AVENUE TAMPA · TAMPA, FLORIDA · 2026
AVENUE TAMPA OPENS SEPTEMBER 27. THIS IS WHAT THE ROOM LOOKS LIKE, SOUNDS LIKE AND HANDS YOU.
The visual system for launch season — the building, the screens, the installations and the film. Return to Sender opens inside it on the same Sunday and runs four weeks.
Two things happen on September 27. The building opens, and a new series starts. They are not two campaigns. The launch is the door. The series is the first thing said once everyone is inside.
WHAT LEADS
Launch owns the room, the street, the feed and the first ninety seconds of the service. It is loud, red, and impossible to mistake for anywhere else. This is the look that carries the whole season — not just opening day.
WHAT FOLLOWS
Return to Sender lands inside the launch look rather than beside it. It shifts to a hotter red and a paper ground, adds a postal register — stamp, postmark, label, hand — and gets four weeks. The sermon package is the only place a second colour appears.
Nothing in this system invents a new voice for Avenue Tampa. It amplifies the one that already exists — the language below is the church's, and it is what the type on the walls is drawn from.
"Build a creative church that looks like heaven." The one line everything in this deck is accountable to.
"We exist to connect people from all walks of life to the hope and love of Christ."
"A Hub for Creativity, Christianity & Cultural Uniqueness." The look has to be able to stand next to that claim without embarrassing it.
"It's never been about buildings or numbers. It's always been about transformed lives." A building is opening anyway — so the building has to talk about something other than itself.
THE SAYING
BUILD A CREATIVE CHURCH THAT LOOKS LIKE HEAVEN.
THE BIG IDEA
TYPE IS THE BUILDING MATERIAL.
Not type placed on a surface — type that becomes the surface. Words run across the floor, up the stairs, over the ceiling, around the door frame and off the edge of the frame. The room is built out of what it has to say.
Two benchmarks, and they point the same way. The saying — build a creative church that looks like heaven — is the ceiling: it means the room has to be made with real care, not decorated. The Disney standard named on the planning call is the floor: you know where you are even in the bathroom. A first-time guest should be able to stand anywhere on the property and know, without reading a sign, that they are at Avenue Tampa on opening day.
"Looks like heaven" is not a style instruction and it is not gold and clouds. It means every surface was decided on. Nothing left half-finished, nothing borrowed, nothing that looks like it was printed the night before.
This is also why the system is loud rather than tasteful. A brand-new building has no history in the room yet. Red and scale are doing the work that a familiar space would otherwise do for free.
The season runs two design styles that must stay visibly different. If someone can't tell which one they're looking at, one of them has been applied wrongly. The split is not decorative — it maps to what the thing physically is.
STYLE ONE · THE LAUNCH
Architecture. Anything fixed to the building or filling a screen — walls, floors, windows, stage, LED, film. Type is sized to the structure and cropped by it. Nothing here is precious or handled.
STYLE TWO · THE SERIES
Printed matter. Anything that could physically pass through a postal system — stamps, labels, postcards, envelopes, the bumper before the message. Small, handled, stamped, cancelled. It sits inside the launch, never replaces it.
| TEST | PAINT ON THE WALL | INK ON PAPER |
|---|---|---|
| SCALE | Bigger than a person | Fits in a hand |
| THE COLOUR | #EC3504, flat and even | #EC3504, over-inked and broken |
| GROUND | Black or bone, flat | Paper and kraft, textured |
| FINISH | Clean, no wear, screen-ready | Worn, creased, cancelled |
| CORNERS | Square | Perforated or torn |
| ROTATION | Dead level | One or two degrees off |
| LIFESPAN | The whole season | Four weeks |
| BLUE | Never | Sermon package only |
On launch Sunday both are in the room at once, and that is the point — the building is painted, and the thing being handed to you is printed. They share the red and nothing else. Never blend them: no perforated edges on a wall graphic, no flat vinyl treatment on a postcard, and no paper texture anywhere on the building.
Two palettes, one through line. One colour, two treatments. Ave orange #EC3504 runs through the entire season — nothing else is ever the accent. The launch lays it flat on black and bone, clean and screen-ready. The series over-inks the same orange onto paper and kraft, where it breaks up and wears. Same colour, different ground and finish, and that is the whole difference.
LAUNCH — THE BUILDING
Straight from the 2025 brand guide — no additions, no substitutions. Environment, stage, film, social and merch all sit in this. Nothing on the launch side uses a colour that is not on this list.
No tints, no in-between steps. If something needs to sit back it goes to Grey or Charcoal — it does not go to a lighter orange.
SERIES — THE MAIL
Hotter and cleaner, because it is printed matter rather than architecture. Used only on series assets — never on the building.
The brand face does the launch. The licensed series face does Return to Sender. Mono handles anything that behaves like a label. Everything is set in caps.
BOOTZY CONDENSED TM — the licensed face for Return to Sender. Buy from 6TM before artwork starts. It is not a web font, so this deck substitutes a condensed heavy grotesque; final artwork uses Bootzy.
