2,000 Years of Visual Storytelling: Alternative Approaches for Visual Communication of Christian Churches in the Age of Social Media

Abstract

The Christian Churches have lost a great amount of their attraction in many European countries over the last century. Since the 1960s, ties to the Churches have been relaxed and approval for their central beliefs and standards has declined.

This is a problem, since the Christian churches are essential agents of fundamental values, such as solidarity and charity that foster the cohesion of a community. Christian faith communities are committed to preserving these values.

If we imagine the Church as a company, from a design perspective the question arises of what stories and images of the Church could revive its values? What could be a convincing set of contemporary visual items of the Christian Churches?

With the creative methods of design thinking some alternative approaches for visual communication of Christian Churches in the age of social media have been developed in a workshop with various representatives of Christian Churches.

Two creative methods were the focus of the workshop, Rummaging and PaperPoint. These methods were selected for refining the strategic concept with the goal to develop solutions for a new way of visual storytelling.

The first strategy is the definition of ‘core values’ and transition to today and the second strategy is change of perspective, refining the concept for the new way of visual storytelling.

The results show that design thinking can be used to bring about creative results even from participants without a professional advertising background.

Citation

Hilgers-Yilmaz, U., Spiller, R. and Breidenich, C. (2018), "2,000 Years of Visual Storytelling: Alternative Approaches for Visual Communication of Christian Churches in the Age of Social Media", Public Relations and the Power of Creativity (Advances in Public Relations and Communication Management, Vol. 3), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 163-183. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2398-391420180000003010