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Templates
Templates are available to help you use the SFU brand effectively.
Social Media Avatars, Cover Images & Ads
Use social avatars as an opportunity to provide an enhanced and, more importantly, coherent SFU experience across all channels. Main SFU brand elements such as colours, typography and title bars create a visual connection to the brand communications.
Go to:
The Communications & Marketing team creates the avatars. Please contact sfu-brand@sfu.ca.
Social media examples
To maintain the SFU brand recognition even without the master brand logo, we recommend always including SFU before the unit name in the handle and in the “name” field for the social account.
Note: Round avatars can also be used for Microsoft Outlook profile pictures.
Logo versions & placement
An SFU logo must appear on all cover images. Either formal or informal logos can be used. The logo can be placed either at the upper right corner or lower left corner of the cover images. The preferred position of the logo on cover images is the upper right corner where it is legible across all social channels.
The exception is the two-level logo:
- Only has a horizontal version
- Must align to the left of the image
- It can move up to the upper left corner on Twitter and LinkedIn due to the position of the avatars
The logo’s clearspace is equal to the height of the SFU logo block. Exceptions can be made for extremely tight spaces on certain social channels.
Examples:
Image-only versions
Our primary photography is black and white with a photo-journalistic style. These images are to be used as cover images for brand campaigns, events or institutional communications.
Colour photography can be used when black and white images are not available or not suitable for the subject matter.
The cover images work best when:
- They are dynamic and simple in composition without too much visual noise
- Prominent subjects are positioned in the middle or right of the image to avoid being covered by the avatar on some social channels
- The focus is on hero subjects engaging in real activities
- Subjects and their activities remain visible within the given dimensions across all the channels
- Colour photography is shot with neutral lighting and cool temperature to complement the red avatar
Examples:
When our photography is not available, our brand colours, typefaces and title bars can be used together to create engaging cover images.
- When typesetting, don’t use more than two lines of title bars, and make sure the titles don’t extend past two-thirds of the cover image to ensure the type is not cut off on mobile devices
- Headlines should be short and concise. Cover images shrink drastically when viewed on mobile devices and a large portion is blocked out by the avatar. Short, bold headlines can draw attention and maintain legibility on both desktop and mobile.
- Description copy should be informative and to the point. Type size should not fall below 16px for web best practice and accessibility standards.
Examples:
Typography helps to set the voice of our brand. The examples below provide some inspiration on how typography can work with photography to create an expressive layout.
- Images should have dynamic compositions with quiet space that allows you to place headlines and titles over them so they can be read easily
- Headlines should be concise and engaging
- Avoid lengthy content that clutters the image. Although the 20% text rule doesn’t apply to cover images, it is good practice to keep the text content to less than 40% of the image.
Examples:
Cover image dimensions are different across all social channels and are changed regularly, one size does not fit all. It is important to check the respective platform for the most up-to-date dimensions. When choosing photography, consider how it would crop across all channels to ensure the hero subject remains visible inside the frame. Download ready to use cover images or cover image templates for each social platform below.
Note: in order to edit a version with text you will need to have the Countach font loaded onto your computer.
Note: in order to edit a version with text you will need to have the Countach font loaded onto your computer.
LinkedIn
Note: in order to edit a version with text you will need to have the Countach font loaded onto your computer.
YouTube
Note: in order to edit a version with text you will need to have the Countach font loaded onto your computer.
Social media ads & posts
Our updated social media ad and post template designs allow you to use image-only, text-only and a combination of image and text. The images below are a small sample of the variations available.
The templates below demonstrate how the SFU brand elements can be used expressively in different layouts.
Templates
Download templates to use for your social ads or posts.
Creating social ads
If you are creating an ad for Facebook remember that text should take up no more than 20% of the image. Read about text in ad images using Facebook's best practices for image ads. In instances where your ad has too much text, it’s appropriate to remove the SFU logo. Ads will be seen along the avatar, handle and ad copy to help identify it as an SFU ad.
Learn more about social ads: