The First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville ... · a boilerplate, which is used to give a...

The First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville

Branding and Style Guide

First United MethodistChurch of Lawrenceville


2

Welcome ........................................................ 3Purpose .......................................................... 4Brand Summary ............................................. 5Name ........................................................... 6-7Mission Statement ......................................... 8Logos ......................................................... 9-14Fonts ....................................................... 15-16Colors ...................................................... 17-18Guidelines .................................................... 19Contact ......................................................... 20

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Welcome to the Branding and Style Guide

The goal of this guide is to make communications easier and simpler, not more complicated. It is intended to be a resource of information for everyone’s use. Hopefully, this enables the church to answer more questions about who we are rather than creating more questions and confusion.



4

Like any church, we have a much more impor-tant calling than correctly formatting graphics or adhering to font selections.

However, establishing basic guidelines for brand identity helps makes our message easier to communicate and less confusing to understand.

Whether we realize it or not, every church has an identifiable brand. This brand is how we are perceived and is synonymous with our reputation.

For that reason, it deserves to be identified and protected.

This means following this guide where possible. It is meant to be more helpful than limiting. These guidelines are not intended to stifle creativity, but rather to guide it.

These guidelines are far from exhaustive and should still leave plenty of room for creative think-ing and decision making.

This guide is for church staff, the congregation or outsiders — anyone who wants to learn about the church and how it is represented.

PURPOSEThe purpose of this guide is to help anyone communicate or understand the message of the First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville. In order to do so, this guide establishes guidelines for design and content. The goal is to create a unified and consistent message across all platforms, both internal and external.



5

The First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville is a traditional Methodist Church in the North Georgia Conference. Founded in 1823, the church has been in continuous operation for nearly two centuries. During that time, the church has occupied four different facilities in Lawrenceville, including the current location on West Crogan Street.

BRAND SUMMARY

Note: The above paragraph is what is known as a boilerplate, which is used to give a concise summary of an organization.

Feel free to use this paragraph for that very purpose — to give people a snapshot of the church. It already contains all of the important general information about who we are.

This is the same basic description that is already being used on the church’s digital media platforms, such as the website and social media.

The Basic Facts:• Denomination: Methodist• Conference: North Georgia• District: Atlanta-Emory• Senior Pastor: Dr. Bill Burch• Founded: 1823• Address: 395 West Crogan Street• Phone: (770) 963-0386• Website: www.fumclv.org• Mission: Love God. Love Others. Reach the World.



6

NAMEFull Name: The First United Methodist Church of LawrencevillePreferred Abbreviation: FUMC LawrencevillePreferred Acronym: FUMCLV

The church’s full name grounds the church brand in our traditional roots and is a true reflection of the church’s rich history and culture.

But let’s be honest: the full name is long — 13 syllables, to be exact. Too long to use in most instances, especially casual conversation.

For this reason, how each of us refer to the church varies greatly. People call the church by a number of different names and understandably so.

However, we’ve created a consistent naming pattern to set the record straight and clear up any possible confusion.

The preferred abbreviation of the church name is FUMC Lawrenceville. This significantly shorter name (only seven syllables) can be used inter-changeably with the full name.

Even shorter is the preferred acronym FUMCLV. This is used primarily online as the official website URL and social media handles.

This acronym should be reserved for places that primarily have an insider audience already famil-iar with the church.



7

• Capitalize each word in the title, except ‘of.’ Eg: First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville

• When including ‘the’ before the full name, do not capitalize (unless at the start of a sentence)

• Do not include punctuation within the name. That includes the acronym — so FUMCLV, rather than F.U.M.C.L.V.

• The title should not appear within quotation marks.

• Do not omit any words from or rearrange the order of the words within the title.

• The acronym should only appear in all capitol letters and not in all lowercase letters.

NAME USAGE

This is not to say that calling the church ‘Lawrencev-ille First’ or ‘Lawrenceville UMC’ is wrong.

