Environmental Branding

One of the things we think a lot about in multi-site kids' ministry is "branding."  What is our "brand" of children's ministry?  How do we plan to reproduce that brand from campus to campus?  This brand has to do with vision and strategy, culture, leadership structure, curriculum, value, etc.  One thing we've been working on this year is creating our environmental brand.  This has to do with what Kids' City looks like.  There are several reasons to think through your environmental brand:

1. An environmental brand is one more way to align your children's ministry across campuses.
2. An environmental brand communicates to parents that their kids will be getting the "Kids' City Experience" no matter what campus they attend (not to mention communicating that your church cares about kids enough to create inviting spaces for them).
3. An enviromental brand helps you reproduce welcoming, kid-friendly spaces without having to reinvent the wheel every time you launch a new site.

The third reason is the one that motivated me in this process.  In the past it seemed every time we launched a new site we panicked a couple weeks before trying to figure out signage and such to be both functional and inviting.  I'm hoping our new visual brand will make this an easier process. 

It will take us a while to roll all this out at our campuses (unless someone out there feels like giving large sums of money to the cause!), but here are some pictures of the new look Kids' City.  We used the same design at our Plainfield Campus when we launched it in March.  Next time I'm there I'll post some more pictures to show you the same theming plays out at another (portable) location.

Comments

[Bekah]

Tammy-
I love the designs/environment for Kid's City! Who designed everything for you? We've been tossing around ideas recently for doing something similar for our kid's ministry. Seeing what you all did will be a help to us-thanks for the great pictures!

[Tammy Melchien]

Hi Bekah,
We worked with a design studio out of California called Plain Joe Studios. They are expensive (as I'm guessing any design firm would be) but obviously they do good work.

[Reagan Hillier]

We (Worlds of Wow) have been developing a multi-site theme package that would be original design and artwork for your overall ministry. Each campus will have it's own theme package that ties to the main campus - plus one more surprise we'll share soon!

We'd love to visit about your ideas of what works best/doesn't work as we finalize. Thanks!

[Reagan Hillier]

We (Worlds of Wow) have been developing a multi-site theme package that would be original design and artwork for your overall ministry. Each campus will have it's own theme package that ties to the main campus - plus one more surprise we'll share soon!

We'd love to visit about your ideas of what works best/doesn't work as we finalize. Thanks!