Building a bilingual church brand from nothing
C3 Mosaic launched as a bilingual English and Spanish church plant in Málaga with no existing identity, no assets, and a congregation drawn from more than thirty nations. It needed a brand that worked in two languages, read as one church rather than two congregations sharing a room, and could be operated by volunteers.
Every word had to work twice. English and Spanish set to wildly different lengths, so a layout that fits Welcome Home breaks on Bienvenido a Casa. The identity had to be built around that from the first sketch rather than adapted afterward.
What we made
- Wordmark and identity system, including sub-brands for services and ministries
- Palette built on navy
#254BBBand gold#FDD727, chosen for projector legibility in a room with ambient daylight - Type system in Bebas Neue and Montserrat, both licence-free, so volunteers can install and use them without cost
- Bilingual layout rules covering how English and Spanish coexist on one graphic
- ProPresenter template set, built so a volunteer can drop in new text without breaking the design
- Brand guidelines document written for a rotating volunteer team
Outcome
[FILL: how many years the system has run, how many series, how quickly a new volunteer can produce on-brand graphics. Delete this field if you have no honest figure.]
The insight worth naming
A bilingual brand is not a brand plus translation. If the second language is handled at the end, it always looks like the second language.