Central Coast Young Adults

Central Coast Young Adults was a young adult ministry on California's Central Coast that hosted a monthly worship and connection night called First Friday. Erica Hardy ran the events and the social, and she was my main contact from mid-2023 through mid-2024. The group's website is offline now and the ministry has wound down, but the work is worth telling because it's a clean example of how a small recurring rhythm can build a brand month by month.

How we started

Erica reached out for a First Friday graphic in the summer of 2023. She had a clear sense of what she wanted: time, place, theme of the night (worship, prayer, testimony, movie night, bonfire, carnival), and a photo direction. From the first few months, I started developing a consistent First Friday look so each new graphic could read as part of the same series instead of a one-off.

The work

The pace was roughly one or two graphics a month, sometimes more around bigger events. Each First Friday needed a square feed post, a portrait, a story-size version, and occasionally a landscape. The themes rotated. June 2023 was a bonfire at Grover Beach. August 2023 was a worship night at My Place Coffee. September 2023 was a movie night at Mercy Church. October 2023 was a carnival night at Hancock College, with free food. November 2023 was a night of prayer at Pacific Christian Center. December moved into worship and prayer at Mercy Church.

Beyond the monthly recurring asset, Erica also asked for one-off pieces. Volunteer recruitment graphics for tech and worship team in March 2024. A weather-cancellation announcement in February 2024 when March's First Friday got pulled. A summer bonfire series in May and June 2024.

A specific moment

Around September 2023 I sent Erica and her co-leader Daniella Skinner a note about revisions, asking if we could finalize the verbiage before I started the design instead of revising mid-flight. Both of them responded the same day with grace. Daniella apologized for frequent change requests and said she'd make sure details were locked before submitting. Erica wrote back a few days later, said she'd been working overtime and would do better, and asked if the process so far had worked. That tiny moment of process-tuning made the next year of work flow much better. The First Friday brand stayed consistent because the briefs got tighter, not because I was pushing back on every revision.

In their words

"you're the best girly thank you !" — Erica Hardy, December 15, 2023

Where things stand

The last project in my records is the August 2024 First Friday graphic, a beach bonfire at Grover Beach on August 2nd. Central Coast Young Adults appears to have wrapped up after that season. The site at centralcoastyoungadults.com is no longer live. I'm keeping this case study up because the work is real, the rhythm is a useful proof point for how a small recurring social need gets handled, and Erica was a genuine pleasure to work with for the year we ran it.