Finding a brand for any organization is quite challenging, but branding a church is a particularly unique challenge. A lot of people have some deep expectations of how a church logo should look, and more importantly, how *their* churches logo should look. 

Bethany Church had essentially been logo-less for over a decade, and even when it had a logo, it wasn't really used very often or consistently. Essentially, there was a "vision map" created to describe the goals of the church, and that wound up being adopted as a logo.

Above is the old "logo" that was used. It had a multitude of issues, but the largest was that it had three separate marks that were being used instead of one. It's dated, busy, and was never meant to be the primary logo of the church. 

Many attempts at rebranding had failed, but a change in leadership helped bring the possibility of a new brand into focus. Many concepts were brought to the table, but initially we were struggling to find the right direction and fit. I eventually had a bit of a breakthrough when I decided to use our own building as inspiration for the colors and feel of the brand. Bethany had built a new building in 2018, and it has become a key part of our visual brand. We decided to harness that rather than fight it, and I created a mood board to help guide the process. 

Using this mood board, we wanted to make sure the brand felt fresh, but worked along side what we had already been doing with our building. I pulled colors and shapes and angles as inspiration to design our next logo concept. 

The "shield" or "badge" began to feel really correct, and the arrows had been something we were attracted to from the beginning. There is a lot of deep potential symbolism there, but the chief goal was to create something that would identify us, and not explain who we were. To make sure it felt correct, I mocked up the brand on several different formats. 

As we kept moving, it felt more and more clear that we were on the right track. After some further focus groups, and presenting to the Bethany Elder Board, the brand was approved, fully adopted, and presented to the congregation as a final product. 

The reception has been amazing, and the logo and brand has worked it's way into who Bethany Church is, and has helped draw people to come see what's happening at our church. 

Another change of approach was moving from a "house of brands" to a "branded house" with one unified look and vision. This was a harder sell, but has really improved how cohesive everything feels at Bethany Church. I created the guidelines to use those sub-brands, and how to use the appropriate colors within our branding. 

Last but not least, we needed to redesign the vision logos that were inappropriately used as our primary logo. "Gather, Grow, Engage" has been a primary part of how Bethany has moved forward as an organization, and now our branding represents that so much better. 

Overall, creating this brand was incredibly challenging, but was well worth the effort in the end.