Brand & Style Guide

Core Values and Mission Statements

WaterStone Church exists to gather regularly, share frequently, and live missionally.
Coming soon.
We like to use words like: authentic, genuine, family-focused, heartfelt, Biblical, lighthearted, vibrant, hopeful, discipleship-oriented, and friendly to describe our church.

Our Brand Voice

The language we use conveys a greater message about who we are. Here are some words to prompt thought of how we write, speak, and display messaging in regards to WaterStone Church

We are enthusiastic, but not bubbly.

Right: We are so excited to invite you to Easter with WaterStone. This is a time to gather, worship, and connect with others.

Wrong: It’s EASTER TIME. So stoked to have ya out with us!

We are educated, but not pretentious.

Right: We're a community that spreads wide but worships deep. We love our family but welcome the stranger. We learn from the Word and serve from the heart. We are WaterStone.

Wrong: Verily, only those enlightened by divine providence can fathom the true depth of sacred wisdom, while the unillumined souls wander aimlessly in the shadows of their own ignorance. (Not that this sentence isn’t true, but it’s a matter of voice.)

We are vision-casters, not historians.

Right: This Courageous series has meant something to all of us. It’s been motivation throughout hard seasons, encouragement towards obedience and strength, and has been empowering us to embrace every assignment from God. Courageous is underscoring God’s movement — launching us into a new season as a church, as individual families, as believers in Jesus. It’s time that we live Courageous. We’re so glad you’re a part of the mission.

Wrong: Courageous was an amazing series that taught us a lot about God and his movement. We learned about ___ and ___, recap the messages through our website.

We are organic/natural, not urban/hype.

Right: Our wellness ministry exists to bring wholeness to your mind, body, and spirit — breathing into alignment our walk with Jesus and our health. or A fresh wind is blowing through our campus today, church. As we sit in the stillness of Jesus, how can we choose to grow anew today?

Wrong: We’re bringing in the masses through our NEW event that everyone keeps coming back for. Come soon before you miss out!

We are professional, a voice of solidarity with doctrine.

In a world of making religion accessible through code-meshing, we choose to remain a firm voice that is professional, educated, and trustworthy. We take community lightheartedly and theology seriously.

Vibe & Brand Feel

We pull from Israeli/Mediterranean influences to create surroundings and digital spaces that echo the ancient treasures and peaceful landscapes of the time of Jesus.

We use modern typography and graphic design to convey a sense of relevancy and awareness of our time.

We lean away from stock images and distracting illustrations, we want to be a space of originality, artfulness, creativity, and freshness.

Our name lends itself towards nature and our property echoes the same — we use natural elements to describe our heart for wellness and organic community.

We orient ourselves, our gatherings, and our activities around spiritual formation and community — often times the crossroads of those — not entertainment or crowd-bringing.

We should strive to be the antithesis to words like: “messy”, “busy”, “impersonal”, “urban”, “pretentious”, “unreachable”, or “dated”.

Special Concepts

AI - Artificial Intelligence is a helping hand to our creativity, but should find it’s place in operative tasks like copywriting, list-making, source-referencing or ideation. AI tends to come off robotic and it is recognizable. Let’s continue to tap into our natural resources and speak into a world of automation with a fresh voice.

Emojis - Emojis should be used wisely and sparingly, in accordance with brand colors.

Political/Global Events - Yes, it’s true, even Jesus himself spoke on the political climate of his day. But how did he do so? He took the opportunity to point to his greater kingdom. It is clear amongst the scriptures that God commands the authorities and He exercises his control over the universe. WaterStone exists to be a space unlike the rest of the news sources — we help people look higher to the Kingdom that is to come. To feel the unrest of the world as a spur to share the Gospel.

Specifically, our protocol is to let ministry leaders themselves address political issues with great tact, kindness, clarity, and levelheadedness.

WaterStone as a brand tends to refrain from commenting on political/global issues directly.

Colloquial

WSKIDS - WaterStone Kids.

WSYNG - WaterStone Young.

Connect Center - The desk where you can learn more.

Adventure Camp - Our “VBS”.

Events Tab - The locale where people register/find events through our webpage.

Life Groups - Decentralized gatherings of WaterStone.

Stepping Stones - Our new membership course.

WSWellness - Our ministry pertaining to physical and mental wellness.

Leadership - The deacon and staff team.

Stewardship - The team of unpaid liaisons to our financials.

The WaterStone Journal - A bi-weekly print publication that notifies the church body about upcoming events, cultural concepts, spiritual concepts, and more.

Highlights - Regular, in-service video messages that remind of upcoming events.

Worship Collective - Our team that oversees the various activities of WaterStone Worship, its members, and developments.

Directors - Staff members that advise the activities of coordinators and assistants and their respective volunteers. Answers to stewardship, leadership, business leadership, and Pastors.

Coordinators - Staff members that aid the activities of directors and garner the help of assistants and their respective volunteers. Answers to stewardship, leadership, business leadership, Pastors, and their overseeing director.

Assistants - Staff members that aid the activities of directors and coordinators, that can garner the help of their respective volunteers. Answers to stewardship, leadership, business leadership, Pastors, their respective directors, and coordinators.

Media & Design

Typography

This website and many of our graphic elements, such as sermon slides or Instagram posts feature Helvetica Neue as our font. Our affiliate logos are in this font.
IvyPresto for Adobe or Juana for Canva is our print/brand font, used for signage, the WSJ, brand brochures, and long-cycle products.
Sermon series’ are branded with a unique type that will be featured on media assets like slides, posts, videos, and merch, but not the journal or long-cycle media.
Easter has a branded font called Kansas New Spirit, this is an Adobe font that has branded the event since 2022.
It is advised that all ministries begin to use Helvetica Neue or World (Canva) for print material, but header fonts can be implemented for stylistic purposes upon notifying design team.