Logo Illustration #3

These two logos are illustrated together because of their similarities. The idea driving these logos is the representation that the cross "God" is at the center of our church, both physically and philosophically. The textual representation emphasizes CEPC. See my earlier blog for justification of the CEPC acronym. The cross in this logo has a hole at the intersection, just like the cross in the middle of our campus. The top logo also shows a similar hole where the cross intersects the building.

The black semi-circle matches the orientation of main street, just as the cross matches the orientation of the cross (pointing north). Less important is the black color, which I thought was appripriate representing us as sinners, looking to the cross as our model.

Logo Illustration #2

This illustration focuses on people as the church, with the negative space producing a cross. This does show our focus on God at the center of who we are. All these logos are shown with the tagline, "Sanctuary on the Katy Freeway".

Logo Illustration #1

This logo is very simple. A logo that stands alone like this provides a lot of flexibility. It can be used in other graphics, which can be very visually interesting.

Logo Examples

Now that I've given my opinion on what our logo should represent, it seemed only appropriate to give some illustrations on what I mean. I'm not bucking to be the identity designer for our church, because I'm not a professional, just an area that I've got a lot of interest in. I would recommend that we hire a professional design firm to create a holistic identity. I'd like to see us get a firm specializing in the Christian community. These are examples to get everyone thinking.

As important as the attractiveness, is the meaning behind the design. I used the color palette that we're currently using on the web, but that is up for change is well. Some of the designs shown may not be best for our church and are illustrated just for idea purposes.

CEPC Identity Definition

Several things come to mind when I think of a visuals that represent who CEPC really is. Here's a short list:
* I was attracted to this church because it was outgoing and friendly.
* The people here are focused on God - to a member. Nothing represents this visually better than the building configuration of our church. Everything is centered on the cross.
* We are a new church with a progressive mindset

I'd be interested to read what our identity definition document that our graphics design firm wrote. I'm also interested in hearing what others in our church think.

Billboard Logo

This design was created for the billboard advertising campaign and bumper stickers. It is patterned around the main sign in front of the church, which was reflects the architecture and culture of our church, which has Christ and the Cross at the center of who we are. This design seems to have been well received by the majority of our members, but is it a logo?

It is my opinion that this is not a logo. Logo's should be stand alone elements, preferably in a 1 high by 2 wide ratio. They should be flexible enough to be placed in a variety of places; signs, business cards, websites, envelopes, letterhead and more. This design is very inflexible and only works in a few situations. I recently purchased a logo book that contains 2000 logos from the world's leading designers. There is not a single logo in that book that has a shape like the above pictured logo.

That said, it does reflect much of what I think represents our church identity. The cross is at the center of everything we do, physically and in our hearts and minds. It has a contemporary feel, which matches the culture of our church.

Savage Design Logo

This logo was created by Savage Design here in Houston. This particular logo was optimized for our website but was never used because the words Evangelical and Church are virtually unreadable. All graphics on the web are displayed at 72 dpi, which is not very sharp compared with most laser printers capable of 600 dpi and magazine quality at 1200 dpi.

This logo was also created to create momentum for us to be called Christ Presbyterian and so we would use the abbreviation CP, instead of CEPC.

This is a logo, but I don't think it is a good one and the majority of people I've talked to agree with my opinion. The scrolling script like font gives a more traditional feel that in my opinion does not accurately reflect who we are. I'd really like to see the Creative Brief that was used as a design guide for this logo or anything that has Savage Designs intentions with this logo.

Also, the logo does not scale well at all. This font simply does not work on a 72 dpi website. The logo would have to be uncomfortably large to be legible, taking away space from the rest of the site. Best practices would have the logo in the top left of each web page with the navigation positioned around it. This is not possible with this logo and still make it legible. The logo also doesn't scale well on business cards, letterhead or envelopes.

I do understand the concept behind de-emphasizing the words Evangelical and Church, so that we can emphasize Christ Presbyterian as a sub-brand name. However, we are widely know in our community as CEPC and most members refer to our church as CEPC. On the flip side, I rarely hear anyone mention our church as Christ Presbyterian as Savage Design was aiming to do. Not that it is all their fault, because I don't believe it is. They recommended that we push the CP bug logo and recommended that the church leadership take the initiative to change the culture. This did not happen and that's another reason it didn't happen. But the fact is, they were trying to force something against what was happening organically. In my opinion, the CEPC acronym is now firmly entrenched in who we are and our community. For all these reasons, I think this logo must go.