HELVETICA NOW DISPLAY — the brand typeface, per the 2025 guide. Every launch surface is set in it, weight and width pushed to suit the scale. This deck substitutes a close grotesque for the web; final artwork uses Helvetica Now.
Mono for dates, times, credentials, captions, run-of-show and anything that behaves like a label. Never used for a headline.
| TEXTURE | HOW IT IS USED |
|---|---|
| WOODBLOCK | Broken, over-inked letterforms. The series grounder. Applied to type that is already well set — never to fix bad typesetting. |
| PAPER GRAIN | Crease, fold, scan artefact. Anything that is supposed to have been handled. |
| MISREGISTRATION | Red and blue printed slightly off each other. Sermon package only. |
| FLAT VINYL | No texture at all. Environment and window graphics stay clean — the building supplies the wear. |
Woodblock, crease and misregistration belong to the series only — see section 10. Launch surfaces stay flat and hard.
Five rules. They apply to a story frame and to a thirty-foot wall equally — that consistency is what makes the season read as one thing.
Type runs edge to edge and is allowed to crop. No centred stack floating in space with air around it. If there is room left over, the type is too small.
One poster is a poster. Forty of the same poster is a room. Budget quantity over size — a hundred small prints beat one large banner every time.
Type bends around corners, runs up stairs, wraps the ceiling, continues onto the floor. It should look like it was applied to the building, not printed on a rectangle and hung there.
A surface says one thing. If it needs two things, it needs two surfaces. Utility information goes small and in mono at the foot.
Distress is applied to good typesetting. Kerned, aligned, deliberate — then over-inked. Degradation on sloppy type reads as a mistake instead of a choice.
One visual world in four registers. Each does a different job, and between them they cover every surface the season touches. They mix freely — the red is what holds them together.
Saturated red covering everything — floor, wall, ceiling, furniture — with one line of type at architectural scale. The most expensive-looking register and the cheapest to actually build, because it is vinyl and paint rather than fabrication.
Posters in a grid, printed cheap and hung many. Alternating orange, bone and black so the wall itself has rhythm. This is the register that scales to whatever budget exists — ten posters or three hundred, the idea is the same.
The LED wall and every in-service screen. Type tumbles, repeats and scrolls in the same orange and bone. The brand gradient is allowed here and nowhere else. Lyrics inherit these rules — words on a live surface, not words parked on black.
Brush-drawn letters over the printed system. This is what stops the season looking like a corporate rollout — one layer that was obviously made by a person, sitting on top of everything that was obviously made by a machine.
The launch look has to move as well as sit still. Same rules — type at scale, repetition, red through everything — applied to a cut instead of a wall. Shot vertical first, because that is where most people will see the room before they ever stand in it.
The reference worth copying structurally is an album rollout, not a church campaign. One visual world, many small pieces, released on a schedule — tracklist reveal, date card, sticker sheet, vinyl label, artist frames. Every piece is obviously from the same set, and none of them is precious.
| PIECE | WHEN | HOW IT LOOKS |
|---|---|---|
| LAUNCH OPENER | SEPT 27, TOP OF SERVICE | Hard cuts, red flood, one line of type per cut. Ends on the room itself. |
| COUNTDOWN | EVERY SUNDAY | Repeating numerals in the screen register. Built to the LED aspect. |
| SERIES BUMPER | BEFORE THE MESSAGE | Postal register. Stamp, postmark, hand. Red only — no blue. |
| SERMON BED | BEHIND THE MESSAGE | Slow, dark, nothing competing with the voice. The one place blue appears. |
| INVITE / TEASER | PRE-LAUNCH | Vertical native, cut fast, no date reveal until the last frame. |
| SUNDAY RECAP | WEEKLY | Shot on the day, out the same week. In-room capture only on Sept 27. |
The part of the season people walk through rather than look at. Everything here is built from vinyl, paper, paint and light — no fabrication, nothing that needs a shop drawing. All of it has to be installable in the week of Sept 21–26, after interior work finishes.
The threshold is the first installation. Banner tape printed with the launch line, strung across the entry at angles so guests physically pass through the words. Red overhead, red underfoot, type on both.
One room — or one bay of the lobby — taken completely red. Floor, walls and any furniture inside it. A single statement at full height on the back wall. This is the photo moment, and it does not need to be large to work.
A hallway papered wall to wall with the poster grid — alternating orange, bone and black. Placed on the route between the lobby and the auditorium so nobody can avoid it.
Full-height window vinyl reading from the parking lot. The exterior walls stay exposed for inspection, so the glass carries the whole exterior identity on opening day.
The series installation. A wall of envelopes and postcards, each one carrying a pre-written line, mounted in a grid. Guests take one on the way out. Empties gradually across the four weeks, which is the point.
Freestanding red drop boxes on the platform and in the lobby. Guests post what they are sending back. Contents read and prayed over, never read aloud without permission.
