Al Smith Social media in local government

House style 2.0

I went to a session this week to learn more about our new(ish) Corporate Identity Protocol. The document itself is fairly weighty and covers a number of areas from logo placement and sizing to accessibility guidance.

One part of the document really grabbed my attention though. As a former journalist and sometime publications officer I like style guides. Consistency and clarity are important in getting your message across (well, duh).

My favourite style guide is Guardian Style. Which is online here.

Of course this in itself is a reasonably comprehensive document and it would no doubt take us a long time to develop an equivalent. One solution could be to adopt this as our style, but some people aren't fans.

Style guides themselves need to be flexible. New terms and rules are created as language and communication evolves. So why have a static guide?

My suggestion (which I will take to our corporate communications team next week) is to develop house style through a wiki. When new terms come up or clarification is sought the agreed style should be entered into the guide. This stops anyone from being landed with the onerous task of writing the whole thing themselves up front. This issue halted the development of style guide at a previous workplace by two years or so.

Priviledges would be extended to the corporate comms team to publish changes (and perhaps service reps), but changes can be suggested by any member of staff.

So, I'd like your opinions, what do you think of this model?