Counties Brand Guidelines A guide to help build a strong brand for Counties
What’s a brand? Our brand is more than just a logo. It’s everything about Counties from our name, how we sound, look and behave, to what we do and who we are. Brand identity is important – it affects how people think and feel about Counties. Our identity is largely shaped by what we do – making Jesus known across the UK. We are a charity with a variety of services and functions. We share the Gospel in prisons, schools, market stalls, churches, cafes and pubs. We host exhibitions in primary and secondary schools. We run training events to equip and envision. Our brand is what ties all of this together.
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Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.
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Why do we need brand guidelines? A strong brand is one of the most valuable assets an organisation owns. To make it truly powerful it needs to be applied consistently so anyone dealing with Counties knows who we are and what we stand for. Everyone has a part to play in this. These guidelines are to help us all represent our brand consistently. We want to inspire more and more people to help us share the Gospel through their support and prayer. By working together we can achieve this.
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Counties – making Jesus known across the UK
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Contents 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 15
Our brand platform
Our personality
Branding architecture
Branding decisions
How we look
Fonts, logo & colours
Photography
How we sound
Top ten house style tips
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Our brand platform Our vision
A Brand Platform (or corporate image) illustrates a set of associations people will make about an organisation.
To see lives transformed through the Gospel in the UK.
Our strapline, vision, values and personality all tie together to create our Brand Platform. It serves as a foundation for our identity, messaging and all our communications helping us create a clear marketing message.
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Our positioning
Our values
Counties exists to tell people about Jesus. We have been doing this since 1899.
Prayer Excellence Unity Commitment
Making Jesus known across the UK
Our personality
Our offer
Passionate & bold Authentic & genuine Friendly & trusted Innovative & diverse
To help communities and individuals share the Gospel through people, training & resources.
Our personality l
Passionate l Bold l Authentic l Friendly
Our personality is the image we want to project. We want our personality to shine through in every word and image we use to represent Counties to our supporters and communities where we work. Counties tells people about Jesus and the hope He brings. We are passionate about what we do because our work helps to transform people and communities. We are compassionate, people-focused, understanding and welcoming. We are bold and speak honestly but with a humility because we know that truth saves.
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Branding architecture Counties produces a wide range of communications, some coming from the support team in Westbury and others direct from evangelists in the form of newsletters, websites and resources. To create a strong brand – which will in turn help us to extend our reach and enhance our reputation – we need to be consistent in how our communications look to the outside world. Most of our activities subscribe to the main corporate branding but there are a few areas where Counties branding cannot be applied. We will use a decision process with ‘branding buckets’ to help identify appropriate branding.
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Branding decisions Is it . . .
exclusively run by Counties staff or evangelists?
able to operate within its audience carrying our name?
Full Counties branding Counties logo must be prominent, front and top right, along with corporate fonts and colours.
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Endorsed branding All sub-brands are linked to the main brand by visual endorsement i.e. Counties logo and website may only need to feature in joint activities/events but Counties logo, fonts and colours in other activities.
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Attributed This will have its own identity aimed at its audience and doesn’t need Counties font or colour but must carry Counties logo or a line of type to say it’s a Counties activity.
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Freestanding Counties does not fully support the activity through its personnel. This has its own identity for its target audience. A line of copy to say it is affiliated with Counties would be helpful.
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Examples Ignite, Praise & Prayer Diary, Life, Counties website, email signatures, evangelist prayer letters, Connections, 3 DVDs GSUS Live promotion, social media, Counties newsletter, Counties brochures/festival stands, Counties conferences. Living the Passion conference. N.able MJK, Groundwire and No 72 prayer letter to Counties supporters. Joint initiatives with other charities.
Big & Bold Roadshow Young @ Heart Tracts Outreach DVD resources (More to Life/Dying to Meet You)
MJK resources/promotion to teens/young people. Groundwire (web, promotion to non-Christians). No 72 (premises, web, promotion to users).
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How we look Logos, colours and fonts The logo, colours and fonts all work together to make any piece of our communications look and feel like Counties. The logo when appearing on the front of a document should always appear top right. When used as part of a co-branding activity, it should be placed in the bottom footer on the back. The colours orange and grey are important. They are powerful for recognition and must be used consistently. Balance is achieved through the bold use of orange with a generous use of white space and direct use of black. We use two fonts – VAG Rounded for headlines and text in association with the logo and Georgia for rest of type. Your email signature affects the tone of every email you write and is a reflection of the charity to everyone who receives it. Signatures are a professional piece of corporate stationery and as such must present a consistent and professional image and not your own personality. Please do not use graphics in your signature as these increase the size of your email and can block up email accounts. Example:
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Fonts, logo & colours Colour Pallet
Using the logo Protected area:
Pantone 152 U CMYK: 0C 51M 100Y 1K RGB: R 100% (255) G 55% (140) B 8% (20)
Black 80% CMYK: 0C 0M 0Y 80K RGB: R 12% (30) G 12% (30) B 12% (30)
Protected area Using the ‘n’ from the logo as a guide, body copy should not encroach into the grey area shown.
