Brand Guidelines

Primary font

Serifa is our primary font. We use it in various weights in everything from headlines to body copy. This primary font is for use in materials created by design and digital specialists who have access to the licensed version.

Secondary fonts

Arial

If you’re using Microsoft packages or don’t have a font licence, you can use other approved fonts.

For digital communications, such as email, digital screens and Microsoft Office documents, use Arial.

Calibri

If Arial is unavailable, use Calibri. This is available in all major Microsoft applications.

Source San Pro

Alongside Serifa, Source Sans Pro is used as our secondary web font. It used for body content across our website as well as other digital marketing collateral.

Accessing fonts

Serifa is a licensed font. At the University, it's only available to design and digital specialists, who have to adhere to our licence agreement. The agreement states that the fonts are for professional use only, and can’t be transferred from one user to another. External agencies will need to source the Serifa font.

If you don’t have access to Serifa, you should use our approved secondary fonts. If you're a member of staff and need assets designed using Serifa, please log a request with our Design or Digital team through the staff intranet.

Setting our typography

The way we set our text keeps our visual identity strong, consistent and recognisable across a wealth of communications. The following examples show best practice for typesetting, and for design as a whole.

Hierarchy is one of the most important considerations in design. It’s essential that we establish a clear hierarchy of information that our audiences can understand. You can use these examples as a guide and adapt them to suit other formats.

Headline

Headline copy should be clear and legible. Don’t make the line spacing (leading) too large. In these examples, the size of the font is the same as the leading, eg the font size is 60pt and the leading is 60pt.

Sub-heading or description

A sub-heading usually follows the same rule as headlines: the size of the font is the same as the leading, eg 60pt / 60pt leading. But when you’re dealing with fonts that are smaller than 18pt, you should increase the leading to around 1.2x, eg 18pt / 21.5pt. This will stop the text looking too ‘tight’.

Copy sub-heading

Set copy sub-headings appropriately so they complement the body copy.

Body copy

Please don’t set body copy any smaller than 9pt / 11pt leading.

Quotes

Set quotes appropriately so they complement the rest of the layout.