Church Logo and Branding for Christ Church Derby

A full range of logo and branding materials for a modern Derby based church.

Christ Church Derby (CCD) is a modern Christian Church based in Derby, UK. Planted (started) by a small group of people from parent church St Alkmund’s in Duffield (and a handful of others) in 2010.

The church initially met in rented rooms (first at Jury’s Inn, then at the Joseph Wright College, both in the centre of Derby) the church purchased it’s own building in 2015, on Great Northern Road in the city.

I’ve been working on the branding for the Church since it was established, initially working with designs created by a 3rd party before taking on a more full rebranding effort that has been some time in the making. This has now become established and cemented with the official opening of the new church building.

Central to the brand is the logo. A key element for the congregation has been the idea that it’s a modern church but with traditional (reformed, evangelical) doctrinal basis. The outgoing logo used a traditional gaelic style cross shape formed from expanding specks of colour. This worked in a conceptual sense but the design was overly complicated and was tricky to modify for the scale needed on the web or to apply in single colour versions.

As we started exploring the concept, it became apparent that taking any steps to simplify the dot based design resulted in shapes and logos that looked a little too like a German style WW2 iron cross.

I decided to take the focus off any typical religious imagery and head towards something highly modern. The goal of the logo then was to support marketing materials that exist to persuade a contemporary audience that CCD is relevant to them. I chose to keep a nod to the traditional element too, the result was a bold letter C sat in an orange circle.

I chose a circle to represent God, something taken with this nod to history and tradition. In many anglican churches, symbology plays a massive role. Some of my favourite symbols found in old churches aren’t complex carvings or fancy golden alters, but the small things that often go unnoticed. Squares in churches represented man and circles God. Hexagons are used where God ‘meets’ man, often seen in the pulpit (where the Bible is expounded) and fonts (where people are baptised). If you’re interested, have a look at How to Read a Church by Professor Richard Taylor, this goes into all sorts of imagery and other stuff you’ll find in a church.

For the key letter, the C, I chose the characterful Century Schoolbook. This was set by Morris Fuller Benton in 1924. This had an extra relevance as Century Schoolbook is the epitome of a readable typeface, ideal for setting large blocks of text it, such as the Bible.

The logo circle was accompanied by Gotham, a super sharp sans serif font that is highly readable in larger headline scales.

The remainder of the branding encompasses design for print, web & digital design as well as design for building signage. Material including flyers, leaflets, banners and posters in print, design for the web site http://derby.church, including the mobile responsive variation, power point presentations and raised lettering and mounted signs for the church itself.

As well as the bold orange, the design scheme features a set of 8 colours, all bright and clear. These are used throughout the materials produced.