Growing up, I took a lover. Actually, I took two – Jesus and graphic design. However, I grew up in the days where church newsletters were printed out and mailed to you. They were filled with long blocks of the same serif font with random clipart images scattered in to break up the text. It was sad, to say the least. When the internet and later, social media took form, churches were always the last ones to embrace it.
It seemed like my love for Jesus and the church was incompatible with my love
for good design and branding. I served at several churches as a youth ministry leader. While all the programming was great and the churches sincerely loved Jesus, most of the churches struggled with visual design – whether it be logos, graphic design for posters or social media, or even just photography.
Because they struggled with visual design, they also seemed to struggle with being connected with their community outside of the church building and in the digital sphere.
Eventually, I began to start asking myself a single question…
“Why can’t churches and nonprofits have good media like other organizations do?”
After reading through study after study and conducting my own original research in search of answers, I found out that the answer to this question boils down to 1 thing: resources.
Churches & nonprofits are the 2 groups of businesses that tend to lack the resources – whether financially or in terms of skill and manpower – to create good media.
During my senior year of college, I started partnering with churches and youth ministries to help them with logo designs and branding. After all, I had nearly 10 years of experience doing graphic design and I also deeply understood the audiences they were trying to reach.
After graduating from Samford University with a degree in journalism and mass communication, I accepted a part-time job as the director of student ministries at Brookview Wesleyan Church and launched Aly Hathcock Media as a passion project. Through Aly Hathcock Media, I’ve been creating visual media for churches and nonprofits across the United States. I have had the opportunity to work with several amazing ministry workers and serve as a resource so that they too can have good visual communications.
After all, if we truly believe the Gospel is the best story ever told, shouldn’t we be doing everything in our power to communicate that story well?
Want to see some of what I’ve been doing? Check me out at alyhathcock.com. You can also stalk me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
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