Given the long history and wide reach of this church, different people have adapted different names to call the church. That’s understandable. We can’t and shouldn’t try to stop that.

However, references to the church’s name on all formal publications and platforms should be as consistent as possible to avoid confusion.

It’s just that if we call the church eight differ-ent names, newcomers might think of us as eight different churches.

The Bible tells us not to use the Lord’s name in vain. The church name isn’t quite as sacred, but sometimes it feels that way. Here’s a list of a couple simple guidelines for how to treat the name with proper care.



8

MISSION STATEMENTOur mission statement is “to make disciples of Jesus Christ who love God, love others and reach the world.” This is based on that of the United Methodist Church which is “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” Our mission can be simplified as: Love God. Love Others. Reach the World.

This message is the driving purpose behind the church and our programs, actions and decisions.

It is our goal to closely associate these words with the mission of our church so that all of our members are familiar aware with the mission and understand what it means.

For this reason, it should appear on many, if not most, of the publications and platforms owned and operated by the church.

These words should not be altered or changed from this expression to retain consistency.

Practically speaking, the three elements of this mission statement refer to a focus on:

• Worship — Love God• Small Groups — Love Others• Missions and Outreach — Reach the World

The mission statement even has its own logo set, which will be discussed in more detail later.



9

LOGOSThink of a logo like a stamp that allows everything to be easily identified as being associated with the church. FUMC Lawrenceville is represented primarily by two logos prominently featuring the image of the steeple. The mission statement also has a set of images that are associated with the three components of the mission.

Like any brand, FUMC Lawrenceville uses logos as a visual representation of the brand. When used properly, the logo can become an exten-sion of the church.

FUMC Lawrenceville has two main logos: a mod-ern primary logo and a traditional alternative logo. Both are based on the church name and the iconic steeple image.

One of these two logos should appear as a dom-inate graphic mark on all publications represent-ing the church.

The church also makes use of a logo that illus-trates the mission statement. This logo and its variations should be used primarily in conjunc-tion with the mission where necessary.

There are also a number of various logos from many of the different church ministries and pro-grams, which can be used as needed.

None of these logos should be altered in any way in regard to font, color or aspect ratio. This is to preserve their integrity and consistency.



10

PRIMARY LOGOThe primary logo features the church name and mission in the Poppl-Laudatio font family along with the image of the steeple.

This more modern looking logo was re-cently developed to incorporate the church’s mission statement.

This logo is the preferred visual representa-tion of the church and should be used when possible, primarily in a horizontal space.

To the right are three acceptable color varia-tions of the primary logo:

• The first is the original version of the logo, which uses the official church colors.

• The second alternative is an inverted color scheme for use on darker backgrounds.

• The third is a black and white version.



11

SECONDARY LOGOThe secondary logo features the church name in Poppl-Laudatio light condensed font with Shelly Volante script.

This logo also prominently features the im-age of the steeple.

This version is a more traditional logo with the scripted font and was used in years pre-vious to the current mission statement.

This logo can be used in place of the prima-ry logo, especially in a more vertical space.

In addition to the full-color version of the logo, the black and white alternative is an ac-ceptable variation. Both versions are shown on to the right.



12

MISSION LOGOSThe church mission of “Love God. Love Others. Reach The World” is illustrated with the various logos shown to the right.

Each separate phrase in the mission can be associated with one of the three correspond-ing symbols and colors:

• Love God — Purple Cross• Love Others — Red Heart• Reach the World — Green Hand

As you can see, these logos can be arranged in a variety of ways: either grouped or indi-vidually and with or without text.

These images should be used in conjunc-tion with the mission statement or when a smaller square mark is needed. See page 18 for more information on the colors.



13

ASSOCIATED LOGOS



14

LOGO USAGEAll of these many church logos should not be altered or changed in any way that would affect the integrity of the original design.

• Use the available variations of the logo rather than attempting to change the color scheme.

• The size of the logo can be changed freely, as long as the proper aspect ratio is maintained to keep the image from skewing.

