Faith Community Fellowship

Faith Community Fellowship in Trussville, Alabama is an active client running through a structured graphic-request system that I think every church should adopt. Jana Martin, their media director, sends each project as its own email with a clear subject line dated like 06.10.26 Graphic Request, followed by a title. Every email has the same body fields: ITEM, THEME/COLORS, text to include, sizes, deadline, and the Dropbox link for final files. The system is so consistent that I can pull any project from any month and know exactly what was asked for.

How we started

Jana is the central contact at FCF. My archive shows steady weekly traffic through 2025 and 2026, with the relationship clearly established well before that. The pattern is mature: Jana sends the request in the structured format, I reply "Received :)" within the hour, the proofs come back over the next day or two, Jana shares them with the team, and the finals go to the Dropbox folder that holds everything.

The work

The FCF design calendar is dense. In a typical recent stretch I have shipped: a Back to School Prayer and Worship Night graphic, the Summer Fun Nights graphics with 2-up flyers, a Father's Day graphic plus a Father's Day mug and tin can logo, an At The Movies summer series (Christmas in July themed), a Family Day banner and business cards, Family Day promo graphics with an alternate Founded 250 title for the same date, vinyl decals with scripture for a wall installation (1 Corinthians 16:13 plus a second verse, measured against the church's actual wall dimensions), Day Camp deliverables with Toy Story 5 colors and a QR code, Water Baptism and Baby Dedication updates, Graduation Sunday graphics with photo direction notes, a Mother's Day tumbler logo, a Men's Breakfast date refresh, Women's Breakfast graphics, the RAK (Random Acts of Kindness) poster in two versions, a Father-Son Day for kids 5 to 10, and Cafe TV monitor artwork.

A couple of those projects are worth zooming in on because they show how the relationship handles the un-glamorous work.

The vinyl decals project. Jana sent measurements for a 35-inch maximum height across four walls, and we worked through the math on each wall in detail. At one point she gave me the wall dimensions in inches for all four sides and asked me to confirm whether the 1 Corinthians 16:13 verse on three rows would max out width-wise at 173.4 inches given a 35-inch height. We went back and forth several times before the printer got the file. That is the kind of project that does not look like design from the outside but absolutely is design.

The Family Day and Founded 250 dual title. Jana asked for a second proof of the same Family Day promo graphics with "Founded 250" swapped in for "Family Day" because the team was still deciding which title fit better for the day. I sent both versions same-day. Small ask, real impact: it lets the team make a final naming decision with the actual designs in front of them rather than picking blind.

A specific moment: the missions poster that was no longer needed

In March 2026, right before I left for a vacation, Jana sent through a Missions Poster request and said she wanted to go ahead and send it in case I could fit it in. I did not get to it. When I came back, I emailed her on April 13 to check whether she still needed it. Her reply, April 14, 2026: "Hey, Emily. This is the project I needed right before your trip. I no longer need it. Thanks for checking!"

That exchange is unremarkable on its own. What makes it case-study-worthy is that this is a church and a designer that have been working together long enough to handle a missed window without anyone losing trust. The project moved on, we both flagged the change, and the next week we were back on the FCF Kids deliverables and Mother's Day work. No drama. No re-billing argument. No backlog.

A second moment: the FCF Kids working file mix-up

Same week, Jana asked me to update the FCF Kids poster, graphics, and 2-up flyers to remove one date and adjust the start of another. I made the edits and sent them. She wrote back: "Hey, Emily. I just realized that was a link to an old working file that I sent. It wasn't the most updated version you'd created for us. Sorry about that! Can you apply the requested changes to" the right file. I redid the edits on the correct version and sent them within the hour. Her reply was a clean "Thanks, Emily!"

This is the rhythm of the FCF account: tight loops, mutual flexibility, no email drama. Jana runs media at the church. I run design from the contractor side. We have built a workflow where both of us know how to recover quickly from the small misses that come with any real production calendar.

In their words

Jana, on the May 2026 Family Day banner and business cards turnaround, June 9, 2026: "Thanks for getting this to me so quickly, Emily! I will share this with the team." Direct, warm, and efficient. That tone runs across the entire FCF archive.

Where things stand

The current open work as of mid-June 2026 includes the At The Movies summer series in a Christmas in July direction with photo backgrounds (Christmas trees, movie reel, tickets, theater, popcorn), the Back to School Prayer and Worship Night graphic, and the recurring monthly invoice cycle running through Jana for processing. The cadence is steady, the system is clean, and the FCF account is the model I point to when people ask what a well-organized church communications team looks like from a designer's chair.