Central Church
Client: Jodi Janssen, Communications Director, Central Church
Deliverables: Website Redesign, Creative Direction, UX & Navigation Strategy, Visual Design Enhancements
Central Church needed a new digital home that would not only make a strong first impression but also reflect the scale and warmth of their community. For many, the first step into Central isn’t through the doors of a building — it’s through their website. The redesign needed to be clear, inviting, and deeply aligned with Central’s relational culture, while also making navigation simple for new visitors and longtime members alike.
Process & Approach
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We partnered with Central’s team to define key goals for the new website. These centered on making it easy for people to take next steps, whether planning a visit, joining a group, or getting involved in ministry.
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As Art Director, I led the design strategy to ensure visuals, structure, and content flow aligned with Central’s mission. We refined the use of white space, typography, and imagery to create a modern, approachable design system that felt both professional and personal.
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We prioritized usability: simplifying navigation, building scalable templates, and creating a structure that supports 30+ active ministries without cluttering the main menu. The system was designed to grow with the church, allowing content to be added without compromising clarity.
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This was a highly collaborative process between our Fishhook team and Central’s communications staff. I helped distill a wide array of examples and preferences into a clear, cohesive direction. The outcome was a set of templates that both amplified Central’s existing visual brand and gave them flexible tools adaptable across 20+ ministries.
Results & Impact
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The clean, inviting visuals reflect Central’s large, vibrant community while still feeling approachable and relational.
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Easier, faster access to service times, events, groups, and next steps.
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30+ ministries represented without overwhelming the main menu.
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Seamless connection with Central’s church management system minimized the staff’s workload while keeping the site current with events and group information.
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Templates were designed to reflect and strengthen Central’s visual identity across all digital touchpoints.
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The client team felt seen, valued, and supported throughout — resulting in both a strong site and a smooth internal workflow.
Retrospective
This project underscored how essential a church website is for connection. By focusing on clarity and scalability, we created a site that not only looks beautiful but also genuinely pushes Central’s mission forward.
Reflecting on it now, I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve as Art Director at Fishhook on this project, leading both the creative vision and the collaborative process with Central’s team. It was rewarding to see how thoughtful design and strategy could equip a church for long-term success while strengthening its connection to people.
Jodi Janssen
Communications Director, Central Church
“Adam was the art director on Central Church’s website project, which launched in February 2025. Throughout the project, he took great care to understand where Central has come from and where our brand is headed. Alongside his beautiful design work, Adam led our team in thinking strategically about how our visual identity could evolve for the next season of ministry. He challenged us to think beyond our usual brand executions while still making our design team feel seen, heard, and valued for the work they were already doing.
The design reveal call was a pivotal moment in the website process. My executive pastor, who was on the call as a key decision-maker, walked away excited about the site, confident in our investment, and fully trusting of the process ahead. That smooth internal workflow is a credit to Adam’s ability to hear between the lines during the discovery phase. His strategic and creative leadership resulted in a site that is genuinely helping push our mission forward in the digital space, and more people are getting connected to our church because of it.
If Adam had a superpower, it would be translating a vast array of examples and preferences from a client team into a clear creative direction. He distilled what was truly meaningful and turned it into templates that are beautiful, practical, and adaptable across 20+ ministries, all under one cohesive brand umbrella. Adam is also just a ton of fun to work with. He built strong connections, remembered and referenced team input in thoughtful ways, and brought that relational equity to every milestone presentation.
Across all our professional interactions, I can boil my experience down to one phrase: Adam made my job easy.”
