University Style Guide

The University Style Guide is a resource for anyone who represents the institution. It outlines best practices for sharing content that clearly and consistently supports the university’s brand.

The Style Guide includes five sections:

• Name: how the institution should be identified
• Typography: standard typefaces used in print and digital communications and collateral
• Color: official color palettes for print and digital collateral
• Graphics: the official university logo and other graphic identifiers
• Editorial Style Guide: spelling, style and definitions of campus-specific terms, traditions and building names

The Style Guide does not anticipate every possible use of university assets. Communication and Marketing can advise and assist with designs.

Name

"SUNY Oneonta" is the preferred name of the university for most references to it. "State University of New York at Oneonta" is the full name of the university. It is appropriate to use this in situations that establish an obligation against or entitlement of the university, such as a contract, situations in which the audience is likely not familiar with SUNY, such as the advertisement of a vacant position at the university, or situations in which formality calls for reference to the full name of the university, such as some reports within SUNY.

Avoid names other than these. Communication from the university ought not include legacy monikers, such as: "the College at Oneonta," "State College at Oneonta," Oneonta State,” "SUCO," “Oneonta Normal School,” “Oneonta State Teachers College” or “State University Teachers College at Oneonta” except in historical references.

Typography

Official University Fonts

Whitney, Archer and Mercury are the font families used routinely for institutional communication in print and display. These are used throughout the university’s recruitment publications, on campus buildings and signage and in institutional communications such as the Commencement program, alumni magazine and office letterhead. SUNY Oneonta’s logotype, in fact, is set in Archer Bold.

Because of limitations on the university’s ability to make Whitney, Archer and Mercury available online, Lato, Roboto Slab and Playfair are the website stand-ins, and may also be used for print, in the absence of Whitney, Archer and Mercury.

Also, taking into consideration that some users may prefer not to purchase and install fonts, SUNY Oneonta has designated Times as a substitute for both Mercury and Archer and Arial as a substitute for Whitney.

Athletics Font

SUNY Oneonta commissioned a font named Oneonta Regular primarily for use by the Athletics Department. One variant of the university's dragon logo holds the word “Oneonta” set in Oneonta Regular and SUNY Oneonta’s “Fast O” is a modified Oneonta Regular character.

Oneonta Regular is a limited character set typeface that includes only capital letters and numbers. Oneonta Regular may NOT be used outside of Athletics, with the exception of the “SUNY Oneonta” graphic available in the Spirit Elements section of this guide.

Non-varsity sports clubs may not use the Athletics Dragon or the Oneonta Regular typeface. Any Student Association-recognized club sport that is also a varsity sport must use the word “club” before the sport name (e.g., “Men’s Club Soccer”). See the Graphics section for a sample club shirt set in Bullet Small Caps and Archivo Black.

Color Palette

SUNY Oneonta's official school colors are red and white. SUNY Oneonta developed a related palette of hues to complement the official red.

As our representation of color began on paper, our standard for the official red is rooted in the Pantone Matching System (PMS), which is a popular model for print. Our official shade of red is PMS 185. It is used in printed materials and all representations–both print and digital–of the Primary University Logo. Our primary digital red will use an adjusted red—hex #CC0025—which takes device/screen luminosity into account.

Each of the palette's colors is defined in the CMYK, RGB and Hex color models below.

Usage Guidelines

The print palette includes five primary colors, one “pivot” color and three tertiary colors. Use the primary colors as the basis for most pieces. Tertiary colors may be used as accent colors, according to the following guidelines:

• You must use at least one primary color.
• If your only primary color is Primary Black, then Tertiary Dark Gray and Tertiary Light Gray may also be used. If you include Primary Red, then (in addition to Primary Black, Tertiary Dark Gray and Tertiary Light Gray), Secondary Red and Secondary/Pivot Yellow may also be used.
• If you include Secondary/Pivot Yellow, then Tertiary Blue, Tertiary Green and Tertiary Orange may be used

Primary Colors

Tertiary Colors

Digital Color Contrast Guidelines

Color combinations must pass WCAG AA contrast ratio requirements; testing can be completed using a tool such as WebAIM's Color Contrast Checker. To ensure an accessible contrast ratio for normal text (less than size 14pt), the following recommendations must be followed:

• Primary Red: Use with white text only
• Black: Use with white text only
• White: Use with dark text only
• Secondary Red: Use with white text only
• Secondary/Pivot Yellow: Use with dark text only
• Tertiary Dark Gray : Use with white text only
• Tertiary Light Gray: Use with black text only
• Tertiary Blue: Use with white text only
• Tertiary Green: Use with dark text only
• Tertiary Orange: Use with dark text only