MIDTOWN CHURCH // brand refresh
Broad Ripple, Indianapolis, Indiana
Midtown Church had just purchased a new (very old) building. This was not only an opportunity to move into a building of their own, but an opportunity to rebrand and reestablish themselves as they made this massive jump towards becoming an established entity with a permanent home.
The pastor at Midtown Church had a really good story behind the meaning of the logo, so instead of scrapping it, we decided to simplify the current logo rather than creating a new one from scratch. To keep the current log there were a few issues that had to be addressed.
1. Fundamental design flaws: The kerning and overall spacing of the logo was poor.
2. Color: The original logo had 3 different colors of gray along with the teal. When printed in greyscale it became 4 different colors of gray.
3. Usability: The logo could only be placed on a white background or it would disappear. Midtown has only volunteer designers, and the logo and brand needed to be very easy to work with.
Before Rebrand
After Rebrand
For the logo itself, the stained glass in the building had the same type of square crosses as was in the original badge, so I changed the shape of the cross to mimic the stained glass. I removed the outlines and dots and moved the cross into negative space. For the typeface, I needed something that would reflect the architecture of the new space without contributing to the stiff and stodgy image that a church building from the early 1900's could convey. Neutraface 2 had the strong geometric and architectural features I was looking for; the uppercase "M" in particular has a shape reminiscent of the steep-sloped roof on the new building. It is also casual and modern enough to represent Midtown Church's overall vibe. Neutraface 2 also comes in so many weights and open-type features that it is easy for any designer to work with.
The new logo is one color. Midtown Church had been printing everything in color at a much greater cost to accommodate their original logo. This new logo saved them lots of money in printing costs as they moved everything from color printing to black and white.
MIDTOWN CHURCH // event promotions
Midtown Church had done very little in the way of visual event promotions, I started doing these as events came up. Below are a few of my favorites.
Note: A few of these have a slightly different version of the new logo. There was a period between the two logos above where Midtown was transitioning its name from Midtown Christ Community Church to Midtown Church, and some of these use that transitional logo.
Mother's Day Video:
In order to keep this Mother's Day video a secret I shot this in cramped, too-dark basement on my iPhone, and had only a few hours to edit it in order to have it up on screen in time. I'm not usually a fan of subjecting people to videos of other people's kids, but this one turned out cute.
