What is a brand?
The colours and images you use. How you phrase your message and the font you write it in. How and where you use our logo. These are the elements that help set us apart and form a distinct identity, framing people’s perception of us - from student to staff member to member of the public.
Why it's important
With well over one hundred thousand members across the world and our messages accessed on a multitude of platforms and devices, it’s important that we remain clear and consistent. Our brand sets us apart from other organisations and makes us easily recognisable to our audience. It plays a key role in raising awareness of our existance and the work that we do, especially with new students. First impressions matter, so let’s get it right.
How to use it
Our brand is made up of logos, colour, typography, graphics, tone of voice and more, forming a style and standard that is unmistakably us - bright, bold and to the point. We need to ensure that useage of our brand remains consistent - no matter where or on what device it’s seen.
Creating great content to share with our audience is encouraged for all teams, student or staff member. Any work orignating from the Association designed for the wider student body, OU staff or the general public must follow these guidelines to be published.
Please contact the Digital Communications team with any questions.
Brand guidelines
Download mini brand guidelines
Templates are available on Canva for graphics, plus stationery on the R drive.
Association logos
For 2023 onwards, our 'blues' logo should be used:
Find full resolution versions of our logos, plus variants including all-black and all-white, in the branding folder on the R drive.
Colour palettes
The colours in our palatte are carefully chosen. Highlight and/or shadow variants can be used as accents, but should rarely be the primary colour in a design. As a general rule, if you're communicating something more formal ie. a statement, it's advisable to use our two blue hues and forgo the other colours.
Written style
Download style guide
Dates
We do not format dates with 'st', 'rd' or 'th'. Instead, use the following format:
Monday, 1 January 2022 or 1 January 2022.
Times
Use the following format:
7am, 10:30pm. 1pm–2pm.
Acronyms
Acronyms are a barrier to clear communication. It is our approach to use them as little as possible.
The preferable approach is to spell out the acronym and then use an appropriate word to describe it later in the piece.
After taking advice from the Royal National Institute of Blind People and referring to Government websites, we do not space out acronyms (e.g. B B C) in the rare occasions they are used. We aim to only use very common acronyms which are recognisable to the general public – for example: BBC, OU and UK.
A notable exception is OUSET. The Open University Students Educational Trust can be referred to by an acronym after spelling out when first mentioned and the acronym in brackets afterwards.