Sequoia Community Church approached me after finding me through an old friend, who was on their staff. They were in the process of launching (starting to market themselves to the community) and they needed a logo to drive their branding, identity and mission. They had a general idea for what they wanted, and my friend on staff had been assigned the work of designing their first logo. He was interested in design and learning the craft, but they couldn't formulate a quality, professional looking logo that could be reproduced over multiple formats. Unfortunately, this is a very common story among churches, with many experiencing the problems of tight budgets and limited resources first hand. Anyway, I quickly got down to business.
About Sequoia Community Church
Sequoia Community Church is a Fresno-based church, reaching people in the southeast region of the city . The primary target audience of the church is 18-35 young families and the church has been in existence for 6 months made possible by 3 passionate pastors and their families.
The Brief
I met with Sequoia Community Church pastor Chad for the initial consult and brainstorming, which is outlined below:
- To create a relevant version of our logo and icon. The logo should look modern and crisp, but not very busy or "churchy" looking.
- The logo will be used on all branded church items – signage, digital, print, and on the website.
- The logo should reflect our three virtues (or goals).
- The logo will be used for launching a brand new church in the area.
- We like the color green, but we're open to considering other colors at your discretion.
- The logo must have the sequoia tree in ti somehow - the tree represents our purpose statement.
Old Concept Logo
Below you can see the concept of the logo they had in mind, the sequoia tree had to be used in some way to convey their name and purpose. Although the tree was relevant to their mission and identity, it didn’t melt artistically to the type and it lacked originality, making it bland and forgettable out there in the wild. The font combination made the logo quite clumsy as well as the tree used as a letter (a good idea sometimes but not here).
Logo Explorations
As the sequoia had to be used in some way, I wanted to keep at least the presence of it in the logo one way or another so I started making comps in Photoshop in order to come up with ideas involving different parts of the tree. I knew I wanted to put the tree in some sort of shape to the left of the logo.
I'm not opposed to "old school" pencil and paper sketching, but the Photoshop comps were working for me in this particular project.
Below you can see some of the many logo explorations I went through. My process always involves images and fonts together - I'll create a smattering of logo designs with different icons and typography giving the client a smorgasbord of flavors to choose from to steer the final logo. I know it looks like someone threw up on my canvas, however there is a method to the madness.
Final Logo Selection
After meeting again with the Sequoia team, we eventually settled on the strongest concept: the sequoia tree image in a app-like rounded square to the left, with all cap square typography to the right. They liked the word "sequoia" being strongest as this had already become their used "nickname". The tree-square could be branded as buttons, tags, icons, etc, and the square font could be aligned easily underneath it. It's easily identifiable and it's a very versatile design.
