Why Redeemed Harvest looks the way it does
A website for a Nigerian Pentecostal parish in southwest Houston whose online congregation is as real as the room: parents in Lagos and Ibadan, students in Lubbock, nurses coming off night shift. The livestream leads, and everything else hangs off the weekly rhythm of Sunday service, midweek meetings, house fellowships and the monthly Holy Ghost Service.
- Built for
- Nigerian and wider West African families in Alief, Katy, Missouri City and Pearland; relatives watching from Nigeria and the UK; newcomers who have heard the praise through the walls on Bissonnet Street.
- Navigation
- Classic top bar. Logo left, pages right, one action. Familiar to every visitor.
- Pages
- Home, Sundays, Watch, House fellowships, Holy Ghost Service, Testimonies, Tithes & offerings
- Hero
- livestream-first: the opening screen is the stream itself, with a live or next-stream badge and countdown, a play control, the service chapters and a route to past services, for churches whose online congregation is as real as the room. Variants: a = headline above a large screen with the chapter list in a side panel; b = a full-width cinematic screen with the headline over it and chapters running beneath as a strip; c = headline and a chapter timeline in a left column beside the screen; a drawn neighbourhood map as the opener, with numbered pins for each stop or campus and a list of names, addresses and times beside it; pointing at a list item lights up its pin. Built for mobile pantries, multi-site churches and bus routes. Variants: a = map on the left, headline and stop list on the right; b = headline across the top, a wide map, and the stops as columns beneath; c = a route: stops as a connected timeline beside a map with the path drawn between pins; A tall typographic poster: the headline stacks down the left in mixed weights, italics and outlines, with a rotated side label and a photo panel. Variants: a = side label, stacked headline, then a tall photo on the right; b = photo panel on the left and the lines stepping in from the right, label on the far edge; c = the lines are pasted like strips over the edge of a large photo
Typography
Unbounded carries the headlines. It is wide and confident, like the vinyl banners that go up for Harvest Thanksgiving, and its round shapes stay friendly at very large sizes. Schibsted Grotesk does the reading because announcements here run long and need to stay plain. Azeret Mono sets times and chapter marks so Central and West Africa Time line up in neat columns.
Color
The palette comes from a Sunday morning in the parking lot: emerald from the green-white-green flag pins on lapels, aso-oke gold from the women's gele, and a deep Ankara magenta. The site opens in its dark theme because most visitors meet it through the livestream at night or early morning, and the gold reads like stage light on the dark green. The light theme swaps gold for emerald so body text keeps strong contrast.
Layout and navigation
A classic top bar, because the congregation spans three generations and nobody should have to hunt. There are seven pages, named the way members talk: Sundays, House fellowships, Holy Ghost Service, Testimonies, Tithes and offerings. The single button in the bar is Watch live, since on any given Sunday more people join online than sit in the room.
The hero
The home page opens on the stream itself, full width, with the chapters of the service running underneath: praise, testimonies, the word, ministration. A two-and-a-half-hour service is honest about its length, and the chapter strip lets someone in Ibadan jump straight to the sermon on a weak connection.
Calls to action
Each button names one real thing: Watch live, Find a fellowship near you, Send a prayer point, Pay tithe or offering. Prayer point is the phrase members actually use, and tithe is named directly because members ask for it by name.
Photography
Photographs show West African worship in white garments and full voice, people being prayed for, and families after service. We avoided stock crowds under concert lights; the energy here comes from choirs and aisles, not from stage haze.
Accessibility
Every stream chapter is a real button, and the live badge announces itself to screen readers. Dark and light themes both pass AA contrast for body text, the gold is never used for small text on white, and every time is written out with its time zone so relatives abroad do not have to do the arithmetic.
Type system
- DisplayUnboundedUnbounded is wide, round and loud in the way a church banner on Bissonnet Street is loud, and it still holds together on a phone screen at livestream size.
- TextSchibsted GroteskA newspaper grotesque with plain, sturdy shapes that keeps long announcements and Bible references readable for grandparents and teenagers alike.
- AccentAzeret MonoMonospaced labels for service times and stream chapters, so 10:00 AM CT and 4:00 PM WAT line up the way a printed program would.
Colour and contrast
Every text pairing is checked against WCAG 2.2 in both themes.
Dark theme
| Pairing | Sample | Ratio | WCAG |
|---|
| Body text on page | Aa | 16.43:1 | AAA |
| Body text on cards | Aa | 14.78:1 | AAA |
| Secondary text | Aa | 7.15:1 | AAA |
| Links | Aa | 10.1:1 | AAA |
| Button text | Aa | 10.14:1 | AAA |
| Accent label text | Aa | 8.34:1 | AAA |
| Text on dark bands | Aa | 17.2:1 | AAA |
| Muted text on dark bands | Aa | 8.55:1 | AAA |
| Text on brand bands | Aa | 10.14:1 | AAA |
| Muted text on brand bands | Aa | 5.97:1 | AA |
Light theme
| Pairing | Sample | Ratio | WCAG |
|---|
| Body text on page | Aa | 15.17:1 | AAA |
| Body text on cards | Aa | 16.84:1 | AAA |
| Secondary text | Aa | 5.55:1 | AA |
| Links | Aa | 5.97:1 | AA |
| Button text | Aa | 6.63:1 | AA |
| Accent label text | Aa | 6.52:1 | AA |
| Text on dark bands | Aa | 15.17:1 | AAA |
| Muted text on dark bands | Aa | 7.97:1 | AAA |
| Text on brand bands | Aa | 6.63:1 | AA |
| Muted text on brand bands | Aa | 4.61:1 | AA |
