Any materials being designed using the council brand must be approved by Oldham Council Communications Team before those materials are shown to your client

Any materials that are not on brand will not be cleared for production, even if they are cleared by your client.

If you produce materials without clearance, you may be liable for the cost of reproduction if the materials are not on brand.

Any request for a project should first be set against Oldham Council’s Communications Strategy to ensure it fits with the key objectives.

Oldham Council adopted the new brand in 2008.

As well as the new logo a new style of written communication was introduced, making what we say clearer and easier to understand.

Using the brand is an important part of the Council’s activity, ensuring that its communications are fit for purpose in communicating the right messages to our audience.

Operating under one coherent Council logo means that separate logos used for individual projects and programmes will no longer be used.

In the past, there has been a focus on maximising the amount of communication we do and using a DIY approach to make things as cheap as possible.

This undermines the effectiveness of what we are trying to say and can negatively influence how we appear to the outside world – as well as wasting money and resources as opportunities for sharing cost and effort are missed.

The emphasis should be on doing more appropriately targeted and effective communication where we concentrate on getting the desired response from the people we are talking to.

Priority projects are ones that fulfill the following criteria:

• they will have a significant impact on perceptions of the Council or of Oldham as a place
• they will involve a significant amount of capital expenditure e.g. new shopping or housing developments, recycling bins or vehicles
• they are materials that once published will have a long lifespan (12 months or more)
• they will generate overall cost savings for the Council e.g.producing generic Council letterheads and folders that can be used across all departments

Use of the brand

• You should not be using or having materials produced which use the old ‘seven squares’ logo or refer to the council as OMBC or Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council
• You should assess what priority projects you are likely to have coming up in the next six months and forewarn the Communications Team, so that these can be planned into the process
• Contact a member of the Communications Team if you need guidance on whether your materials are a priority project

Do not

• Add the Council logo onto any new materials that have not been designed using these guidelines
• Try to copy the brand style yourself or ask an external agency to do this
• Take the logo off the Council website and apply it to other things –the colour and format of the logo for web use are not suitable for printed materials

Templates

There are a number of items on brand that are available for people to use.

Oldham Council Templates

• Agenda Template
• Cabinet Briefing Note Template
• Letter Template
• Meeting Report Template
• Memo Template
• Minutes Template
• PowerPoint Template
• Report Template (Landscape)
• Report Template (Portrait)
• Team Briefing

Further information

If you want advice on whether your project is a priority and how to take it forward you should contact the Communications Team for guidance.

E: communications@oldham.gov.uk

Third Party Providers

As a third party provider, you have been commissioned to provide services on behalf of Oldham Council.

For this reason, it is essential that residents of Oldham understand that your services are an integral part of Oldham Council.

All your services provided on behalf of Oldham Council must be branded with the council logo. When describing your services, you should refer to them as services ‘delivered on behalf of Oldham Council’.

All materials that are aimed at the public to inform them of council services should lead with the Oldham Council identity as detailed in these guidelines.

The council brand and identity should only be used when referring to Oldham Council services.

As well as the visual aspects of the brand, copy for any commissioned service must be approved by the council Communications Team before publication.

The principles

The Oldham brand must be used as specified in these guidelines by all departments and initiatives funded by Oldham Council and in all materials produced.

Under no circumstances should individual departments or initiatives create separate brands or develop their own version of the Oldham brand for use on their own materials.

The purpose of the brand is to communicate the work of the council, so creating separate logos and identities undermines its whole principle.

The brand is intended to create a consistent look and feel so that everything the council undertakes becomes more and more recognisable to the people of Oldham.

Any materials produced in the Oldham brand must be fully compliant with the overall look and feel detailed in these guidelines.

How should my work be branded?

