Branded With Love

So, we get asked on occasion how things happen here at Forefront.
Small Groups. Community Events. Reaching People Far From God. Music. Video & Design. Etc.

Well, recently someone visited and asked how we got our pre-service stuff “looking so smooth and connecting with people who need the info?” Great question! We focus a great amount of energy not only on making sure people feel comfortable and welcome during our service, but before it ever starts. The lobby has music playing with a party type vibe, people who volunteer are encouraged to be friendly & available, but not stalkers (the difference between the people at Target and walking onto a car dealership parking lot and getting attacked… ya get it?!). Along with that, we have slides that roll with announcements & funny stuff. Then, a few minutes before service begins, we play this:

The song is one edited from some work we did w/ Verve in Las Vegas, and the slides were created for Forefront and Verve, with color differences (their color is red, obviously we roll with green). But, if you don’t have super cool, video editing magic- and you don’t have the money to pay someone to use After Effects, Final Cut, or Adobe Premiere. Here is how to make something like this for your church…

Unfortunately, you need an Apple computer to do this. Many churches have at least one of these laying around, so you should be in good shape. Other things you need to get this done: iMovie, Keynote, a photo editor (either Photoshop-or a free program called Gimp).

Step One: Create Each Image (in parts):
- Make your image in your photo editor in layers.
- Now, save each layer you want to move around in your video, as a PNG file with a transparency (that means there is no background, just the image).
- To make it easier, for each batch of layers that create one whole image, create a folder and number them in the order they appear (i.e. 001.png, 002.png, 003.png, and they are all in folder “Missions Announcement”).
- Once you have all of your layers saved from your photo editor, jump over to Keynote.

Step Two: Create The Raw Video File:
- Keynote is a better quality version of Power Point. You want to create your template size as 1280 x 720 (this is the HD size for our screen, if you shoot 4:3, you can make it 720 x 540).
- Now that you are in your template, you begin to add each layer and with the “Inspector” tool, you can animate the way each item comes in, time it, etc.
- Continue doing that until all your layers are in and you have the animation style you want.
- Next, you want to record your slide show. Click, “File” and “Record Slideshow” and go through your show until it’s finished.
- Once recorded, you go to “File” and “Export.” You will export it as a Quicktime file and the default setting should work just fine unless you want to tweak something, you decide (I just left it as is).
- Then save it into the appropriate folder.
- Repeat steps one and two until you have all the parts to your intro video.

Step Three: Make Your Movie:
- Now, open iMovie and make a 16:9 new project.
- Import all of your videos into one Event.
- Move each of your movies into the project one by one in the order you think they look best.
- Make sure to go into each of the individual video settings and change the Saturation from 100% to somewhere around 135-145%. When exporting out of Keynote, the color goes a little pale compared to what the image actually was.
- Once all the videos are in place, drop your track* in there, export as a Quicktime HD file, and Viola! An opening video that will inform people, get them into service, and get things rolling.

*Our track was edited in Garageband, but there are free programs like Audacity out there as well.

Jason *over and out*

When I came on at Forefront 3 years ago, the website, design and branding was dated (all the staff agreed on this one). Everything looked like the mid 90′s and some even earlier looking by design. Now, you might wonder, “Why does a church care about design? Isn’t it about the gospel? Why are we ‘branding’ ourselves?” Great questions. As a church, we don’t brand the gospel. God has done a great job of that and there is nothing in His amazing story telling that we can make better. He’s done a perfect job with it, so no need to mess with what isn’t broke. As a church, we do want people to remember us. Remember the loving message, kind faces, acts of service, moving in the community, etc. So logos, colors, websites, fliers, and more help us break through the noise & chaos people see and hear everyday and they remember us. And, if we’re living like Jesus, they’ll remember Jesus in the process which is our ultimate goal.

So, being remembered and leaving a mark, whether it’s via the web, a flier, serving, sharing life in community, is a huge deal.

So a little over a year ago Forefront went with Clover for our website hosting/design. Now I cannot say enough how impressed we’ve been with the ease of use, mobile interface, and clean design. It just works. The traffic on our website has increased dramatically and part of that is because people feel more than comfortable sending their friends to an easy to use site.

Going into 2010, we wanted to make an even clearer mark and update our look & feel across the board. So, we contacted Clover about a template design that would fit our new look & feel well. We couldn’t be more pleased with the way it turned out. Also, we reformatted our weekly program to reflect the changes on our site. Our online giving interface will also mirror the same look in the coming days. Now, some might say these things are silly, trivial, not kingdom related. But, when a first time person visits the website, we want them to be spurred on to come on a Sunday. Currently, 65% of first time people each week come because of the website. Also, when they pick up a program, we want it to feel just as comfortable as the site they visited earlier in the week.

When it comes to the program, we’ve made a few changes. It is still in the two sided, tri-fold format, but the color scheme & design has changed. The area for the Weekly Study is bigger with a bigger font, the space for serving opportunities & ways to get plugged in is larger, and we changed around the connection card to reflect a more tech-savy generation. Many of the people who are first-timers visit because of Facebook, Google Search for churches, or the website. We want to keep better track of that and so those minor changes reflect it. Very interesting to see the culture shift in how people connect with churches for the first time.

Below is a snapshot of the website & new program design. If you’re a church looking to check this program design out or get it in an editable Photoshop PSD, please email us at info@forefront.org and we can send you the file. Now, the things here are small in the grand scheme of ministry, but they really aid in our impact of changing lives. So glad Forefront is a place that can hold strong the the essentials, yet change organically with things that need to change to reach people.

Jason *over and out*

I don’t not have the means, know how, or time to do something like this…

But I will note that I think about ridiculous ideas & concepts like this all the time.
Waiting for a private donor to show up and explain all my ideas. The church would be turned on it’s head (in a good way).

What have you been dreaming that needs to come to reality?

I am having a college flashback day and clicked on an old playlist. I love this song. You should too.