STYLE GUIDE

Flexibility and creativity

These guidelines are not designed to stifle creativity, make more work, or cramp your style. Nor are they supposed to force all our publications to look the same.

The point of a common style and visual identity is to help our publications look like they belong to the same 'family', with elements in common -- not to make everything we produce look identical. So most of the guidelines in this guide are just very basic ground rules. For most types of publication, the layout and design are largely up to you. Only in the case of a few 'corporate'-type documents -- letterheads, for instance -- are these guidelines a bit more prescriptive.

For instance, this guide recommends the Gill Sans font for HYMS communications. You should generally adhere to this guideline unless you recognise a good reason to make an exception. But if you want to create a specific visual effect by using a different font in one document, or if you're using a computer where Gill Sans isn't available, you might do things differently.

Also, the importance of these guidelines depends on the intended audience for your document. It's far more important to obey the letter of the law when it comes to grand documents like the HYMS prospectus, for instance, than it is for an informal staff memo. But on the other hand, even for the most casual of communications, it can't do any harm to get into the habit of following basic principles. After all, you have to use some font or other, so it may as well be the right one!

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