Editorial Style Guide
Learn Colby’s standards on capitalization, punctuation, usage, and more.
Typography
Ensure you’re using the right fonts for your project. Learn about proper typography usage below.
Ordering
Placing Orders
Ordering business cards, envelopes, letterhead, stationery, and name plates
Our preferred vendor is Bromar Printing Solutions. Your departmental administrative assistant may already have a Bromar account and can place an order for you. If you’re placing an order yourself, contact Jeremy Martinez at 207-474-3784 or [email protected] to set up an account.
Ordering name badges
Paper
Consistent use of the same kind of paper is part of the success of any brand and is a key way to ensure color is represented consistently across a suite of materials.
- Neenah Environment PC 100: Used for Colby stationery (note cards, letterhead, envelopes, and business cards)
- Mohawk Options Smooth: Used for most general printed pieces
Stationery
Letterhead:
80# text, Neenah Environment PC100 Bright white, smooth; Size: 8 1/2″ x 11″
Second Sheet:
80# text, Neenah Environment PC100 Bright white, smooth; Size: 8 1/2″ x 11″
Business Cards and Compliments Cards:
80# cover, Neenah Environment PC100 Bright white, smooth; Size: 2″ x 3 1/2″
Typefaces Used:
Libre Franklin, light
Formatting
Body Copy or Text Standards
- Libre Franklin, light
- Size: 11 pt.
- Leading: 12 pt.
- Space after: 0.125”
- Kerning: Optical
- Ligatures: On
- No hyphenation
- No widows
- Alignment: Flush left, rag right
- Color: Black
- Tracking: 0, except if a line needs to be pulled up to prevent a widow. Don’t exceed -20.
- Indents for second line: 3 spaces or equivalent tab measurement
- Bullets: standard round, filled circle
- Use typographer’s quotes, which are the “curled” quotes.
All correspondence should be set in Libre Franklin. Either Libre Franklin or Literata may be used in any publications or papers you produce. The two fonts are complementary and can be used in the same publication.
For example, a brochure may have its main text set in Libre Franklin, while a sidebar containing additional information may use Literata as a means of setting it off from the main text. Refer to the typography page to see how the typographic palette can be used.
Use of the Bar Character
The bar “|” is used in the footer to separate text that isn’t in a sentence. Use three spaces on either side of the bar.
Example: colby.edu | 207-859-4000
Vendors
Browse a list of vendors that Colby has successfully collaborated with on various creative and marketing communications projects. If you would like another vendor included, please email [email protected].