Design/Layout

There’s plenty of discussion about stock photography.  Love it or hate it, searching for the right pictures and spending money for them is a part of most designers’ lives.  Whether we’re amateurs or pros in putting together pieces for our communication materials, we need to think about why we’re using stock images. 

This post isn’t about saying “yes” or “no” to using stock photography.  Instead we want to help you think through why you’re using stock stuff and when you might want to avoid...

For many, spring is a time of motivation.  The changing of the seasons get people excited to do new things or clean up old stuff.  So why not give a little seasonal makeover to your church’s website?  Here are three things you could do to spruce up your website to make it more effective.

• Tell more stories.  Personal connections always tell a more powerful story than just words that make up a description.  For example, if you’re talking about what your women’s ministry offers, don’t just...

A new year means many of may be looking to do something new with your church’s website.  If you’re starting from scratch or tweaking what you already have, here are a few things to keep in mind.

• It all starts with vision.  What is the purpose of your website?  Who is it supposed to serve?  How does it fit it with all the other communication things you do? Casting vision is a step that people like to skip mainly because it can lead to difficult decisions.  Yet if you fly past vision, your...

Certain events can become a catalyst for change for churches.  At Life Baptist Church in Las Vegas, it was a move to a new building.  It was a chance for the church of nearly 300 people to start with a clean branding slate to better present their message.  It was time to clean up the inconsistent messaging and branding they had in the past.

“I can't overhype the importance of branding. Don't be afraid of it,” says Creative Arts Guy Matt Phillips “The truth is that you are already sending a...

(The Juicys are a way to recognize and reward those churches who’ve worked to improve their church communications in some way during the last year and includes giving them a $1,000 grant to jump start their next project.)

As we started to look for churches doing great things in communications, we also realized there are churches who have good ideas, but something—like money—gets in the way from making it happen.  First CRC of Grand Haven, Michigan, is one of those churches.

The church of...

Our web guy and I have had some interesting, and at times heated, discussions lately about mobile web strategy.  While we’re not 100% sure what we’re going to do for a Church Juice mobile site yet, something interesting came up that I’d never heard about before.  It’s called progressive enhancement or responsive design.  To get a little technical here, is uses some JavaScript to change the style sheet for content based on the detected size of a browser window.  Basically content is...

(Drew Goodmanson is the CEO of Monk Development and the co-founder/pastor of Kaleo Church.)

Six church web strategy problems:

1. Skymall Syndrome.  Someone in leadership sees something they think is cool and says we need to do that.
2. Ministry schizophrenia. Every ministry within a church is trying to run the website and get prime placement.
3. Enough about you let's talk about me. A website totally designed for the organization. Users look at it and say it's a waste of time because...

Graphic designer Paul Nielsen wrote a really interesting piece about church graphic design.  Nielsen says churches often find themselves in one of two camps.  They either aren’t thinking about design at all or they’re way overthinking it.

I always say everything a church does communicates something, so why not intentionally think about it.  And that’s really the philosophy Nielsen follows when looking at churches who don’t put much thought into their signs, brochures, worship folders, etc. ...

Often when talking about web strategies, we look at mobile sites as a side note.  In general, a lot of effort is put into thinking about layout, navigation and design without a lot of thought put into how all this will translate to someone who’s looking at the site with their cell phone.

Here’s a prime example of what can happen when thinking mobile isn’t a part of your overall strategy. 

This is the website of a church near me.  I’ve blurred out their name and logo because it’s never our...

Beware churches in the greater Chicagoland area.  Church Juice may be busting through your doors soon.  Well…kind of.  We’re actually more of a mosey-on-in, laid-back operation.  Anyway, after a fairly rough start to the new year, my wife and I find ourselves in the ever-popular Christian ritual of church shopping.  In some ways, it’s sort of exciting.  For the first time in awhile, we’ll be able to get a feel for what other churches are doing.  And as we visit each new church, I want to share...