Designer: Luu Mai

After working with the predictable, somewhat formal and rigid style of the Baptist Convention of Maryland and Delaware’s newsletter, Baptist Life, for several years, design editor Sean Copley wanted to make it more cheerful, “a stepping stone to a magazine format,” with a streamlined workflow for production.

“We have a staff of two and a little over a week each month to produce the newsletter,” Copley says. “It needs to be easier to organize and edit, and it has to stay within 12 pages with our small budget.” A promising note is that the piece and budget allow for color on both the front and back pages.

With color an option, DG designer Luu Mai chose to focus his redesign on strengthening Baptist Life’s nameplate. He found an elegant but inexpensive illustration of a cross with lilies representative of the church and its mission. Mai paired the flowing Palace Script MT with Gill Sans for a balanced title. He pulled colors from the cross illustration and carried them into the title—a warm brown for Life, and the cool green of the lilies’ stems for the subtitle. The result is a definitive, cohesive nameplate.

To maintain continuity throughout the piece, Mai added a gradient photo along the bottom of the pages and kept the cross and Baptist Life logo on each page. The gradient photo can be changed seasonally or to represent important events taking place. Additionally, colored sidebars and pull quotes can be incorporated to highlight information.

Mai makes productive use of church photos and a two-column format that will make it an easier read. And as Baptist Life’s mission statement shows, the focus is all on the members—“It’s your life … we just tell it!”