Community and Togetherness

The Christian non-profit organisation has 28 churches around the world, from London to LA, Rio de Janeiro to Singapore, creating an important meeting place for Norwegians around the world. With a rich history and high brand awareness, Sjømannskirken needed a revitalised presentation of their brand to represent the modern organisation they have become.

Working on the rebranding of Sjømannskirken, we created an accessible and easily recognisable visual profile to be used all around the world, adding a new story of community and togetherness.

Many Norwegians have a strong and close relationship with the brand, and a love for the existing visual expression, but the profile needed new energy and a system to work in the digital world. With so much heritage and emotional value, it was essential that we built on the history of Sjømannskirken and its national significance.

With such an important and active social responsibility, it was important for us to consider the large numbers of employees and volunteers, who should easily be able to use and work with the new design system, most with little or no practical design experience. Therefore, the emotional equity and usability of the solution were front of mind throughout our process.

For more than 150 years, the Sjømannskirken logo has been a new version of itself, connected to the symbol of a lone seagull, originally representing a safe harbour for sailors. Our recommendation was not to change it completely, but to add to it, so the one seagull became a flock. Three seagulls together, telling a story of community, being together, and never feeling alone.

We also developed a visual icon style to differentiate the many aspects of Sjømannskirken, highlighting their large number of activities and creating an easy way for the organisation to communicate with their different target groups.

Based on the national Norwegian colours, we created a red, white, and blue colour palette, maintaining the roots of the organisation around the world. The dark navy is there through the whole brand, representing the colour of the ocean and the sea, connecting all the continents of the world.

We also introduced a more vibrant and energetic secondary colour palette to work with all the diverse events and locations that Sjømannskirken operates.

To make the new profile accessible and easy to use, we chose open-source typography, consistent use of brand graphics, simple layout solutions and a comprehensive, easy-to-use and engaging digital brand manual.

“We feel that the new logo and its accompanying visual profile preserve our history and character, while being adapted to the times we live in and making our expression feel updated and modern. Throughout the process, we felt that Nonspace took the time to understand our history, our goals and our mission, and brought this into the creative work. During development they listened to our thoughts and input, while providing professional reasoning behind what they proposed. The work was completed with good progress and at the agreed price.

“We experienced surprisingly little internal resistance, and the profile has been adopted by more than 35 sub-units. With the new profile, Sjømannskirken appears unified around the world.”

Sissel Myklebust Mæland, Head of Communications, Sjømannskirken