The Cross Outside Trabuco Canyon Community Church. February, 2011.
Branding Genius
Logos have been on my mind lately, as I recently commissioned a graphic artist* to create one for me. I’ve studied examples and read about elements of good logo design. I even played around with creating my own logo–attempts that highlighted my need for someone more gifted than I to create one for me.
At church on Palm Sunday, as I listened to our pastor, who stood in front of the cross that graces our sanctuary, I realized that the cross is the perfect logo. It’s memorable. Its meaning is understood globally. It can be simple, like the cross installed on our church grounds, or elaborate, like the one shown here. One could construct a cross hastily from two sticks, or lines of stone, or by tracing the two perpendicular lines in the sand.
Sometimes I weep when I see one.
In branding-speak, the cross is “sticky.”
When I was a small girl I misunderstood the relationship between Christ’s crucifixion and the cross. In my child’s mind, I imagined the crucifixion as a case of insult to injury: How dared the Romans to have used the very symbol of our faith to kill Jesus?
I was eleven or so when I realized that the cross had become symbolic of Christianity because Christ had been killed on one, and overcome that death. Overcome our deaths. For us. For me.
God led us to adopt the empty cross as the symbol of our faith, our belief in a resurrected Savior, our hope. No earthly professional could have designed such a sticky logo.
1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.Hebrews 12:1-2 (NASB)
* Jason Vana created my logo. He offers a range of services and I highly recommend him. If you’d like to see what he designed for me, you’ll find it here.
Simple and memorable. The greatest Logo of all time.
Yeah…God specializes in Perfect 🙂
I love this, Sheila. And as we get ready to start our new book club over at the High Calling (Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki), I can’t help thinking that our Lord is so enchanting. He really is the ultimate Brand. 🙂
Yes, Laura, He is 🙂 And oh so sticky!