Have you seen any good church logos?
Logo designer: currently unknown
Effective church logos aren’t easy to spot. Why is that? Budget? Priorities? Understanding? More and more, it seems Churches are run like businesses. Disregarding the question of morality, I’d expect branding to be given more thought, if only to attract a larger congregation.
In this short blog post, I’ve picked out a few church logo designs that stand out more than most, but it wasn’t straightforward finding them.
Lake Hills Church logo
Logo designer: Marc English Design, in 2000
Green Valley Community Church logo
Logo designer: Benjamin Ian Design Studio
According to Richard Reising, of Artistry Marketing Concepts, churches shy away from branding because they don’t understand it. “They think branding is an elevated marketing term and only applies to mega-churches or [overly] forward thinking ones. Churches are also concerned about becoming commercial. But really branding makes them become strategic.” (Full article here.)
Oasis Church logo
Logo designer: currently unknown
Do you know of any great church logos? Kent Shaffer lists his top 20 church logos, and while I enjoy some (the Bethlehem Baptist Church above was found via Kent) I think they’re hit and miss. What about you?
If you’ve seen any logos worthy of a mention, do let me know by leaving a comment.
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49 excellent comments, leave your thoughts or ping me!
Steven
Buckhead Church in Atlanta and its parent ministry, North Point Church, do a great job of branding themselves.
The logos are pretty good, but their brand in general is incredible. They have a great business sense.
http://www.buckheadchurch.org
http://www.northpoint.org
May 20th, 2008
Fraser Edwards
David - it’s so funny to see this post today. I’ve got a meeting tonight at my church where I plan to put across the case for a decent logo and getting a proper identity organised. If I manage to convince them then you might be hearing from me :)
Fraser Edwardss last blog post..Final Podcast Review
May 20th, 2008
Sander
Hi David,
You might want to take a look at http://www.nieuwekerk.nl/nl/index.htm this is a large church in Amsterdam, where all national royal events are. It is basic but clear.
Sanders last blog post..Business Card Design
May 20th, 2008
David Airey
Thanks for your thoughts. I’m not keen on the Buckhead Church logo at all, but appreciate you offering the links.
Fraser,
Hope the meeting goes well. That is a coincidence!
May 20th, 2008
Jeremy Davis
I’m nothing of a logo expert but here are a few more examples to see if there is anything in them that you like.
http://www.12stone.com/home/home.php
http://www.stonemillchurch.org/
And here’s a top 50 church design list.
http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/best-church-websites/
Jeremy Daviss last blog post..A Wiii Fit Story: Chapter 4 - Moving Up In Rank
May 20th, 2008
Brian Yerkes
Hi David,
Came across this website on my travels for inspiration for a new website Im working on right now….
very cool design and interesting logo! not too sure about “rise and take this city” as a tag line! sounds quite rebellion like!! haha
http://cotrokc.org/
May 20th, 2008
archie
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a nice typographic logo designed with a proprietary font by Jonathan Hoefler.
May 20th, 2008
Bryan Hoyt
Interesting thoughts, David.
Apologies in advance for the length of this comment. It’s a subject I feel pretty emotional about, I guess.
I believe in the power of a good brand.
Why don’t churches give more serious thought to their logos? Simply put, many churches — as you faintly suggest when you disregard the question of morality — aren’t businesses, and they shouldn’t be.
Branding is important for businesses because people become emotionally attached to a particular brand, and the ethos and lifestyle it represents. Every business has a different logo, because no business wants to be associated with another business’s ethos.
It’s tempting for churches to do the same, so that people become emotionally attached to their unique brand of lifestyle. But attracting people should never be any church’s primary focus. And emotional attachment to a particular brand at the expense of a love for God and his people is “good” old-fashioned idolatry, in the Biblical sense.
The other reason is that when individual churches have logos, they differentiate themselves from each other. The Bible has harsh things to say about Christians who group themselves into separate schools — when it talks about people who say, “I follow Paul” and “I follow Apollos”. Yes, I know, we’ve got the Baptists, Catholics, Bretheren, etc. It’s wrong and I don’t like it, but we can work for positive change from where we stand. I believe branding will set us up for worse competition.
It’s not so much a question of right or wrong, as of what is important. The emotional attachment of a brand is much shallower than that of a human to a human, or of a human to God. And we churches simply don’t want that superficialness. We don’t want to attract people who love God less than they love our branding.
