Web and the University Brand
To succeed in today’s increasingly competitive world, institutions of higher education
are reaching out and communicating as never before to build support from a broad
array of constituencies such as current and prospective students, their parents,
alumni, donors, internal constituencies such as faculty and staff, and external
audiences as diverse as the general voting public.
The
Communicators
Toolbox
provides a set of guidelines that can be used by University communicators to build
a consistent, clear, and positive image of our institution in the minds of these
many constituents.
Do the toolbox rules apply to the Web?
Yes. In addition to supporting CSU's mission of teaching, research, and outreach,
the hundreds of web sites representing CSU combine to form this institution's image—or
brand—to the rest of the world. Thus, it is critical to have
brand consistency
across the University sites.
Summary of the Web requirements
- Logo: Use one of the
official
web logos, put it in the top 200px of your page (integrated into
your design), and make it a link to
www.colostate.edu.
- Color Palette: Make dark green and gold the predominant colors
of all web designs, use accent colors sparingly, avoid color combinations of other
universities (like black with gold), and note that
no hex RGB colors are specified.
- Typography: Minion and Swiss 721 are the primary typefaces for
design elements but Garamond and Helvetica will suffice; use a
sans serif font like arial, helvetica, or trebuchet for body copy.
- The "Look:" to comply with the University brand, use strong, bold
heads and good impact words; employ a clean, open style; avoid all multiple-layered
photo effects and collages and use clean edges on photographs
- Required Links: Official Pages must link to the
Equal Opportunity Statement,
Disclaimer Statement,
privacy policy, and central
Search
resource. Academic department pages also must link to
Admissions. Student web pages
hosted on University servers must link to the
student disclaimer statement.
- Accessibility: Required! Comply with section 508 laws and
make your content accessible
to persons using assistive technology.
- Other: All pages must have contact information, written permission
must be obtained before using any copyrighted materials, directory information may
be used without permission (excepting FERPA elections by students), and eCommerce
must be secure, useful, and manageable.
- View the
full requirements
document
for more details.
Summary of the Web guidelines
- Best Practices: check carefully for grammar and spelling; update
materials regularly; avoid linking to commercial sites; observe and follow generally
accepted principles of electronic etiquette ("netiquette").
- Search Engine Optimization: Every page gets a unique, meaningful
TITLE tag; use accurate META descriptions and keywords, put your most important
headlines in H1 tags, etc.
- Standards:
Code to standards
to avoid problems now and in the future!
Last update - November 2008