The Adorers of the Blood of Christ are a community of sisters with a main office in St. Louis, Missouri. The broader ASC family includes their Catholic sisters as well as a variety of opportunities for lay men, women, and youth. The community has a number of ministries, resources, and justice initiatives, as well as a podcast.

The Adorers’ communications team came to us for a website overhaul. They had technical and security challenges, plus an unorganized and confusing pair of websites they wanted to combine into one.

But as we talked to them about their website, it also became clear that they were feeling unhappy with their brand as it applied to the web. We knew a brand extension would help the Adorers feel like the website truly represented them.

Discovery & feedback

First, we asked the Adorers working group (including communications team and a member of leadership) to talk to us about their branding. Favorite parts? Least favorite parts? Strong feelings in any direction?

Their answers were illuminating! They didn’t want to make any changes to the logo itself, and they knew that the wine color of the logo was an anchor of their organization. But the other colors in their brand guidelines didn’t feel much like they fit, and weren’t being used much. The team worried that the colors together were loud and overwhelming, and even hard to look at. Additionally, the typefaces were pretty boring when applied to the web.

Branding audit

Starting from their existing use cases, we conducted a brand audit and gathered examples of the brand in use. We looked at a compilation of this audit together, talking about what worked and what didn’t.

Finally, the team was able to land on some goals for their branding on the site. They wanted to

• avoid the digital/technical feeling of their previous brand usage
• move toward something warmer and more personable
• focus on more organic, natural colors and elements
• ensure the site represented them as human, imperfect, relational and spiritual

Extending the brand

Expanding the color palette

Armed with their feedback & goals (and our knowledge of web needs), we got to work exploring color combinations that would work well with the wine color.

Soon we landed on a fresh, new, natural palette that added mints, greens, and rusts to the mix. Then, we expanded each hue to have lighter and darker versions of the color.

In particular, we expanded the hues out to include dark and light neutrals. We knew that having these tints and shades would come in useful in the website design process. Instead of relying on shades of gray, we could utilize subtle bits of color to delineate sections and highlight certain areas.

Choosing typefaces

The typefaces included in the Adorers’ brand guidelines matched their logo’s fonts. These fonts worked alright in print, but didn’t work as well on websites. We went in search of more readable, web-appropriate typefaces, settling on two available from Google Fonts. The new choices felt akin to the previous guidelines, but afforded us more possibilities in web design. They were more clear, more friendly, and more readable online.

Applying the brand extension to the site

When we put it all together, we were able to apply the expanded color palette and new typefaces to our site design for the Adorers’ public and member sites. The end result is dynamic, friendly, and truly on-brand.

“Blustery Day Design was a godsend. They were easy to work with, created a beautiful website, and helped us suss out all our content and strategy in a lasting way. Our new site is true to who we are and a beautiful representation of our organization.”

Molly McKinstry, communications associate, Adorers of the Blood of Christ