Trend Setting Design » print design

Prospectus Design

Joseph Cotten — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:16:37 +0000

I was a part of the group logo design project for a new church plant in Boston, MA called Netcast Church. During the fundraising portion of the process, the church plant team decided they needed a good prospectus to send to potential donors. A prospectus is a common tool for business startups which shows highlights of what the proposed organization will accomplish and how they will do it. In the case of a church plant, this means communicating the spiritual and cultural needs of the target area, then describing the toolset of the proposed church planting team as well as a timeline and budget.

Matt Chewning, pastor of the proposed church plant Netcast Church asked me to design a prospectus for them that would appeal to a broad range of potential donors. I was supplied with the data for the prospectus as well as a few photographs of the area. I decided to use a key part of the church’s vision—clear unapologetic declaration of the truth of God’s word—as inspiration for the look of the prospectus. I used large typography, full bleed photographs and a somewhat austere look to show this grand scale/loud/clear/declaratory theme.

The result? That remains to be seen, as the prospectus has just been sent out to the team, but so far the response is overwhelmingly positive. Several church planting experts have said that this is the best prospectus they have ever seen. Hopefully that will translate directly into increased giving to this wholly worthy church plant. I am honored to have been able to be a part of helping get this ambitious project off the ground!

Paint Splash Birthday Card

Joseph Cotten — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:49:47 +0000

I did this for my wife, Jessica this year. For those who don’t know her, she’s very creative, and loves art that’s organic, ‘outside the box’ and colorful. I always make her birthday and Christmas cards instead of buying something, and this year I went with a messy canvas with paint splatters as a theme. It’s got a fabric overlay to give it the canvas feel, and I used some outstanding Photoshop brushes from Bittbox as well as a few choice typefaces, such as Kab, Caslon and Bickham Script.

The Easter Offering Event Promotion

Joseph Cotten — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:52:36 +0000

A local church is hosting a large, regional creative arts event, and hired me to head up the promotion for the event. I did some printed materials, as you can see above, including a 4×6 postcard design that functions as an invite card, with map and event information, and stands alone as a promotional piece, meaning that it isn’t required for a person to give any additional information to make the card “work”. I also did two poster designs: one for 11×17 output, and another smaller version for 8.5×11 output. These were taken and posted in public advertising locations, such as restaurants, grocery stores, and so forth. I also did an outdoor banner to clarify the event’s location.

I also set up a small blog site to help those involved begin to build some internet buzz around the event and created a Flickr account for pre-production photos. To help the artists and coordinators, I wrote a series of “How To” emails designed to help everyone get past some fears about blogging. It’s interesting to me how many people are hesitant to blog because they feel that their writing won’t be appreciated, so I took some time to help them catch the vision for what a blog can do, and they really are having fun with it! It’s been great to see a group of people step outside of their comfort zones, and flourish because of it.

New Project: Battlestar Galactica

Joseph Cotten — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:12:07 +0000

I had fun with this one! You can see a detailed description of the design process in my portfolio. I wanted to tie together the current fascination with Battlestar Galactica’s remake on the Sci Fi Channel and the still-raging retro futuristic design trend. Obviously, there’s a big James White influence here, though I used a different technique to actual create the design than James uses. The target audience is college students at local universities. The church that commisioned me is an inner-city postmodern church that’s growing fast with the college students it’s dedicated to reaching.

I thought this was the perfect project to again use the retro futuristic look, and I had lots of creative freedom to come up with a fitting theme.

City-wide Youth Event Promotion

Joseph Cotten — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:14:50 +0000

The church youth groups around the area were joining together with the Carolina Panthers’ Ricky Proehl and Mike Minter to put on a big city-wide event with sports, pizza and games. The event had a grand scale, and was obviously targeted specifically at teenagers, so I went with a sort of space age, Pac Man feel. They had a great turnout, and gave away a ton of free pizza!