Skip to content
Sunday Worship:
Traditional 8:30 & 11:15AM | Contemporary 9:00AM
Northside Church
a church steeple with a cross on top

Style Guide

The Northside brand encompasses every facet that communicates who we are as a church: our values, tradition, mission, and heart. It is how we represent ourselves, and the stronger and more consistent we make our brand, the stronger our promise becomes.

We strive to serve God with excellence and to portray the Kingdom to an unfamiliar audience. In Luke 5:32, Christ says, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Will anyone come to Christ because we use the correct logo or remember every comma? Probably not. Instead, members and visitors will see greater validity in our brand, allowing us to better communicate our promise to an unfamiliar audience.

Thank you in advance for your effort in representing Northside well.

Name

Our name, Northside Church, should be written as such. If an abbreviation is needed, ‘Northside’ is appropriate to use, as long as it within the context of a larger representation of our identity (i.e. it would be inappropriate to refer to us simply as ‘Northside’ in the context of a community publication that does not state our full name at any other point).

‘Northside UMC’ and ‘NUMC’ are not preferred or appropriate abbreviations as our official name is ‘Northside Church, a United Methodist Congregation,’ as opposed to ‘Northside United Methodist Church.’

Mission Statement

There is a place for you at Northside Church to know the love of God, to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ, and to go into the word to serve others.

Know the Love of God: We seek to enter into relationship with God and provide a place for everyone who is a part of Northside Church to encounter the truth of the gospel and experience that knowledge through worship and fellowship.

Grow as a Disciple of Jesus Christ: A disciple believes and follows the teachings of Christ. Our passion is to pursue an active faith in Christ through study and a life of prayer. The church and its ministries aim to lead each age group into a vibrant faith according to their understanding of God.

Go into the World to Serve Others: Christ calls us to be his hands and feet in the world. We are ever-vigilant in looking at how we can reach out to our neighbors, community, and the world to serve and share in life together. All the ministries of Northside find unique avenues to be present and give of themselves to the world around us.

Colors

Fonts

Garamond Premier Pro is our preferred serif font. Avenir is our preferred sans serif font.

Grammar

Common grammar queries and proper usages that align with Northside’s style:

Use a comma to separate items in a series or list. Always include the comma before the conjunction to prevent confusion.

Example: There is an 8:30, 9:45, and 11:00AM service to choose from at Northside.

The en dash is used to represent a span or range of numbers, dates, or time. There should be no space between the en dash and adjacent text. The en dash (–) is slightly wider than the hyphen (-) but narrower than the em dash (—).

Example: The church holds office hours during the week: 9:00AM–5:00PM.

The em dash is an extremely versatile punctuation mark, and depending on the context, it can replace commas, parentheses, or colons—each case having a slightly different effect.

Example: When Preschool finally resumed in August—after being closed for summer break—there were a lot of happy parents in the carpool lane.

A hyphen’s primary function is to bring together certain compound terms. Be careful to never use a hyphen (-) in place of an en dash (–) or em dash (—), or use it to divide a word at the end of a document margin.

The ampersand is not a direct, grammatical replacement for the word ‘and.’ It is, however, a design-friendly symbol that can look professional. Use an ampersand in header text only, not subheader text. If your header includes a series, where the ampersand replaces the conjunction ‘and,’ no comma is needed.

Example: Hymn 139: stanzas 1, 3, 4 & 5 | Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

At Northside, we have stylistically chosen to include ampersands in a few titles.

Example: Watson Faith & Arts Center

Avoid using ALL CAPS whenever possible.

Example: THIS MAKES IT HARD TO READ.

Do not use multiple punctuation.

Example: This is bad form!!!!!! Stop it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When emphasizing specific words separate from the words of your sentence, use single quotation marks.

Example: The spelling of ‘flyers’ and ‘fliers’ often gets confused. The latter is specifically associated with air travel, but both spellings are equally represented for informational printouts. For clarification, the Associated Press recommends using ‘fliers’ for the printouts.

When instructions for navigating a website are given, the word or button to be clicked should appear in bold italics.

Example: Click Worship & Ministry and navigate to Sunday Mornings.

  • Bible and Scripture—not bible and scripture

  • biblical and scriptural—not Biblical and Scriptural

  • Sanctuary

  • Watson Faith & Arts Center

  • Fellowship Hall

  • Room 325—not room or rm.

  • Georgia or GA—not Ga, G.A., or Ga.

  • www.NorthsideUMC.org/register

    • note the “www,” capitalization, and lowercase after the forward slash

  • BillB@NorthsideUMC.org—not billb@northsideumc.org

  • Northside Drive NW—not Drive, NW or Drive N.W.

  • NMP, MAP, and UMW—not N.M.P., M.A.P., or U.M.W.

    • acronyms do not receive periods

  • Lowercase holy pronouns (he), but capitalize specific names (Alpha and Omega)

  • Sunday school—not Sunday School (unless part of an official class name)

  • Sports & Rec—not Sports & Rec. or Sports and Rec

  • No comma needed for suffixes and Roman numerals (Jr., Sr., III, IV)

Use AM or PM with no additional spacing or punctuation. If you cannot use small caps, convert to uppercase. Use the appropriate merīdiem (AM or PM) only when necessary.

Example: 9:00–10:00AM, not 9:00AM–10:00AM

Always include the area code in a phone number. Use dots instead of parentheses or dashes.

Example: 404.355.6475

Use EXT. for extension (not ‘X’ or ‘x’) with a single space before the number. If you cannot use small caps, convert to all caps (EXT.).

Example: 404.355.6475 EXT. 1100

View Complete Grammar Guide

Email Signature

Copy and paste the below into your Outlook signature settings. Don’t forget to change the information—including not only the typed email address but the link itself.

First & Last Name
Job Title
FirstL@NorthsideUMC.org
Northside Church, a United Methodist Congregation
2799 Northside Drive NW
Atlanta, Georgia 30305
404.355.6475 EXT.XXX
www.NorthsideUMC.org

There's a place for you at Northside Church
to KNOW the love of God
to GROW as a disciple of Jesus Christ, and
to GO into the world to serve others!

Logo Files

Creative Services is here to handle the major design and communication needs of the church. For instances when you need to use the church logo file, we want to help make sure you have the right one. Use the button below to download the basic versions of our logo.

If you aren’t sure which file to use or you need it altered in any way, please connect with Creative Services at CS@NorthsideUMC.org. Additionally, if an outside vendor, ministry partner, or congregant needs logo files, please direct them to Creative Services so we can ensure they have the correct files for their particular application.

Branding Kit