Style

Our brand imagery aims to avoid obvious posing where subjects smile into the camera. Instead, we aim to incorporate the following:

A candid and authentic feel, with people as the prominent subjects
People engaging in real-life activities that reflect the narrative of our communication
Storytelling, capturing emotions and delivering a visually-engaging snapshot of life at SFU

Other requirements

Images should:

Have dynamic compositions taken from interesting angles
Feel somewhat simple, without too much visual noise
Incorporate quiet space and wider framing to allow headlines and other text to be easily placed over them
Bleed off one or more edges of a composition
When multiple photos are incorporated into a spread, position them so they create a dynamic composition by balancing scale, placement and negative space

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Black-&-white images

Our primary images are black-and-white with a photojournalistic style to help differentiate SFU from other higher education brands. When used with our bold typography and colour palette, they build immediate brand recognition and strategically align individual executions with SFU's institutional brand look and feel.

Examples of uses include:

Report covers
Section dividers
Website landing pages
Print ads
Social media

In simple terms, photojournalistic style are photos that tell stories by capturing a candid moment in a real-life scenario.

Whenever possible, use photo editing software to create proper black-and-white images with good tonal range.

Black-and-white helps visually unify disparate photos

Colour images

Use colour photography in:

News stories
Announcements
Publications
Some institutional communications when colour is crucial to understanding and appreciating the content, such as print publications that showcase campus buildings and surrounding geography

Our colour photos should be:

Simple and clean, without too much visual noise or contrasting colours. Because these images are often used with our strong SFU reds, it is important that the colours within them don’t clash.

Combining black-and-white with colour

Think of black-and-white images as your “statement” images to establish the message and tone of the content being delivered
Think of smaller-sized, colour images as playing the supporting role to enrich and add dimension to the content
Selective applications of black-and-white images can unify and create visual pacing for a long-form document, website or communication that includes multiple photos
Photography should bleed off one or more edges of a composition
When multiple photos are incorporated into a spread, consider positioning them so they create a dynamic composition by balancing scale, placement and negative space

Communicators Toolkit

Photography