So a massive amount of thought went into these 7 cherry-picked images. Feel free to just peace out right now, unless you wanna get blasted with a wall of words.
During my stint as Media Team lead for New Mercy Community Church (from 2016 – 2018), this banner template system was one of the biggest growth experiences for me, as it was the first time I got an aerial view of an entire communication chain. Working with a communications strategist, we gathered information on the patterns of communication, pain points, available channels, and the unmet needs. Once we processed and organized our findings, we set out to create a design system to help streamline a less-than-optimal communication chain, into something that functions well.
The big challenge was to create a flexible banner template system that could handle the following:
• serving 3 church services across two sites
• for a round-table leadership model where multiple leaders, and those under them, can input announcement requests
• a system that can handle the volume and frequency of events and announcements
• a toolkit that is simple to navigate and quick to execute, and can be taught to use with proper training materials
• communicating clear expectations on timelines and deliverables
• something that looks nice and maintains a certain level of quality
• for a round-table leadership model where multiple leaders, and those under them, can input announcement requests
• a system that can handle the volume and frequency of events and announcements
• a toolkit that is simple to navigate and quick to execute, and can be taught to use with proper training materials
• communicating clear expectations on timelines and deliverables
• something that looks nice and maintains a certain level of quality
The banners would live on large projection screens in auditoriums and movie theaters, as well as on social media and online newsletters. With all those factors, it made sense to go for bold simplicity, with iconography to support the headers and details. I then refined a template that reduced information overload, while keeping consistency for where key information would live.
As we were ironing out the entire flow, and working through next steps (such as buy-in, onboarding, and prepping training materials), the church shifted their priorities and the project got shelved. You know how it goes with these things.
But for the brief time that it was in effect, it was a pretty elegant solution that met the communication needs for the intended audience and users. And due to the research, we were then able to hone in on specific parts of the entire chain, which was a far different situation than when we were operating with the default legacy system that wasn't able to keep up with the church's changes in direction.
The whole experience broadened and sharpened my design-thinking process. It also made me appreciate consultants and strategists, as I got to see what they do first hand, and how their work was crucial for laying down foundation and getting necessary green lights to move things forward.
Client: New Mercy Community Church
–––
2018