Who are you?	Example	How it will be branded
Oldham Council All directorates, service areas, projects and initiatives that are funded by Oldham Council	Examples of activities/initiatives that fall into this category include: promotion of all council services Libraries and Gallery street cleaning and waste collection	All materials must use the Oldham Council logo and adhere to the full set of visual identity principles laid out in these guidelines.
Council Services delivered by other organisations on Oldham Council’s behalf	Examples of organisations/initiatives that fall into this category include Oldham Community Leisure	All public facing materials must use the Oldham Council logo and adhere to the full set of visual identity principles laid out in these guidelines.
Council owned traded services	Examples of organisations/initiatives that fall into this category include: Pest Control First Response	These organisations should use the Oldham Council logo
Legally Separate Businesses	Examples of organisations that would fall into this category include: Oldham Care and Support Unity Partnership Oldham Community Leisure	Whilst primarily independently branded these organisations may obtain permission to use the Oldham brand.
Affiliated organisations Public sector-affiliated organisations which are operating solely within Oldham in delivering specific outcome areas within the Community Strategy	Examples of organisations that would fall into this category include: Voluntary Action Oldham Positive Steps	These organisations may obtain permission to use the Oldham brand more extensively, provided that permission has been sought and all materials have been cleared for production.
Oldham as a place Representing Oldham as a destination to external audiences	Examples of activities/materials that fall into this category: promotion of Oldham as a visitor location promotion of Oldham as an investment location boundary signs and place locators	All materials must use the Oldham logo and adhere to the full set of visual identity principles laid out in these guidelines.
External third party organisations Organisations acknowledging the support or involvement of Oldham Council	Examples of organisations/initiatives that fall into this category include: local community groups local events or activities which have had funding or support from Oldham Council	These organisations should use the Oldham Council logo

There are two different logos which represent Oldham. Oldham Council and Oldham the place.

Oldham Council should no longer be called Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council or OMBC.

Logo elements

The Oldham logo is made up of two separate elements:

• the roundel
• the logotype

These elements have been designed specifically for Oldham. They must always appear in the proportions

as shown.

Always use the official version of the logo and do not separate or attempt to recreate the elements in any way.

Minimum sizes

The minimum size the logo is to be used at is 16mm wide. If used on an A4 document it should be 22mm wide and 28mm on an A3 sheet.

The minimum size that all versions of the brand mark should be used is 16mm in width. Please take care to ensure that the logotype does not fill in when used at smaller sizes.

There is no maximum size. However it is important to remember that the brand mark needs space around it and should be positioned at a size that is appropriate to the area in which it is printed.

Exclusion zones

The Oldham brand mark should always be used with an adequate amount of clear space around it to make sure that it is clear, legible and impactful.

When used in applications where space is limited, there is a minimum exclusion zone around the brand mark which defines the area into which no other graphic elements, such as text, photography and other brand marks can intrude.

The distance marked O represents the height and width of the letter O in Oldham, as used within the brand mark. The exclusion zone is calculated using the size of this letter within the size of usage of the brand mark.

Using the brand marks

Positioning

As a general rule the brand mark should ideally be positioned in either:– the bottom right hand corner or – the top right hand corner of an application. It should also be used at an equal distance from the top / bottom edge and the right hand edge.

There may be rare circumstances where this is not achievable, for example in some electronic forms where logo positioning is dictated by computer programmes. In these instances the positioning of the logo can be adjusted to suit but this should be in a very small minority of cases.

Typefaces

For print

Primary typeface

ITC Lubalin Graph is the primary typeface used in the Oldham brand identity scheme. It has been chosen for its solid and down- to-earth character, which reflects Oldham’s brand values.

Its main use is for large headlines, titles, introductory paragraphs and stand-firsts.

• best used at a large size and for information that needs to stand-out (minimum size of 10.5pt).
• to maximise legibility, keep the leading/line spacing quite tight when used for headings

(e.g. 30pt type with 32pt leading).

Secondary typeface

Helvetica is used on all printed items as the secondary typeface.

It is perfect for body copy and for subheadings as it is a clear typeface with a tall ‘x-height’ (‘x height’ is a better indicator of legibility than point size).

The preferred weight used for body copy is Helvetica Light. The minimum size for use of Helvetica is 10pt with

11.5pt leading. It should never be used smaller than this, unless in isolated circumstances (e.g. footnotes).

If using white body copy against a dark background, please use the slightly heavier weight of Helvetica Roman to increase legibility.

Primary typeface

ITC Lubalin Graph

Bold/Demi/Medium/Book/Extra light

Secondary typeface

Helvetica Neue 75Bold/65Medium/ 55Roman/45Light

For Microsoft Office applications and online use

Arial is the font that should be used for all internally produced documents such as letters and memos, and for other Microsoft applications such as Powerpoint. It is supplied as a system font on most computers.

Arial 11pt is the minimum type size that should be used on internally- produced documents. This meets Clear Print guidelines by having an ‘x-height’ of 2mm.

It should be used with 1.1 multiple line spacing to improve legibility. Larger type sizes may be used in correspondence where the recipients are more likely to have visual impairment.

Online use

Verdana is the default font that should be used on the web, intranet and other on-line applications. It is supplied as a system font on most computers.

