How to use this toolkit

The Creative Services Toolkit is designed to help public information officers determine the best materials needed to meet their client department’s communications goals. Public information officers and the Creative Services team work together to communicate with the City’s departments and residents. Creative Services provides a range of collateral and services for internal and external use. This is a living document, so check for updates as trends, capabilities and resources change. Here is a quick overview:

Step 1: Ask yourself the questions provided. If there are missing answers, reach out to your client department.

Step 2: Select the products or services that best suit your client department’s needs. Do you have too many possible options? Edit down your options to the most effective and efficient suggestions to produce.

Step 3: Gather the copy, artwork, product examples and any other essential information for each project. Fill out and submit a detailed Creative Collaboration Request.

Step 4: Work with your assigned designer to finalize your client department’s needs.

The Creative Services team assists our public information officers in communicating with our City’s departments and residents. With our department’s resources and workloads in constant flux, it is critical that we are efficient with our operations. PIOs should figure out what their client departments need and not just pass along their wants. By figuring out what is needed, and using this toolkit, the developed creative solutions should be more effective.

How can we help you?

Have you drafted a creative brief for your communications plan?

A creative brief can include your department’s design project mission, goals, challenges, demographics, messaging and other key details. Preparing a creative brief can help maintain consistency and focus when determining your creative needs.

As a public information officer, you have the very important role of helping our City departments communicate with accuracy, transparency and efficiency to the public. Determining what avenues of communication, how to create these messages and why they are important, requires great ingenuity. Creative Services is here to support you in that pursuit and ensure that you are aware of all the options available.

What’s the point of a Style Guide and toolkit?

In order to develop a meaningful relationship with the public, it is important to continually be clear and consistent in our branding and messaging. As a government agency, we have an even higher responsibility to the public to ensure that we hold ourselves to the highest standards.

A visual style guide provides an outline of creative guidelines to be followed, further establishing the consistency and quality that is becoming for the great City we inspire to be.

The toolkit will help you:

• Focus on the most effective and efficient way to meet your client department’s communications needs.

• Determine the specific services needed to achieve your communication goals.

• Fill out and submit a Creative Services request.

• Note that the toolkit will not provide a solution for all creative requests, but it should help lead to a more strategic approach.

Did you know?

81% of global brands involved in localized marketing cite “communicating a consistent brand message” as a top organizational priority.