Hand-painted seamless on a stand, placed where people already gather. The hand layer made physical — and a photo surface that costs almost nothing and lasts the season.
Staff and Dream Team lanyards in the launch palette, with run-of-show on the reverse. Guests get a stamped postcard invite. Both are small, both are seen up close, both are where the mono face does its work.
The same system scaled down and softened — more bone and grey, less flood orange, hand layer used more. Rita is reworking kids' curriculum to the series theme for Sept 27–Oct 18, so the environment needs to match that, not the adult room exactly.
The drop boxes and the wall of mail (E05, E06) sit in the series style, not this one — their references are in section 10.
Which register goes on which surface. When in doubt, red flood for anything architectural and paste wall for anything printed.
| SURFACE | REGISTER | NOTES |
|---|---|---|
| ENTRY / THRESHOLD | RED FLOOD + HAND | Tape and paint. Guests pass through type before they see a sign. |
| LOBBY | RED FLOOD | One statement at full height. Uplight in red. |
| HALLWAYS | PASTE WALL | Quantity over size. Alternating grounds. |
| WINDOWS / EXTERIOR | RED FLOOD | Cut vinyl. Carries the exterior alone while walls stay exposed. |
| STAGE / PLATFORM | RED FLOOD + SCREEN | Drop boxes live here. Keep sight lines to the LED clear. |
| LED WALL | SCREEN | Built to the wall's real aspect, never cropped into it. |
| WORSHIP / LYRICS | SCREEN | Bone on orange. Type on a live surface, not on black. |
| SERMON PACKAGE | SERIES + BLUE | The only place YInMn blue appears. See section 10. |
| SOCIAL FEED | SCREEN + PASTE WALL | Recognisable before the caption is read. |
| STORIES / REELS | HAND + SCREEN | Vertical native. Hand layer carries the casual posts. |
| INVITE / PRINT | PASTE WALL | Postcard format for the series. Stamped, not printed to look stamped. |
| MERCH | HAND + WOODBLOCK | One lockup, single colour on dark. |
| AV KIDS | HAND + PASTE WALL | Softened. More bone and grey, less flood. |
The series keeps the brand orange and changes everything around it. Where launch is flat orange on black — paint on a wall — the series is that same orange over-inked onto paper, where it breaks up, creases and gets cancelled. It looks like something that went through the mail.
The idea, in Pastor D's framing: send it back to the maker so the maker can work on it. God sent you here and called you — at what point did you go left? The anchor text is Genesis 2, "let us make mankind in our own image." The secondary line running through the season is "you've got mail."
Real postal objects, used literally. Every letter, stamp, postmark, label and mailbox in this deck lives here — none of it appears on the launch side. These are the only decorative elements the series gets. Everything else is type.
How the type is printed, not what it says. Over-inked woodblock, broken edges, ink sitting on the surface of the stock. Set clean, then break it — degradation applied to good typesetting reads as intent.
Message titles, scripture slides, lower thirds and sermon notes — that is the full list. It does not go on social, environment, merch, invites or the LED worship set. Ave orange stays the through line across every surface so the blue reads as a signal when it does appear, and so the season never looks like two competing brands.
| ITEM | STATUS | OWNER |
|---|---|---|
| WEEKLY MESSAGE TITLES | OUTSTANDING | Pastor D — four titles, needed before artwork |
| BOOTZY CONDENSED TM | TO PURCHASE | YNG — licence from 6TM |
| ENVELOPE / DROP-BOX COPY | OUTSTANDING | Pastor D — pre-written lines for E05 and E06 |
| AV KIDS CURRICULUM | IN PROGRESS | Rita — reworked to the mail theme |
| LAUNCH WEEKEND OPENERS | TO DISCUSS | Pastor D + D'Nar, offline |
Build finishes the week before, the season opens on the 27th, and the series runs four Sundays from there.
Paint, acoustic panelling, LED wall, lighting and seating targeted done. Exterior walls stay exposed for inspection.
Lobby finished. Installation window opens — everything in section 06 goes in from here.
Vinyl, paste corridor, entry tape, drop boxes, painted backdrop, credentials. Photograph the room before anyone is in it.
10:00 AM service, 8:00 and 8:30 rehearsals. No live stream — switchers on backorder. In-room capture only.
Envelope wall restocked. First Sunday recap cut and out.
Paste corridor refreshed with the second poster run.
Drop boxes emptied and prayed over. Season capture edited.
Guest speaker, alternate service type, or youth takeover. Environment stays; series graphics come down.
Ordered by what blocks the most work. The first two hold up artwork entirely.
SOCIAL & DIGITAL
From launch week, the whole Avenue Tampa presence moves into this look. Not a few launch graphics posted among normal content — normal content published during the season should look like it belongs to the season too.
Someone scrolling should recognise Avenue Tampa before they read the caption. That is the test, and it is the only test that matters here.