Electronic typeface

Arial

Bold/Regular

Web typeface

Verdana

Bold/Regular

Colour palette

To ensure consistency across uses of the Oldham brand please ensure the colour specifications and breakdowns shown are followed.

The primary palette should be used as the predominant colourway to create consistency across all Oldham promotional materials.

The secondary colour palette can be used for accent colours appropriate to the audience.

No colourway may be ‘owned’ by a particular area or project.

Primary palette

Pantone 7467 C85 M:3 Y:33 R0 G179 B190 Hex 00 B3 BE

Dulux: 80GG 27/386* Undercoat: 4260 blue

Vinyl:

Avery 700/Turquoise 731

Oracal 751 Series/

Turquoise 054 NCS: S 2050-B30G

Oldham Dark Teal

Pantone 7474 C96 M9 Y30 K29 R0 G122 B135 Hex 00 7A 87

Dulux: 90GG 20/340* Vinyl:

Avery 700/Petrol 798

NCS: S 4050-B20G

Oldham Grey

Pantone Cool Grey 10 C5 K80

R97 G99 B101 Hex 61 63 65

Dulux: (light grey) 00NN 53/000*

Vinyl:

Avery 700/Dark Grey 759 Oracal 751 Series/Grey 073

NCS: S 6502-B

Secondary palette

Pantone 2995 C90 M5 Y5

R50 G190 B234 Hex 32 BE EA

Dulux 70BG 24/380* Vinyl:

Avery 700/Sky Blue 784

NCS: S 1060-B

Oldham Lime

Pantone 382

C35 Y100 R190 G214 B0 Hex BE D6 00

Dulux 72YY 47/743* Vinyl: Avery 700/

Lime Tree Green 714-01

NCS: S 0575 G60Y

Pantone 144

M58 Y100 R233 G131 B0 Hex E9 83 00

Dulux 05YY 42/727* Vinyl:

Avery 700/Orange 705

NCS: S 1080-Y30R

*There are no RAL paint matches please use Dulux or NCS references. (NCS and Dulux colours can be matched at all Dulux centres

Photography

People

An important aspect of Oldham is the diversity and character of its people. Portrait photography should capture a sense of Oldham by using real people, with subjects that look interesting, down-to-earth, and real.

Ideally use a reportage style of photography which focuses on a single person using a short depth of field in the shot to emphasise the character and realness of the subject.

Diversity

Communicating Oldham’s diversity in imagery should be done by ensuring that there is a spread of ages, genders and ethnicity (as appropriate) across the range of promotional materials.

Rather than emphasising difference communicate the idea of common citizenship. This ensures overall representation rather than individual representation on every single piece of communications material.

It’s the idea that anyone, of whatever race, gender, age can be seen as representing Oldham.

Photography check list – is a photograph on-brand

• does the photograph feature a person from Oldham?
• does it look natural and real?
• does it communicate the character and personality of the person?
• does the photograph reflect the subject in a positive light?
• does the photograph and the subject matter feel down-to-earth?

Do not

• use subjects who are too posed and look unnatural
• use shots that try and cover all the bases as they look forced and
• use photo montages as these contravene accessibility guidelines as they are difficult for the visually impaired to work out.
• use cut outs from photographs
• take your own photographs

Contact the Communications Team if you want to commission any new photography.

Imagery relating to sensitive issues

Sensitive topics may include people with disabilities, fostering and adoption, domestic violence or victims of crime.

For these topics it is likely to be difficult to obtain shots of real people.

In these situations, there are a number of options to use for designing appropriate communications materials:

1. it is acceptable to use stock photography that is similar in style and feel to the Oldham brand
2. consider using object photography that laterally communicates the issues (see adoption and fostering visuals below as an example).
3. alternatively it may be more appropriate to use a more typographic, message based approach.

Council uniforms

Shown are some samples of branding applied to uniforms

Please refer to the separate uniform guidelines that detail colour, size and design of various uniforms for different directorates within the council.

Signage

Exterior signs

All exterior signage uses the teal colour as a strong signifier of the brand.

ITC Lubalin Graph should be used as the primary typeface. Where a second level of text is required, the secondary typeface, Helvetica Neue, can be used.

Using the Oldham logo

Large signs which announce the building or site should feature the logo, but smaller, secondary signs which give secondary level information do not necessarily need to.

Signage for heritage buildings

There are instances where teal as a colour is not appropriate and the colours used need to be more sympathetic with the building and surroundings.

In these cases the signage uses the Oldham Grey as the background colour.

