conference folders, document wallets, call ‘em what you want - but when was the last time you were given a beautiful one? or even an interesting one? for some reason they’re often a little under-designed - plain white and with a logo hanging in the middle or nestling in a corner. that’s fine if minimalism is your house style, but that’s rarely the reason. actually, i’ve no idea what the reason is.

our folder design for active faith communities challenged this strange status quo of the design world. they liked the idea of colour and impact. and why not? afc are all about enriching communities and every aspect of their promotional material needs to reflect that message. following on from a subtle refresh of the logo we’d designed for them several years ago, we took the blast of coloured light and splashed it across the folder.

although we’ve blogged the multilingual poster-leaflet we designed for active faiths we haven’t talked about the logo design. this grew out of a creative session we led with afc’s staff. whilst cutting and sticking images we came across a picture of a toddler playing with a large cardboard box. this led to a discussion about kids seeing the potential in something that adults will throw away without thought. it seemed an appropriate metaphor for an organisation that helps faith communities recognise and use their potential in the transformation of communities - often groups of people who have existed for a long time and never considered the profound impact they can have in their neighbourhood. the resulting ‘exploding box’ logo has a direct link to that first session. afc’s staff commented that they really appreciated our approach in being involved in the generation of ideas.

this is also an example of where we’ve done more than just design a logo. active faith communities already had a name but no strapline. we developed a list of possible straplines based on the discussions we’d had in the creative session. unlocking potential - enriching communities was the chosen line.