Jeff Clark literally wrote a book on praying. What began as a genuine curiosity about prayer's impact grew into a mission to help Christians develop a more intentional practice, one he outlines through his 1-3-2 methodology in his book.
While his guide to transformational prayer had resonated deeply with church leaders, they often spoke about the challenge of reaching their congregations between church visits. Outside of church, many Christians are unsure how to pray. And for some, the church has become intimidating to people who feel like they’re not “doing it right.”
Jeff and his team wanted to change this: by building a brand that would resonate more deeply with people and an app that would help encourage better prayer habits.
The product’s existing brand leveraged aesthetics from sports playbooks, and while this connected with Dr. Jeff Clark’s full-time role as an assistant basketball coach, it wasn't inclusive enough for the average person. We began our engagement by establishing the brand's look and feel with the goal of helping church leaders, investors, and interested stakeholders see themselves in the app - while also providing a much better foundation for the app design.
We started by revamping the logo, focusing on how praying feels like a beacon of hope. As we looked into other brands in the space, we noticed a sense of timelessness and familiarity that we wanted to emulate. People should open the app and feel comfortable and welcome, as opposed to apps that feel techy and possibly gamified - something we wanted to avoid to stay true to Jeff’s approach to prayer. The hand-crafted icons for home, work, and school spaces help people see the app as an extension of their daily lives, offering a sense of energy and playfulness that encourages prayer and doesn’t distract from the task at hand.
Illustrations help build comfort with users while also conveying the overall vision and tone of the app. Ultimately, it's an positive habit-building app so we created iconography conveying the intersection of faith and aspirational habits.
"Working with Five Four and Christian felt different from the start. There was a level of authenticity and trust that made it easy to move quickly and build something meaningful together.
Christian listens well, brings strong ideas without forcing them, and creates a space where collaboration actually works. By the end, it felt less like hiring someone and more like building alongside a partner who was fully invested.”
Jeff Clark, Founder
The design of the app went through several iterations. The first was a direct translation of the book methodology: one space to influence, three people to pray for, and two questions to answer. This direct manifestation of the methodology was accurate to Jeff’s vision, but lacked the spirit and heart behind the mission.
In the next iterations, we explored the idea of including a few habit-forming techniques like prayer streaks and social sharing. We borrowed gamification and habit-forming ideas from apps like Strava (for exercise) and Duolingo. However, we realized we were pushing the app against the direction of Jeff’s vision. It started to feel a bit more competitive and less inward-focused. Just like the brand strategy, we wanted the app experience to feel approachable, like a natural part of everyday life.
In the final iteration, we shifted to focus on making prayer as easy as possible—to simply remove the barrier for prayer. We took inspiration from apps like Headspace. We further built out the visual library and utilized emerging voice transcription and AI tools. Rather than building an app that tried to make everyone masters of prayer, we designed an app that simply helped people pray more.
