Faith-Based Concern Gains Style Guide for Consistency and Impact

The Highlights

Belmont explored and established a new brand through style tiles and a style book. These guidelines allow the COC to design pieces that support a main brand visual and message.

Needed New Direction with Brand Essence

The Center of Concern, a faith-based organization, relies on research to affect social change. They wanted to develop a new style that would pull all of their outreach efforts together and establish a new, more positive way of relating to their audience so they could attract new supporters and professionals. The problem was they didn’t know where to begin. Another goal was to broaden their audience and break from just appealing to church attendees. They wanted to attract a younger audience while still being able to influence legislators on Capitol Hill. That’s when they approached Belmont for help, along with partners Maguire Reeder and Noble Pursuits.

Collaborative and Visual Discovery Launches Project

The Center of Concern didn't have the budget to hire a design firm to create documents, but they needed a directionand style before they could move forward. By using style tiles, Belmont was able to communicate ideas and approaches both visually and verbally. This allowed COC employees to react and respond in a new way, which is particulary helpful with clients who are not familiar with the design process. Between exploring the target demographic and interviewing key staff, Belmont created a style approach and guide for the organization.

Laying the Foundation for Consistent Materials

Instead of designing products for the COC, Belmont helped identify a visual suite of elements that could be used for future projects and provided a style guide that could be passed to another designer. The established style and treatment was the groundwork to build a recognizable brand with consistency throughout design. "Belmont had our staff go through various exercises before creating seven style tiles for us to review. They were presented by a couple of different people and at one point someone said that I looked like a kid in a candy store. That's how I felt. They did a wonderful work for us," said Jim Hug, President, COC.

Moving Forward with a Clear Purpose

Since Belmont provided the style guide, the Center of Concern has retained a volunteer designer who has completed two advertisements and a variety of conference materials. COC staff just returned from a convention in Philadelphia with 600 attendees, which served as the coming out party for their new brand. They report that many conference attendees commented on their new brand used in everything from bumper stickers, tote bags, stickers, and more... materials that were all designed using the style tiles from Belmont. "We were the marketing winners at the convention," Jim Hug states.