All Saints Church
| BRANDING | LOGO | GUIDELINES | TEMPLATES |
“We were recommended Claire (by a number of people!) as part of our project to re-design our brand and logo for All Saints Kingston.
Claire was available and responsive throughout and used her experience and patience(!) to move the process along professionally, no mean feat considering the sometimes-disparate opinions of the group we set up for the project!”
Client
All Saints Church is set in the heart of Kingston-Upon-Thames. The church boasts a fascinating history stretching back to the Saxon Kings – the first King of All England was crowned on its site in 925AD. As well as being the place where England began, the church has established itself as a place where community begins. Alongside regular opportunities for worship, there is a wide programme of concerts and events, an outstanding choir and an on-site café; it is a place to come together in the heart of community.
Emma Peries – a member of my business network – was working on All Saints’ communications strategy and brought me in to work on the brand identity for the church as part of the wider marketing approach. I worked closely with Rev’d Joe Moffatt, Julian Adams (the chair of the comms working group) and Kate Shrimpton (the church’s communications manager).
Brief
All Saints Church wanted a consistent visual identity that would lend the church more gravitas and prestige. The branding needed to represent not only the church and its direct community but also serve the wider Kingston town community given the church’s key role in the local area. Considering the range of people engaging with the church, all designs needed to be welcoming and inclusive.
The package included a logo, visual identity, templates for flyers for the many clubs, activities and events on offer, a poster, a suite of social media templates, an e-newsletter and stationery.
There was a website redesign scheduled for the future, so the new branding needed to be able to inform that project as well.
Creative
The existing visual branding lacked consistency and had no strong links running across the multiple touchpoints. The logo was too fussy and not easily legible, and the church wanted to move away from a previously used acronym – ASK – that wasn’t working.
In strengthening the visual identity, I wanted to give the branding more of a prestige feel whilst also ensuring it was friendly and welcoming. The heritage of the church is important but the openness of the community and the idea of bringing people together was the key focus.
After gathering a full brief from Joe, Kate and Julian, I researched the church and the area and put together some mood boards which I presented to the subcommittee. This approach allowed me to play visually with a range of ideas and open these up to discussion before going too far in the creative process.
The next stage involved working up the logo and visual identity to create mocked up examples of marketing materials, digital assets and a sample website homepage design. I presented these in person to the full church committee, taking the group through the thinking and process behind three different design routes.
There was a range of feedback and varying opinions within the group, but the discussion resulted in a preferred logo and visual direction which I was able to work up further to incorporate feedback from the committee.
The preferred route played with the idea of openness, using shapes from the architecture to bring the outside in. The church’s footprint is a traditional cross shape, and arches feature as a common element, so I incorporated both into the visuals. The logo is a cross made up from arch shapes which are deliberately left open-ended to encourage a feeling of welcoming and openness.
The designs use a rich palette of jewel colours (in part a nod to the royal heritage of the site) which I brightened up to bring them in line with the requirements of the church. I optimised the colours to ensure they worked well across both digital and print and would come out well on the specific printer used by the church.
The typography uses a strong serif font for the main headings which gives a somewhat formal, impressive feel and works well alongside the sans serif body font. Given the wide-ranging user base, the design had to be sensitive to its audience and it was important that it was legible and accessible to all. The clean shapes allow for design elements being used consistently across touchpoints but without being so fiddly they would irritate the reader. The finished result is strong and symbolic of a key place in Kingston town.
Impact
Once the designs were signed off, I put together a folder of assets for Kate, including a suite of templates for her to create graphics in Canva moving forward.
I included a follow-up meeting in the brand package and met with Kate after a few weeks to work through any teething problems with the designs. We were able to iron out a few niggles and the session let me help Kate get the best from the templates I’d provided.
The team at All Saints Church has been doing a great job in keeping the brand consistent across a large volume of both online and printed communication each week. And recently the All Saints Kingston was shortlisted for Best Brand of the Year at the Kingston Borough Business Awards!
“Claire guided us through the process over several months to create a unified visual identity including a wonderful logo design, a defined colour palette, Canva templates for printed and social media, website and social media headers, favicons, business cards, compliment slips and letter templates, all of which respected our heritage but also felt modern and welcoming.
We would highly recommend Claire to any group or company wanting a refresh or a total brand redesign.”