• Do not rotate, crop or distort the image.• Do not rearrange elements within the logos. • Do not add external elements or backgrounds

to any of the logos.• Try to keep the logo as the dominate graphic

element on the page. A good rule of thumb is to put it at the top left or center of a page.

• Give the logo enough space to breath — don’t clutter it with other elements or graphics.

Photoshop is a really cool and fun program, but please resist the urge to go to crazy with the lo-gos that we took the time to create.



15

FONTSPrimary Font: Cleargothic Aa

Alternative Font: Adobe Garamond Aa

Web Font: Open Sans AaPrint Font: Tahoma Aa

Fonts are an important aspect of any brand design. They should be used just as consistently as logos as visual identifiers of a brand.

The above fonts are those preferable for usage with the FUMC Lawrenceville brand. These fonts are recommended for use in all publications to maintain a consistent and professional appear-ance of text.

While this does not mean that all other fonts are off-limits, you should try to use fonts that are easily readable and professional in appearance.

As a general rule, text should be kept between 10 and 12 point size. Headers can have a larger size range depending on the design, but should range around 18 to 32 point.

Text should almost exclusively be black in color, except for creative designs such as graphics.

Fonts used in the various sermon graphic pack-ages will vary based on the design choice, but should always be specified and documented so that the same font can be used on all related publications during the series.



16

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

Adobe Garamond


Open Sans



FONTS


Cleargothic



Tahoma




17

COLORSThe primary church colors are Dark Green and Metallic Gold. These two colors are featured in the primary logos and should be used as often as possible in all official church publications. These are the two colors used in both the primary and secondary church logos.

Although there are no rules regarding the application of the colors, they should be used regularly in church media as another element of the church branding and to promote consistency.

Dark GreenR: 24 G: 69 B: 59C: 82 M: 0 Y: 64 K: 70PMS: 567Web: #18453B

Metallic Gold

R: 180 G: 151 B: 90C: 20 M: 30 Y: 70 K: 15PMS: 872Web: #A3874A



18

COLORSThe three elements of the mission statement, Love God. Love Oth-ers. Reach the World, each correspond with a symbol and a color.

While these colors shouldn’t be used as prevalently as the primary church colors, knowing them can be handy to add a different, more modern color palette, especially in relation to the mission statement.

“Love God” Purple

R: 41 G: 40 B: 69C: 40 M: 42 Y: 0 K: 31Web: #6965AF

“Love Others” Red

R: 86 G: 17 B: 17C: 0 M: 80 Y: 80 K: 14Web: #DA2C2B

“Reach the World” Green

R: 0 G: 57 B: 26C: 100 M: 0 Y: 55 K: 43Web: #019041



19

GUIDELINES

• Keep it simple — if it’s difficult for you to understand, it will be more so for your audience.

• Identify your target audience — you can’t reach people if you don’t know who you are reaching out to.

• Be open and honest — it helps to explain what you are trying to accomplish

• Maintain internal consistency — this helps to keep from confusing others.

• Use good judgement and have a rea-son for the branding decisions you make.

Now that you have the basic knowledge and tools for communicating the church brand, it’s time to put it all to good use. Here are a few general best practices for how to market a brand effectively.

• Make sure to get other people to proof-read everything. Fresh eyes are more likely to catch mistakes you missed.

• Find examples of similar projects and try to imitate the aspects you liked while still being original and without plagiarizing.

• Don’t be afraid of white space — it ac-tually helps a design look less cluttered.

• Establish a metric that measures the ef-fectiveness of communications — other-wise you won’t know if it’s working.

• Feel free to ask questions — it’s the best way to identify if something is confusing.

Communications [email protected]

(770) 963-0386, Ext. 146www.fumclv.org

Hopefully this information answered most of your questions about FUMC Lawrenceville, but if you have any more feel free to contact:

Thanks for visiting.

Updated: 11/22/13

The First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville ... · a boilerplate, which is used to give a...

Documents

Transcript of The First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville ... · a boilerplate, which is used to give a...