Our local congregation was recently blessed with a new chapel, so our local administration thought it would be nice to create a souvenir for those in attendance of the chapel dedication. They wanted to educate the church members with the history of the congregation, so the church reached out to me to create a print piece that would (hopefully) stand the test of time.
Starting off
Our initial meetings were mainly spent collecting assets like photos and preliminary copy, as well as determining the project requirements: adopting a color scheme in which orange-red was the base color (just an arbitrarily chosen color by the executive team), try to use a lot of the archived photos, and to have 1,500 copies delivered before December 17 (a two-month head start). After establishing the scope, art direction was given to me for my design and layout advice. Very rough layout ideas were outlined in a PowerPoint document, open for interpretation:
The design
The candor amongst our team made it easy to bounce ideas & thoughts amongst each other, so I would send them frequent quick PDF mockups of my progress for their feedback. The audience—devout churchgoers—probably were expecting a very conventional program, so a simple four-column grid with well-recognized typefaces would be just the ticket:
The copy ultimately was dictated by the layout of the imagery, so the first few rounds were laid out with placeholder text. It gave our content writers a good approximation of how much copy is needed. This back-&-forth allowed the content to be rewritten so it can fit comfortably within its space.
Photography
Thankfully, there was no shortage of imagery provided!
Although we had an understanding that most of these images won’t make the final draft, they wanted an attempt to include as much as possible. Initial drafts of the cover showcased a collage of big group photos, unified with the a color cast based on our chosen color scheme:
Approval process
Despite being able to finalize our work to our liking, final approval came from the church’s office in the Philippines. We’ve overcome this setback by setting expectations & insisted on a comfortable print deadline.
One of the major issues was the changing of the cover. The administration believed that it was important to focus on the iconic facade of the new chapel, which featured a set of decorative pillars at the top of the steps. This request came at the last moments before our deadline, & after many print proofs & annotated PDF copies, we’ve worked right up to our deadline, delivering the InDesign packaged files to the print shop in person for a final press check.
Success! All 1,500 copies were distributed to celebrate congregation’s momentous occasion.
Ian Sagabaen: art director, graphic designer
Joji Crisostomo, Coy Reyes, Reason Reyes: copywriting, content
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