Interior signs

Interior signage should use the Oldham Teal for the dominant colour with the Oldham Grey being used for secondary level signage.

Messaging

On interior signage, it is important to keep the number of signs to a minimum and think carefully about how a customer will view it.

Often, fewer signs well located, with concise information, are more noticeable than many signs trying to say lots of things.

Please contact the Communications Team if you want to commission any new signage.

Local Heritage

Prior to 1974 the borough was made up of seven separate townships.

The representation of the historical individual areas has recently been revived and is represented by the use of the appropriate crest or symbol.

To ensure this representation and recognition continues, the historical reference for the townships are to be as shown.

To ensure the relevance and the historical importance of each area is not diluted, the crests or symbols must only be used in a historical and or civic context relevant to the appropriate township.

Love Where You Live (LWYL)

Love Where You Live was introduced in 2012 as a vehicle to promote activities at a district level.

Each district has their own colour which is carried through to the ward maps and Oldham Council: Working for You.

It has been used for local activities and events ranging from litter picks to sports clubs.

Where the event is hosted or run by Oldham Council or where Oldham Council is the majority funder the LWYL icons should be used alongside the council logo.

Campaign branding

Certain campaigns will have their own identity so any elements are easily identified as being part of the campaign.

In these cases the identity will have a campaign visual and tagline. This will be used as the lead on all literature, social and campaign material.

Language and content style

Whatever you do for Oldham, it probably involves you having to write – from an email to a report or a page on the intranet/social media to a poster for an event.

Spelling and grammatical errors look lazy and unprofessional and can create a poor impression of Oldham.

This section is intended to provide guidance in writing anything for Oldham or Oldham Council so as to not just ensure consistency across all our communications, but also to embed best practice in use of language into everything we do.

Oldham’s tone of voice is down-to- earth, friendly, inclusive and real, with a no-nonsense approach.

Write sentences in plain English. Keep your sentences short, avoid council jargon, abbreviations and over-lengthy explanations.

Tone of voice

Use ‘plain English’

Simplify your text into language that is easy to understand?

Use simple language that speaks directly to the audience?

Give people the facts Avoid exclamation marks

Type styles

Justification

For maximum legibility, text should be aligned left and you should also avoid full justification, as this creates variable gaps between words, making text harder to read.

Upper case

Presenting words or sentences in all capitals reduces legibility and should be avoided. Capitals are harder to read.

Italics

Do not use italics in text or in headlines, as it is harder for partially- sighted people to recognise word shapes if the letters are set at an angle. The only exception is the use of names or titles of publications, quotes and references, where italics are required to make it easier to understand the context.

Underlining

Do not underline text or headlines, as this makes the letter forms look like they are joined together, making words harder to read and understand.

Rules or lines may be used to separate different sections of information, provided these are spaced away from the text itself.

Using capitals

Official titles of published documents or departments

Use initial caps for all nouns, pro- nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs.

Strategy and Regeneration Every Child Matters

Children and Young People Plan

Marketing messages, captions, contents lists and section headings.

Capitalise only the first letter of the first word with the exception of proper nouns and titles.

Developing education Working together in Oldham A foreword from your Chief Executive

Jobs and titles

Names of jobs are all lower case but titles are upper case.

So, housing officer, social worker, councillor but Councillor John Smith.

Particular sections of the community are all lower case e.g. young offenders, disabled people, except where the name of that community is derived from a proper name e.g. Bangladeshi.

Useful guides are:

www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide 

Hyphens

Hyphens clutter your text so try and keep to one word or two separate words where possible.

Dashes

A dash – also known as a long hyphen – is normally the width of the letter ‘n’ within the typeface. A dash can be inserted into your text by using the keystroke combination

Alt-0150 or Alt-hyphen.

A dash should be used rather than a hyphen when indicating a pause in a sentence. It should be used with a space to each side.

A dash is also used to specify a range or connection, in which case it should be used without the spaces, such as:

4–6pm

London–Glasgow Numbers and figures Write one to ten in words.

Exceptions are percentages or other measurements, e.g. 3cm, 5lbs (no space between the figure and the measurement), sets of numbers where one or more of them is higher than ten, numbers that include a fraction or a decimal point.

Use figures for 11 upwards, unless the number begins a sentence.

Use commas in numbers over 1,000 up to 999,999.

Above 999,999 use 1 million, 3.2 billion etc.

Use m and bn when referring to sums of money with no space (£1m, £3bn).

