Highland Park Presbyterian Church: Community through Consistency

For almost 80 years, Highland Park Presbyterian Church has been sharing their message with parishioners in the Dallas area. In 2010, they decided to use digital signage to expand the third of their “Core 4” values: Build Community.

“We have a rather large campus,” says Zachary House, Art Director of the Communication Ministry and Associate Director of Communications at HPPC, “and we were struggling to get a consistent message to members and guests.” The cost in time and materials was overwhelming. “We needed around 20 posters just to cover all the spots.” They opted for 14 displays around the campus, plus four projectors in the gym. “Accounting, IT and Communications all agreed that this seemed like the best solution,” House tells us. “We liked AxisTV’s interface and the calendaring seemed efficient.”

House’s robust design team creates message graphics in Photoshop, then imports them as jpegs into AxisTV playlists. “We’re the central hub of the church for communications,” explains House. “We’re always looking at the church-wide calendar months in advance for upcoming events. We then plan out a promotional strategy – using AxisTV but also email.”

To get a uniform message across, digital signage content is designed to match content on the website, which is where many announcements direct people to go for more information. “We use the same graphic in emails, and on displays, a few posters, the website, even t-shirts,” says House. “The same image gives multiple impressions and reinforces the message to the audience.” They’ve nicknamed the AxisTV displays “The Loop.”

“Most people encounter the Loop on Sundays,” says House, when up to 3000 people are present on campus. “At first there was some worry that screens on the wall would take away from the 80-year-old ambiance of the church, but it creates a good first impression for visitors, especially those new to the campus. They can stand for 20 seconds and get a really good idea of what the church is doing.”

As a content creator, House is pleased with the Visix digital signage software. “We’re very happy with where we are now. If you’re already creating images for other communications channels, it really isn’t much more work to add them to the Loop.” Now that they’ve worked out the role they want for their digital signage, they can focus on other things, like improving the website and creating iconic images.

“Really, it’s easy to use and the consistency of message we get from AxisTV is key to what we’re doing here,” says House.