Where possible, avoid copying/printing onto coloured or tinted paper — use a white stock.
Typefaces VAG Rounded is used for text in association with the logo and for main headings in publications etc.
VAG Rounded thin VAG Rounded light VAG Rounded bold VAG Rounded black
The logo should never appear smaller than 13mm in width:
Body copy will be Georgia and should not be printed smaller than 9pt in most circumstances.
Georgia plain Georgia bold Georgia italic Georgia bold italic
13mm
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Fonts, logo & colours Using the logo Where logo is to be used over an image or solid colour use these rules:
countiesuk.org
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Don’t use web address over busy, coloured background.
Logo can be used without web address.
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Mono versions of the logo may be used where colour is not possible:
countiesuk.org
Web address can be clearly read over solid coloured background.
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The strapline Avoid distorting the logo:
Making Jesus known across the UK When used in conjunction with the logo, the preferred format is:
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Making Jesus known across the UK
Photography Photos are a powerful way to engage supporters. Using professional, commissioned photography can engage our audience and bring our stories to life. The images we use in our communications should have the same integrity as our work. Wherever possible we should aim to use professional photographers. Images should: l l l l
Capture real-life moments. Show people in action. Be engaging. Show personality, warmth, passion and energy.
A few hints and tips l l l l l
Photos should almost always retain eye contact with the camera. The background should not be too busy with a clear focus on the subject. Keep the image fairly tight and focused with no more than four people on most shots. Always take names of people, ages and their details – it makes the story we are telling more believable. Pictures should look relaxed, not contrived, with lots of smiley, friendly faces.
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How we sound A great deal of our personality comes across in how we speak. Imagine someone talking passionately about what they do. That’s how we want to sound. Our writing must connect with our readers and provoke responses. The aim of writing great copy is to have it read. Here’s some questions to ask yourself when writing copy: l l l l l l l
Is it fresh, engaging, written with a smile? Does the piece have relevance to the reader? Is it easy to understand, clear and natural? Is it inspiring, warm, personal, narrative? Does it sound like us: Passionate? Bold? Authentic? Friendly? Are the sentences short using uncomplicated words? Is it people focused?
Remember people support the difference we make, not the things we do.
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Top ten house style tips House style applies to all printed text in external publications. To be seen as a professional organisation where quality is important, these guidelines must be followed so we remain consistent in all our communications to supporters.
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Always use VAG font for headlines and Georgia font for main body of copy. Arial can be used in web copy and enewsletters.
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Check for common problems: consistent styles of heading and use of consistent tense; spelling of names, roles and titles; use of apostrophes; dates and number formats.
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Biblical references should be given in full. Use a full stop (not a colon) between chapter and verse numbers and a hyphen between verses. Eg: Romans 1. 4-6, 2 Corinthians 5.10.
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Italics should be used for Counties and official titles of Counties projects and publications. Eg: GSUS Live, the Life exhibition.
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Capitals should be used sparingly. Lower case for job titles, general names for events but capital on the names of projects and events. Eg: Please pray for evangelist Tony Hood as he leads the Rock Solid lunch club and High Street Kids youth group today. Capitalise Gospel, Bible and Good News.
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Dates and times should always follow the same style. The date should appear in the same order: day, month, year, with the day of the month numbers only, no ‘th’ ‘nd’ ‘rd’ ‘st’. Eg: 22 July 2013. When writing the time use a full stop between the hour and the minute instead of a colon and never use :00 for a hourly time. Eg: 7.30pm or 8pm.
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Ensure that web addresses only appear with underline and in a different colour when there is a live link such as on a website or email. We now show the web address without the ‘www’ prefix. In printed materials and letters they should appear as ordinary text, eg: countiesuk.org
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When writing a press release to the local or national media, please contact the Counties support office for advice on style and to avoid duplication.
We endeavour to produce materials which reflect our core 10 values and mission statement. These should not represent a controversial viewpoint.
Numbers above ten should appear in figures, below written in full. Eg: More than ten volunteers helped out at an exhibition, giving 200 Bibles to children at the event.
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Need to know more? Contact the support team on 01373 823013 or email helen@countiesuk.org
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Go into all the world and proclaim the Good News to the whole creation. Mark 16.15 (NRSV)
Counties 30 Haynes Road, Westbury, Wiltshire, BA13 3HD Tel: 01373 823013 Email: office@countiesuk.org
countiesuk.org Counties (formerly Counties Evangelistic Work) is a Registered Charity No. 264278 and a Company limited by guarantee registered in England & Wales No. 1041761
Making Jesus known across the UK