These Are Church Signs!?

Churches have long veered the messages on their monument signs towards hackneyed plays on words. How many times have you driven by a church whose sign proclaimed, “Eternity: Smoking or Non-Smoking” and “Seven Days Without Jesus Makes One Weak?”

Cincinnati’s Crossroads Church, a prime example of the growing trend of non-denominational megachurches, takes a decidedly different tone with its digitally printed, on-premise-graphic messages. Matt Chandler, the church’s communications director who handles most of the sign designs, said, “Our goal is for our corner signage to offer an intriguing, even provocative, invitation to Crossroads. Our tone is informal, accessible and even a little irreverent.”

United-Maier, which has fabricated Crossroads’ exterior signage since it moved to its current location in 2001, prints the graphics – which are changed out every four to six weeks – on backlit, flexible-face material (often 3M’s Pana-Flex media) on such solvent-ink printers as its EFI-VUTEk 3360.

“Crossroads’ designs certainly stand out among the church-related work that we fabricate,” Dan Weber, United-Maier’s project manager, said.

Here’s a gallery of several of Crossroads’ sign concoctions – the present campaign, and digital renderings of several past concepts.