Founded in the late 1970s, Reston Presbyterian Church over the years cultivated a small but tight-knit community of highly engaged members with a strong sense of stewardship. Following the departure of its head pastor, the DC-area church languished for a few years. But with a young visionary pastor taking the helm in 2014, the church quickly reenergized its long-time stalwarts and attracted new visitors. Shifting from "maintenance mode" to "growth mode" required a new communications approach that brought the church contemporary relevance while guarding against faddy church trends that could bely this unique church family's down-to-earth style. Enter BLOOM.  

First, a visual identity was needed that communicated the church's friendly and welcoming, yet form-meets-function approach. The church required a timeless look that would both convey its grounded nature and hint at an exciting future that included plans for a new sanctuary and facilities. BLOOM recommended an earthy palette (think, L.L. Bean) to convey some key church brand attributes: reliable, down-to-earth, warm, and welcoming. For a new logo design, the team found inspiration in the future building's architectural plans, and created an icon that represented the new sanctuary's actual entrance tower. The logo's usage of the new palette's grey and green colors represented the church's strong foundation and historical reliability married to its vitality and palpable momentum. Applying a new design system across all materials helped better communicate the church's unique strengths and present a unified look to its community.

BLOOM then tackled the church's digital properties. A congregational survey revealed that the majority of recent newcomers had found the church by doing a Google search. Yet the web site was bogged down with an old infrastructure, dated user experience, and copy-dense pages with few images.  BLOOM helped the church build an entirely new Wordpress-based site featuring a clean modern design and new photography of its church community, and then reenergized its Facebook page with more frequent content, inspiring news, and appealing images. In the first four months, the church enjoyed year-over-year increase in sessions (+13%), average session duration (+34%), and a huge increase in returning visits. Meanwhile, with more strategic content on Facebook, posts achieved 84% higher average reach and its contribution to total site visits more than doubled.