City of Durham Brand Guide

A brand is more than a logo, a mission statement, or a tagline. It is a combination of these elements, woven together to tell a story. Our brand is how we tell the City of Durham’s Story.

What is a Brand Guide?

The City of Durham has an extraordinary story, and our approach to sharing it is guided by research and input from our individual departments and community partners. The resulting guide provides direction and clarity for how we can best communicate internally and with the greater Durham community and beyond.

A brand guide offers a comprehensive foundation of graphic design standards, communication guidelines, and best practices when visually representing a brand across all mediums. A brand guide improves communications, internally and externally, by ensuring quality, accuracy, and consistency of the brand.

Whether you are looking for logo information, downloadable templates or anything related to the visual or written representations of the City, this guide has your needs covered. The guide is a comprehensive foundation of graphic standards, internal and external communications, and overall best practices in making our City’s brand come to life.

Who should use this guide?

This style manual was prepared for City of Durham administrators, public affairs specialists, clerical staff, and employees who create materials using the City’s identity. To protect the City’s organizational identity and ensure proper use of the logo, this guide should also be supplied to the appropriate external resources and/or vendors. As a general rule, third parties may not use the City of Durham organizational logo without authorization as an official partner or vendor/contractor. The logo must always be used pursuant to the specifications in the City of Durham Brand Guide to identify the organization, its departments, and its programs and services. Any use that falls outside of these specifications is strictly prohibited. The City of Durham reserves the right to terminate or modify permission to display its organizational logo, and may request that third parties modify or delete any use of the logo that, in the City’s judgment, does not comply with these guidelines or might otherwise impair the City’s rights with its organizational logo. The City further reserves the right to object to unfair uses or misuses of its organizational logo or other violations of applicable law.