Youth Leadership Team Logo Design Project

Southern Hills Baptist Church is a long-standing church located in midtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. The members of the church pride themselves on the inclusivity of their fellowship and ministry programs, organizing and operating a few dozen different ministries within eight sub-categories.

In 2008, a youth organizing group, known as ‘Lead Teams’, required a logo design that matched the positive vibes of both the youth and the church. Our creative team incorporated the signature green leaf of Southern Hills Baptist Church into the design, uniting the logo with others from the same organization.

The inspiration of the design was to represent the members of the various ministries organized by Lead Teams as seeds, nurtured by the ministry and sprouting within the church. Strong, simple colors add to the versatility of the logo design, providing the opportunity for easy display on virtually any background color or material.

The fellowship of Southern Hills Baptist Church spread their message in multiple ways, including Sunday services and ministry groups. Amongst these groups, the youth ministry shined brightly as it nurtured the future generation of society. The various ministries required a certain level of planning and coordination, as there was only so much space and so many resources.

The group responsible for this organization was the Lead Teams group. They specialized in coordinating and enacting faith-based events for the youth ministries, ensuring everything ran correctly and easily. They knew they needed a logo that would differentiate themselves from the other groups without distancing themselves from the central theme of the church. They reached out to our team at Matcha Design to construct one of many custom logo designs that would unite to become a new identity and branding opportunity for the church.

Our creative team understood the importance of a distinctive logo to solidify a new brand identity. The central theme of the church must be present, yet not overpower the overall design. We also wanted to ensure that the design would be fully versatile, using colors that could be reversed to adapt to both light and dark backgrounds.

The image of the design was created in an upward arrow to resemble the teams as seeds within a house or church. Six round, black dots were stacked in a triangle in order to accentuate the arrow design. The shapes within the image captured attention and represented the members of the youth ministry as seeds. The ‘roof’ was a thick, tapered black line that fully encompassed the seeds within on two sides, coming to a sharp point at the top. This line defined the arrow, a symbolic reference pointing towards the Lord and upward improvement. It also outlined the image and ensured the representation of both major themes, the protective ‘house’ and the arrow.

Reminiscent of a chimney, our team added a green leaf on the right side of the ‘roof’. This seemingly small detail incorporated the tree of life, which was the central theme of the church. By adding a white, curved line through the seed at the top of the pyramid, we alluded to the impression of growth from a stem, indicating that the seeds are in the process of sprouting from within the safety of the ‘house’.

The text of the design was stacked below the image of the ‘house’, acting as the foundation. The word ‘Lead’ was on top of the word ‘Teams’ to accentuate the image and balance the weight of the image. Both words were formatted in a different sans serif font and the same black as the image. The color of the text and the majority of the design allows for versatility of background color, as the colors can be reversed to appear white on a black background. The word ‘Lead’ was lowercase, but bolded to appear thick and blocky, accentuating the letters and making up for the extra letter in the word below. The word ‘Teams’ was formatted in all capital letters and in a thin, sharp font to create contrast and draw the eye through the design.