The Church of God is global. Always has been. In fact the Church has always had “logos” of a sort — but we tend to call them “symbols”. It’s a similar idea, but it goes much deeper. Deepest is the symbol of the cross. It’s a symbol based heavily in reality, and it represents the most horrible, and at the same time the most beautiful thing that God ever did. We also have symbols that are actions rather than images — when we eat bread & drink wine together, we remember the last time Jesus did the same with his closest followers. When we wet a child or new christian with water, we symbolize how God has already washed their guilt away, and we welcome them into God’s family.
Many Christians don’t wear or draw crosses, because they don’t believe a visual symbol is necessary or good. I respect that. But I (like you) believe in the power of a visual symbol, and the cross is one that I believe is deep enough to be worthy of what it represents.
To be honest (without wanting to moralize!), when churches want to have their own brands, it says to me that they don’t think the original symbols of the Church are cool enough for them. But that’s not really my call, at the end of the day; it is God’s call.
Thanks for reading this far down!
May 20th, 2008
Jermayn
What about this logo?
http://jubileeworldharvest.com.au/images/logo.gif
It is part of the four square church and as you can tell it uses four squares.
btw I agree that the churches dont use marketing because they do not understand it, I go to church and to try and explain marketing its a hard thing to do.
What I find is even harder is that you get people who think they have an idea…
Jermayns last blog post..So Much Beauty - Kate Ceberano
May 21st, 2008
john
I really like:
god lovers inc
May 21st, 2008
Kelly
David,
Check out Vandelay Website Design’s blog:
http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/best-church-websites
Steven Snell puts together some fine lists, and this link is one of them. Though he isn’t specifically talking about the logos, per se, some of them are quite nice (for church logos, which as you point out, are a little lacking).
Maybe one of these 50 will jump out at you.
Regards,
Kelly
Kellys last blog post..What Are You Withholding?
May 21st, 2008
hr
i quite like this one from my friend’s church: http://www.gccnj.org/
also, this one from the UK: http://www.ovc.uk.com/Group/Group.aspx?id=71673
circles = grapes = vineyard. positioned to be shaped like England, Scotland, and Wales (UK).
May 21st, 2008
nicetype
Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think a church needs a logo at all. Isn’t the cross the universal, world-wide recognizable sign? It’s powerful enough, and all those so-called logos that try to represent churches are a whole lot weaker than that. At least the examples shown here and at the sites in the comments are not that impressive at all.
Without the (omnipresent) tagline “church” I would think it’s a Web 2.0 startup looking at most of them. Visually I like the Northstar and Bethlehem, but they are also quite generic without the tagline.
Now I don’t believe that one should look at the logo and be instantly able to tell what business the company runs, but most of the logos just don’t feel appropriate here. It is difficult to design a logo for a church though (topic-wise and also client-wise I suppose), as for me, I always stay away of designing for anything religious.
This is also the case where the logo itself isn’t enough to put a message across, the whole identity must be very well made (including good copy) to support it. And this is where all the examples I’ve seen here (except The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maybe) miserably fail (looking at their sites).
nicetypes last blog post..Unilever
May 21st, 2008
Roberta Seldon
That was deep Bryan. Thanks for the inspirational moment :)
May 21st, 2008
Adam Glynn-Finnegan
http://www.Marshill.org have a nice logo and probably the best church website I’ve seen, really have an eye to nice, clean and clear design and typography.
It’s great to see a church that has a great website as for so long, churches have been way behind the times.
May 21st, 2008
LaurenMarie - Creative Curio
I don’t have any examples to add, but I remember church Website design was a big deal a while ago (as in, it wasn’t very good and why not?). Godbit Project started out of that.
I really do think that it’s money related. Churches are a non-profit. Do you know many non-profits (that don’t have a huge corporate overseer, like Girl Scouts/Girl Guides), that have well designed marketing materials like logos, Websites, brochures, etc?
Interesting thoughts from Bryan above. I’m a Christian and I’m not really sure how I feel about what he said. I agree and disagree at the same time. I suppose logos and marketing are what I do and what our culture does, so I think why wouldn’t a church have these things, too? But maybe that’s a different discussion, for another time.
LaurenMarie - Creative Curios last blog post..How to Create Aged Tape from Scratch in Photoshop
May 21st, 2008
kristarella
I like that Lake Hills Church one that you picked. I like Church on the Move and Harvest Church (especially that one, very conceptual) posted by Kent.
The ones posted in the comments: I like 12 stone, has ideas of being built on the apostles teaching, building house on the rock, building a church, Jesus is the rock, number 12 = complete. CCV from the Vandelay post is cool. Oxford vineyard is okay, it could be used to better affect on the website – it’s a bit pixelated and gets a bit lost.
