Project: Identity/Branding/Logo - "Elevation" Worship Service
Client: Calvary Church - Santa Ana, California
Client: Calvary Church - Santa Ana, California
Elevation is a worship service at Calvary Church of Santa Ana, California. This new service was launched in January 2006. I was on staff at thechurch at the time as its Young Adult Pastor. The concept for theservice was developed by a team of pastors, and the name was a groupdecision.
From there, I developed the logo, designed a mailer, put together astreet card, provided the graphics for a t-shirt, and branded theservice's first sermon series -- "Reset" (a series in the Old Testamentbook of Malachi.
From there, I developed the logo, designed a mailer, put together astreet card, provided the graphics for a t-shirt, and branded theservice's first sermon series -- "Reset" (a series in the Old Testamentbook of Malachi.
The logo's font is SF Automaton at its core. The "V" and the "A" are my design.
The figure of the kneeling man lifting his hands in worship is Victor Estrada, the Elevation Worship Pastor. I created the silhouette from a photograph of him.
The first sermon series that the Elevation worship service explored was a study in the Old Testament book of Malachi. The theme was "Getting Back to Authentic Faith." We wanted to convey the concepts of renewal, repentance, and reviving a genuine heart for God. We settled on the series title "Reset." For the theme's look, I was inspired by the power button the Xbox game console. After illustrating my own version of that button, I played around with different ways of conveying that it was one's heart that needed to be "reset." In the end, the Elevation team decided on the version pictured above where the heart is subtly included in the shape of the buttons central icon.
Pictured above is the Street Card I designed for Elevation. While the Street Card did not generate much controversy because it was designed as a promotional piece to hand out to youth and young adults, the brightly colored mailer raised some disagreement. I designed it with the popular iPod campaign in mind. It is pictured below...
Since I had already started with a silhouette for Elevation, I decidedto create a silhouette of the church's "Celebration" choir as a way tobring the promotion of the church's long-standing worship service instep with the branding of Elevation. Of course, most marketers wouldagree that the iPod ad campaign is genius. I thought playing off it asa trend in visual presentation could be a good thing. Postcard sizeadvertisements come in the mail all the time. I know I rarely look atthem, so I thought it was important that this one catch the eye.
Some (particularly those older than 50) felt it was too eye catchingand garish. In their minds, it did not fit with the identity of themore traditional "Celebration" service. That was true. But thepurpose of the mailer was to inform the community surrounding thechurch that there was a new worship service while reminding them thatthe traditional service was still available at 8:45 AM. Thus, it wasthe intent of the card to promote something new and fresh and do so ina way that was inclusive of both the old and the new as exciting andworth checking out.
From my perspective, it was a good thing to push the boundaries of thetraditional service's identity a bit. We had to design the card with aunified brand. It would defeat its purpose to tone down the brandingof the new Elevation service. And there was certainly no benefit inportraying the Celebration service as old and outdated in comparison. I stand by the solution I created, and in the end, so did most of thechurch leadership, including the senior pastor.
After the new worship service formats launched, new people filtered induring the first few weeks. I was a greeter, and several people toldme they came because of the mailer. A few people even pulled it outand pointed at it asking where they should go. It is difficult tomeasure the success of mailers, but I am confident that it caught theattention of more people due to its bold design.
Some (particularly those older than 50) felt it was too eye catchingand garish. In their minds, it did not fit with the identity of themore traditional "Celebration" service. That was true. But thepurpose of the mailer was to inform the community surrounding thechurch that there was a new worship service while reminding them thatthe traditional service was still available at 8:45 AM. Thus, it wasthe intent of the card to promote something new and fresh and do so ina way that was inclusive of both the old and the new as exciting andworth checking out.
From my perspective, it was a good thing to push the boundaries of thetraditional service's identity a bit. We had to design the card with aunified brand. It would defeat its purpose to tone down the brandingof the new Elevation service. And there was certainly no benefit inportraying the Celebration service as old and outdated in comparison. I stand by the solution I created, and in the end, so did most of thechurch leadership, including the senior pastor.
After the new worship service formats launched, new people filtered induring the first few weeks. I was a greeter, and several people toldme they came because of the mailer. A few people even pulled it outand pointed at it asking where they should go. It is difficult tomeasure the success of mailers, but I am confident that it caught theattention of more people due to its bold design.
We never used it, but I created the above layout for a promotional web page. Honestly, it did not get implemented primarily because the Elevation team members were too busy getting the service off the ground to create the promotional content -- the inspiring text that would describe how authentic and spiritually moving the Elevation experience is.
