Polishing up our face to the world

Redesigned Web sites and logo update the UUA's public image.
By William G. Sinkford
Fall 2005 8.15.05

I had the pleasure of speaking in July at the Monadnock Summer Lyceum in Peterborough, New Hampshire, a series of presentations on important issues of the day that the Peterborough congregation began a few years ago--in 1829 to be exact. After about a 100-year sabbatical, the lyceum is once again thriving. The public was invited and more than a few attended. After I spoke came the question we all encounter so often: “What is Unitarian Universalism?”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people didn’t have to ask?

In the public square, we are becoming a respected voice for liberal religious values on particular issues. We’ve worked hard to achieve that. But, sadly, most people remain unaware of who we are and what we stand for. No one asks a Baptist what that faith stands for. Some day, I pray, the same will be true of Unitarian Universalism.

So this fall we are making some significant improvements in the way the Association presents Unitarian Universalism to the wider world.

The brand new uuworld.org Internet magazine, which my colleague Tom Stites describes in the “From the Editor” column in this issue and which awaits your click on the Web, is the first new outreach tool to help people understand us better.

Next, close on the Web magazine’s heels will be a redesign and comprehensive reorganization of the Association’s Web site, www.uua.org, one of the primary vehicles for conveying information about our faith. The second most visited page among the thousands at uua.org is one that helps visitors find a church near them, and congregations across the continent receive visitors who did their first round of church shopping on the Web; some of them even greet the minister by name on a first visit because they’ve seen her photo on the church Web site.

Since this site’s inception a decade ago it has grown to include a wealth of information, but like many religious sites uua.org grew helter-skelter, so finding what you’re looking for has thus become more difficult. Overcoming this inspires the redesign and reorganization that is well under way.

The site is being reorganized to make things easier to find—if you are a visitor, or a member, or a leader, the redesigned site will point you to the information most important to you. The new home page should greet you by the holidays, and over the next months the thousands of pages on the site will take on a similar look.

I love that the new home page design shows real live Unitarian Universalists and that it will always have an inspirational message, like the Wayside Pulpits that so many of our congregations take pride in. And it will always feature current Unitarian Universalist news.

And, at the top of the home page, you’ll always see the new chalice logo that was introduced at General Assembly in June. The new logo also appears on page one of this magazine, and the new way of depicting the chalice and flame is repeated throughout the magazine, starting on the cover. In time, the new logo will appear on all UUA staff work. Note that the words that accompany the new chalice design--Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations--give emphasis to the congregations that are the foundation of all we are.

The new logo presents a more contemporary look, and the redesigned Web site and the new uuworld.org Internet magazine both point us toward the future. The UUA staff and I are working as hard as we can to make that a future of robust congregational health and vitality, a future in which our voice for liberal religious values is respected in the public square, and a future in which people at the Monadnock Lyceum no longer have to ask what Unitarian Universalism is.