@Brian Hoyt – I can see where you’re coming from and I think it’s better than the extreme opposite (e.g. a large church in my area, which preaches a prosperity gospel and rakes in millions, probably billions, from its ‘feel good’ ministry), but I think one of your points is fundamentally incorrect. That is, I don’t think the bible speaks against separate churches; it speaks against separatism, but even then the case that you talk about was division within one church. I think the model we get from the bible is that a church is the group you meet with regularly, learn with, teach, support each other, which makes it a separate group from the church down the road, or across the world, even separate from the other “congregations” that meet in the same building as you. That’s who Paul writes to in his letters, the church of the Romans, the church of the Ephesians, the church in Thessolonica…
There is the sense that there is one church (Eph 5, Rev 20) under Christ. I don’t think it’s practical or helpful to apply that model to churches on earth because it’s just not sustainable, it’s something that will be realised when Christ returns and until then the important thing to remember is that we’re all under Christ.
Even without branding, people are attached to their church because of the people in it, because of the things they’ve learnt there. People will get all those kinds of emotions with it anyway.
A logo helps people outside the church identify which church is writing to them/inviting them to something etc. If the logo is designed well, it will give people an idea of what the church is about – sure, it’s about Christ, but is that in an old incense burning way or a community of believers way?
Churches still have a bunch of print products that they produce, I don’t think it hurts to tie them together somehow – as long as people stay focused on wht their church is supposed to be doing, not just building numbers, but growing people in maturity.
kristarellas last blog post..Tumblr, tweets and twizzles (for shizzle)
May 22nd, 2008
Stacey Schofield
I attended a church here in wichita kansas that was REALLY into Digital Media. Their logo is pretty cool.
http://www.gracepoint.com/
May 22nd, 2008
Matthew
Here’s one my friend designed for Apostles Church in New York
http://ampersanderson.com/dump/apostles.gif
I feel a little sheepish to toot my own horn here, but a recent project pertains to the thread. I designed a logo for All Angels’ Worship in the Round service and I feel it works both aesthetically and functionally.
http://www.ampersanderson.com/recent/wir.html
Still, I largely to agree with Nicetype above. I feel on one hand that the current Western culture necessitates some sort of visual identity. But, on the other hand, churches are not—Biblically speaking—businesses. In my opinion, I feel that churches choosing to co-opt mass culture models should be both careful and aware, realizing that the message (ie: Christ) should be the focus. The legitimacy of any church will never be found in its logo.
May 22nd, 2008
nicetype
Matthew, having said that, I really like your work for that church, especially the light installation :) Nice to see Pill Gothic in use too
nicetypes last blog post..Font of the day: Rebecca Samuels
May 22nd, 2008
michael : holy cow
I love this topic! My studio only works with churches so I know this market and the reasons you are not seeing a lot of great church logos is vast…here are a few:
FEAR: it requires change, it requires admitting something is missing
CHEAP: some churches go the path of least resistance, to many this means letting the guy in the church that isn’t really qualified, but the most qualified in the church, do the logo for free
IGNORANT: They don’t understand that a logo is more than a pretty mark, they don’t understand how much logos are communicating so they just grab something that people say look nice and check that task off their list
Slowly but surely we are seeing more and more churches and church leaders get on board and dive in. We are working on 3 different identity projects right now…so the trend is starting to change.
michael : holy cows last blog post..What were you expecting?
May 23rd, 2008
David Airey
I’m heading into the centre of Edinburgh for a meeting, but didn’t want you to feel I was ignoring comments. In fact, a lot of your thoughts made me wonder if I chose the right headline for this post, and I enjoyed reading your take.
Bye for now.
May 23rd, 2008
Jeff Fisher LogoMotives
When I’ve designed a logo for a church, what I’ve appreciated most from the client is the initial comment: “We don’t want our logo to look like a church logo.”
May 24th, 2008
David Airey
Thanks for the link to Steven’s Vandelay list. I’m a subscriber there, but forgot about that one.
Brian,
Yep, apparently there is a rebellion on the horizon. ;)
Archie,
There’s no need to have an icon, I agree. Logotypes can be just as effective. Thanks for your input.
Bryan,
Don’t worry at all about the length of your comment. It’s good to get an insight into your thinking. The reply given by Kristarella contained a sentence I tend to side with, though I’m not a religious person:
Jermayn,
I’m not keen on the logo you linked to. Does it really use four squares? Were they going for a white ‘J’ of some sorts?
John,
I’m curious what it is you like about the God Lovers logo.
Kelly,
Jeremy also linked to the same article, cheers for that.
HR,
I’m not so keen on the Grace logo. The concept has been done much better in my opinion. Thanks for the reasoning behind the Oxford design, which was nice to know.
nicetype,
I agree that individual church logos are much weaker than the cross. Is there a stronger, more widely recognised mark than that anywhere? That’s a question for another post. Interesting that you always stay clear of designing for religious purposes. I can understand that decision.
Adam,
It took a while for me to find the logo on the site you linked to. Isn’t is strange how it’s incredibly tiny, and placed right at the bottom?
Lauren,
It was interesting to read Bryan’s comment, and Kristarella’s reply. Also how you’re a Christian yet neither agree nor disagree with Bryan’s sentiments. Religion isn’t an easy debate, so I can fully understand why ‘nicetype’ prefers to work on un-religious projects.
Kristarella,
I quoted you above. This blog post has turned a corner I didn’t expect, but it’s great to read from different sides of the debate.
Stacey,
I think the opposite about the Grace Point logo. Good of you to comment though.
Matthew,
When your work is of that standard, you’re more than welcome to toot your own horn. Thanks for the link, which I enjoyed viewing. Like ‘nicetype’ said, the light installation is particularly pleasing.
Michael,
I appreciate your insight, given that you’re working with a number of church organisations. I’ve not yet done so, but wish you all the best with your current projects.
Jeff,
What a great initial client comment. If only there were more.
May 25th, 2008
LaurenMarie - Creative Curio
Interesting that no one has mentioned the original Greek logos means “word,” which to Christians is Jesus.
@Michael, I agree with your point about cheap. I’ve seen it many times in our church. But maybe that means those of us who are qualified need to stand up and volunteer our services (talking to myself just as much here!)
LaurenMarie - Creative Curios last blog post..The Creative Process: Details, Details, Details
May 25th, 2008
nicetype
Coca-Cola? ;)
nicetypes last blog post..Font of the day: Rebecca Samuels
May 25th, 2008
kristarella
LaurenMarie, so it is! I’m trying to think how one could make good use of that in a logo… I got nothin’.
Good call Nicetype!
kristarellas last blog post..18 Image editors and creators for Mac OS X
May 26th, 2008
Bryan Hoyt
David, thanks for your thoughtful interactions. Roberta, and Kristarella, thanks for the same! Nicetype & Matthew, I like your points of view.
LaurenMarie, fascinating point about Logos. That reminds me for some reason of the first few chapters of “No Logo” by Naomi Klein, though she doesn’t discuss Christ. The whole book is worth reading in this context.
Kristarella, I partially agree with you that a global church is impractical in the physical sense. Good thoughts here. I also agree with what you said, “I don’t think it hurts to tie them together somehow…” — to be honest, this is probably the attitude I’d take in most practical cases. I believe in a job well done. Consistent, attractive design is a hugely important part of that.
An additional thought:
A lot of Christians are understandably unwilling to make a step in a direction that they see as a “long slippery slope”. They’ve seen other churches go hip with their image and slide downhill from there, and they don’t want to start the same chain reaction. This isn’t an issue for me, personally — I believe that if your heart is straight, then your feet will follow — but it’s good to be aware that other people might not see it this way.
When you need to decide between hurting fellow churchgoer’s conscience and a nice shiny branding, well, that’s a hard decision to make. Open, robust discussion is great.
May 26th, 2008
David Airey
Great link! I didn’t know that about Christ and Logos.
nicetype,
Yep, that’s definitely a good call. I see on your blog that you like the Curious Pictures logo. One of my favourites too. :)
Bryan,
You’re more than welcome. Thank you for adding to the debate.
May 26th, 2008
Zach
Really good discussion! I personally like the logo of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (http://www.watchtower.org). They are the official organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I think their brand of a “watchtower” stemming from the biblical idea of a watchtower and a watchmen who looked at the surrounding territory of his town and warned of coming danger or announced the coming of friends really works well with their message and what they do (going door-to-door a preaching their message) and believe. It’s executed well and their magazine designs for both the Watchtower and their other magazine The Awake! always look good.
May 26th, 2008
Lonnie
Simple but somewhat fun : http://www.chalkbluff.org/
May 28th, 2008
Tim
my church is about to release a new logo and new web design shortly. we are right in downtown Chicago… a church of about 1,500 20somethings.
we haven’t officially released our logo, we’re debuting it next month, but i would love your feedback on it!
http://www.adammabry.co.uk/downloads/idea.jpg
May 29th, 2008
J
One of the best is the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) identity designed by Malcolm Grear.
http://www.mgrear.com/mgd02.cfm
Click on PC USA link for images.