Dates

Correct

Friday 31 October 2007 21st century

fourth century 1000BC;

60s or 1960s

Incorrect

Friday, 31st October 2007 Sixties, 60’s or 1960’s

Times

Use am and pm with no space after the number and no need for ‘.00’.

Correct – 7.30am, 4pm, 4.15pm

Incorrect – 17.30, 4.00pm

When a range of time is being expressed – use a dash with no space between the dash and the number, i.e. 4–6pm.

You only need to put am or pm at the end (9–11am) unless the range of time covers both am and pm (10am–4pm).

Measurements

Use the metric system except for miles and pints and use metres not meters.

Use abbreviations – mm, cm, m with no space after the number and don’t add an s, i.e. 12m, not 12ms.

Punctuation

Use ‘open’ punctuation, keeping the page as clean and clear as possible.

The abbreviations i.e. and e.g. should be punctuated with full stops but otherwise use full stops sparingly.

Correct Dr

Mrs Mr

Incorrect Dr.

Mr.

Email

Written as one word with no hyphen.

Correct

Email jo.smith@oldham.gov.uk

Please feel free to email me at jo.smith@oldham.gov.uk

My email is jo.smith@oldham.gov.uk

When listing email and telephone information it should be presented as below:

E: jo.smith@oldham.gov.uk T: 0161 770 3000

Website and internet

Correct

Visit our website Use the internet

Incorrect

Visit our Web-site Use the Internet

Communicating with Oldham

Communication through different forms of media means tailoring the style and language depending upon the audience.

The Safer Use of Electronic Media Policy:

intranet.oldham.gov.uk/socialmediapolicy

Internal communications

Our internal communications focus on supporting the council’s key

co-operative values and objectives and there are numerous channels in place to support the promotion of these.

If you require internal promotion of a project, campaign, initiative or key messages please contact internalcomms@oldham.gov.uk who will advise on the most appropriate channels.

Channels:

Team brief – distributed every second Wednesday

Send your contribution to Internal Communications by the Monday prior to publication.

Managers brief – distributed last day of each month

Core brief – distributed monthly

Send your contribution to Internal Communications by the end of each month for publication the following month.

Please make sure all information is relevant and meaningful to the target audience

For advice contact: 0161 770 5256 internalcomms@oldham.gov.uk

All staff emails

Emails to all staff must be approved by the Chief Executive or a Chief Officer.

If you wish to send an all user email please contact Internal Communications.

Web content

Use plain English. Do not use jargon The way we write content can help people achieve their task quickly and easily. When people use a website they are quickly scanning content to try and complete a specific task they have in mind.

• Avoid duplication of other areas of the site, be aware of the website as a whole before adding anything new
• Think about a sensible location for the content – where will people look for it?
• Use short sentences and short paragraphs
• Use bulleted lists wherever possible, start bulleted lists with a capital letter bullet points should not be longer than one line.
• Indicate if you are linking to a different website
• Think about other sites and pages that are genuinely useful
• Do not use links in the middle of a sentence, but at the bottom of the relevant paragraph

Headings

Break paragraphs up with hierarchical headings ie biggest heading first, then next size down etc

Language tips Use “You” not “I”

Proper nouns not “we”

Images

Illustrate not decorate – images must serve a purpose and follow the brand guidelines

Images are used and edited at the discretion of the Web Team

Tables

Only use tables for data that makes sense as a table

Do not use tables to make layout “easier”

Any content may be edited so it works on the site

Always seek Web Team sign off for all content; webmaster@oldham.gov.uk

Media

Any request for the Communications Team to issue publicity should first be set against the Communications Strategy i.e. Does your ‘news’

or ‘story’ fit with any of Oldham Council’s key objectives?

Press Release Request Form

Email to presspr@oldham.gov.uk at least one week prior to your event.

Social media

Social media should viewed as a unique channel to engage directly with residents and communities.

Tone should be informal and informative while always being aware of the council’s key aims.

Wherever possible feeds should act as a signpost to our corporate website.

Direct replies to residents should be polite and informative.

All use of Social Media should follow the document Safer Use of Electronic Media Policy, available on the intranet.

Vehicle branding

Vehicles used by the council should ideally be teal. In some cases it is more cost effective to have the vehicle in white. Please note the logo is different on white and teal vehicles.

Vehicles on hire or short lease agreements must be branded with the council logo as illustrated. These can be supplied as either a vinyl sticker or magnetic panel.

Oldham Council Communications Team Room 315, Level 3, Civic Centre, Oldham, OL1 1UT

E: communications@oldham.gov.uk