our church – my marriage is better, my kids are walking with Christ and I feel connected to our community. I hope that me playing my part by developing our brand standards has helped them to create the capacity necessary to do what they do so well.

We’ll go over so much more at the session at SALT 2018. I hope to see you there.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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