Article here: http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/redesigning-a-symbol-of-faith
In his book too:
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Outside-Basics-Practice-Design/dp/0321440676/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212118687&sr=8-1
May 30th, 2008
Jordan
This logo our agency did for Pathways is cool (main designer was Greg Meadows). Very contemporary. http://www.pathwaysfellowship.org/
Also, a mark we did as part of a fundraising campaign for a church with a long historical tradition turned out pretty cool. You can see it on http://www.logolounge.com by searching, “seasons of devotion.”
May 30th, 2008
Regan
I’m jumping in late here - our church hired a local artist who’s a friend of the AV guru.
Ours is not a simple design by any means - but it was nice to see a departure from the standard cross motif to be honest. Plus it pulls the mission statement in nicely.
http://www.forwardbaptist.ca/
Regan’s last blog post…when is a Hammond B3 not a Hammond B3?
May 31st, 2008
Peter Sullivan
Jesus! There’s a market I never thought of!
Jun 2nd, 2008
nicetype
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) identity designed by Malcolm Grear is great. I love the subtle meaning one could put (come on, you wouldn’t have seen the cup if there were no explanational images, would you? :) in that mark, and how it doesn’t try to look trendy at all, and that works excellently. Never looks out of place. Try to imagine one of those Web 2.0 church logos on a window.
Thank you very much for posting that, J.
nicetype’s last blog post…WWF
Jun 3rd, 2008
David Airey
Jun 4th, 2008
Stuart
I find the idea of churches needing logos a bit bizarre.
As someone has already said, Christianity already has one o fthe most recognisable ‘logos’ in the world - the cross - yet very few of these examples seem to incorporate that. If you took the word ‘church’ out of these, you wouldn’t have a clue what its a logo for.
Jun 4th, 2008
Darrel
There is some irony in it all. After all, a big part of what religion is is marketing and branding. Religion has been perfecting branding for thousands of years. But the individual churches, not so much.
Ultimately, though, I think the main reason churches don’t necessarily have the greatest logo designs isn’t so much about the ‘morality’ of branding, or the lack of business understanding in churches, or anything like that…but rather it’s the old ‘too many committees to please’ issue.
“As someone has already said, Christianity already has one o fthe most recognisable ‘logos’ in the world - the cross”
Barbers have universal symbols (striped pole) and lawyers (scales of justice) etc. Those are good for identifying what they do, but not necessarily good at differentiating them.
If you want to cue passerbys on the street that ‘this is a church’ then the cross is perfect. But usually one wants to communicate something a bit more specific with one’s branding than just the generic market they are in.
Jun 4th, 2008
David Airey
Whilst it’s true that you might not know what these logos represent, I believe their purpose is to differentiate, rather than tell a story. A logo doesn’t need to express what a company does.
Darrel,
Your point about ‘too many committees to please’ is a good one. Thanks for your thoughts.
Jun 12th, 2008
Jared Hardwick
Hello.
I just came across your blog as a “related blog” result from Google Reader. I’ve been reading along and found this post. My church actually just went through a whole logo and name change to re identify who we are as a church. We used to be called Highland Meadows Christian Church which was nothing more than just a location of a subdivision, but we recently merged with an old pastor from our church who branched off. His church was named Compass Christian Church. With a whole new vision and direction, we thought it would be good to change our name to Compass Christian Church for a more multi-site ministry aspect. Along with the new name came a new logo, which I created, located on our new website at http://www.mycompasschurch.com.
Let me know what you guys think. We went through about 20 logos til we decided on this one. It’s not traditional, but we feel it incorporates our vision and it’s iconic.
Jun 16th, 2008
kristarella
Jared, good job! I think you’ve got a good simple mark there that will be a good identifier. I’ve seen a lot of compass logos and icons and yours doesn’t remind me of any of them, but still has that four points idea - great work!
kristarella’s last blog post…Multiple WordPress Blogs
Jun 16th, 2008
roberto
Although not a church, Providence Hospital in Medford, Oregon used to have a great logo. They have stopped using it for some reason in favor of an inferior one.
There is still an online version of the old one online here.
Jun 23rd, 2008
David Airey
Good of you to say where you found my blog. Always interesting to know. Like Kristarella, I enjoy the simplicity of your logo. Easy to remember.
Roberto,
I like the idea behind the old logo (clever use of negative space appeals to me). Thanks for sharing.
Jun 24th, 2008
neil
Just stumbled across this one…
http://logopond.com/gallery/detail/18776
Jun 30th, 2008
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