This is a small project, but definitely one of my favourites! I’ve done two major projects involved in my local church community: designing a brand and marketing a growing youth group, and also Creating an identity for a summer church camp.

My parents run all the community-facing youth work for Lower Earley Baptist Church. While I’m not part of the church community myself, I was asked to help create the brand and communications for the Church to use for all their youth facing work.

This had three stages: selecting a name, creating the icon, and creating the invitations and communication that the group would use.

Selecting a name

I wasn’t particularly involved in this phase, but got to learn more about what the name signifies. The church community wanted something that represented the youth as an explosive force for good, ready to break down old ideas and learn new things. They chose the acronym first and the actual meaning after - TNT, or Thursday Night Teens. (You can tell it wasn’t perfectly thought out, as half of the attendees are aged 6-11!)

Creating the icon

I created this design when I was very early in my design logo, which explains why it’s such a simple letterform. I picked Gill Sans GT Black, as it was closest to a mono font with almost squarelike text.

This was one of many versions.

Soon after, we created an advanced logo for the teen group. It didn’t need to be complicated — familiar enough to clearly be TNT, but bright and distinct enough to not be confused by parents with children in both groups.

This simple yet recognisable form turned out to be incredibly rewarding, as it was simple enough for young children to replicate. One of the earliest brand exercises was seeing the logo laser-cut and used as a stencil, printed, remixed and reshaped onto designs everywhere.

(We didn’t have time to do an explosion!)

(We didn’t have time to do an explosion!)

Creating consistent communication

I created a flyer structure which looked simple but had a lot of thought behind it! I worked closely with the TNT team to design something which:

1. Conveyed essential information clearly
2. Had details backed up by symbols and simplified, so that kids, anyone with English as a secondary language, and anyone with a learning disability could understand the information slightly more easily
3. A focus on a photo to fill space and add consistency
4. A clear and easy to understand referrer, to ensure potential visitors booked

2022

This was the first year of running. The main technical thing we achieved for this flyer was Tap To Book — on the right, you could tap near booking to open the booking link. We recognised the biggest flyer audience was parents accessing it from WhatsApp, so a QR code wouldn’t be appropriate to distribute there. I added the functionality in InDesign.