AAT STYLE GUIDE JUNE 2017
In an effort to maintain a uniform voice throughout all materials concerning America's Automotive Trust and it's entities, this guide will be updated on an as-needed basis. Please note the date listed above and make sure you are using the most recent version. If you have any old versions saved, delete them immediately after receiving this one to avoid any possible confusion. If you are unsure if this version is the most up-to-date, contact the Marketing & Communications Department.
CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS
STYLE GUIDE PREFACE
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NAME USAGE
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EXHIBIT & PROGRAM NAMES
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FONT USAGE
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FONT USAGE GRID
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LETTERS & MAIL
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NUMBERS
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FEES
8
TIMES
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DATES
9
TITLES
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PUNCTUATION
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MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS
13
PHONES
14
OTHER GENERAL GUIDELINES
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ABBREVIATIONS
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WORDS IN THE WORKPLACE
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PROGRAM NAMES ENTITY NAMES AND ABBREVIATIONS
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SIGNATURE EVENTS
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EDUCATION PROGRAMS
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RPM PROGRAMS AND PUBLICATIONS
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ADDITIONAL EVENTS & PROGRAMS
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FACILITY NAMES PROPER FACILITY NAMES
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STYLE GUIDE PREFACE
The rules laid out in this style guide apply to ALL entities within America's Automotive Trust. For additional information pertaining to a specific entity's brand, refer to that entity's Branding Guidelines and Graphic Standards. Please note that this is a guide for the most-often-asked questions about style, punctuation and references. This is meant to be a handy reference for those who write for AAT publications, website, membership, press releases, letters and correspondence. It is important that a consistent format is used in all materials released to outside audiences. We can insure this will happen by having everyone refer to the same guide. These guidelines are based upon the AP Style Guide, however, there are some deviations from that guide so please be sure to read through this guide to ensure you are informed of all the particular guidelines that pertain to the Trust and it's entities.
NAME USAGE
Using a consistent voice while speaking or writing about the Trust and its entities is crucial to our brand identity. AMERICA'S AUTOMOTIVE TRUST In first references, use: America's Automotive Trust In subsequent references, use: AAT The Trust When using “the Trust” in writing, “Trust” must always be capitalized. DO NOT USE: The AAT ACM Trust The Car Trust The Museum Trust America's Car Trust LeMay Trust LeMay Car Trust LeMay Automotive Trust
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STYLE GUIDE NAME USAGE (CONT.)
AMERICA'S CAR MUSEUM In first references, use: LeMay – America’s Car Museum unless the document has the ACM logo on it in which case the first reference can be just America's Car Museum
NOTE: The L and M in LeMay are always capitalized and LeMay is always one word.
In subsequent references, use: America’s Car Museum ACM The Museum When using “the Museum” in writing, “Museum” must always be capitalized. DO NOT USE: LeMay Museum LeMay Car Museum LeMay Auto Museum Tacoma Car Museum The LeMay Lemay Le May
RPM FOUNDATION In first references, use: RPM Foundation In subsequent references, use: RPM When writing about the RPM Foundation, be sure not to capitalize the word the when it's placed in front of RPM Foundation as it is not part of the name (unless the is the first word in a sentence). DO NOT USE: RPMF Hagerty Fund Hagerty Education Program at America's Car Museum Hagerty Education Program The Collectors Foundation LeMay Foundation The Education Program America’s Automotive Trust Style Guide
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STYLE GUIDE NAME USAGE (CONT.)
CLUB AUTO In first references, use: Club Auto – Hagerty Powered unless the document has the Club Auto logo on it in which case the first reference can be just Club Auto. When writing about Club Auto, always use the full name. You should not abbreviate the name. DO NOT USE: CA Club Auto at ACM ACM Club Hagerty Club
CONCOURS CLUB When writing about the Concours Club, always use the full name. You should not abbreviate the name. When writing about the Concours Club, be sure not to capitalize the word the when it's placed in front of Concours Club as it is not part of the name (unless the is the first word in a sentence). DO NOT USE: CC The Concours Club ACM Club
EXHIBIT & PROGRAM NAMES
When writing the name of a specific exhibit or program, capitalize all major words and put the name in italics or quotation marks. Examples: Come see Powering the Future at America's Car Museum. Did you go to last year's "Summer Ender Fender Bender?"
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STYLE GUIDE FONT USAGE
Garamond, 12-point, Regular should be the primary font used for the main copy in all typed documents. Varying point sizes and styles (bold, italics, etc...), as well as Lato, may be used for headers and to create hierarchy within the document. Please see the Font Usage Grid below to help determine which font/style works best for your purposes.
NOTE: If your font size needs to be smaller than 8-point, use Lato, as this sans-serif font is easier to read at small point sizes.
Obviously, we use many other fonts on printed marketing pieces. If you wish to use a font other than Garamond or Lato, you must have it pre-approved through the Marketing & Communications Department. FORMAL
FONT USAGE GRID
NOTE: This grid lays out the
Garamond - Regular
Trust's
official fonts in a grid
structure based on formality and
Garamond - Italic
boldness. For applications more formal in nature, you should choose font styles that are closer
Garamond - Bold
to the top of the grid. For a more casual feel, choose something
Lato - Light
closer to the bottom. BOLD
SUBTLE
Garamond - Bold Italic
If you would like to add emphasis to a certain word or phrase in
Lato - Regular
your document, choose a style closer to the "bold" side (right side) of the grid and, conversely, if you would like to detract empha-
Lato - Italic
sis, use a font nearer the "subtle" or left edge of the grid.
Lato - Bold CASUAL
Formal Formal uses are documents such as memos, letterhead, reports, grant requests, official communication pieces, emails, etc. For these applications, use Garamond Regular as your primary font and the other weights of Garamond to add emphasis. Casual Casual uses are items such as internal communications, advertisements, web media and informal letters. With these, you are free to use Garamond or Lato. If you are unsure if your writing is formal or casual, use the formal guidelines or contact the Marketing & Communications Department. America’s Automotive Trust Style Guide
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STYLE GUIDE LETTERS & MAIL
MAILING ADDRESSES
NOTE:
If the return address for your entity is not already printed on a letter or envelope, it should be written as such:
a branded envelope with the
be used to address your mail.
[ Entity Name ] 2702 East D Street Tacoma, WA 98421
Some points to remember here are: a) spell out East, do not abbreviate this with an E, b) do not put a period after D, c) do not spell out Washington, and d) only use blue or black ink when writing on an envelope.
Whenever possible,
address pre-printed or a preprinted address label should If neither of those options are available, only then should you address the envelope with the guidelines listed here.
ADDRESSEE'S COURTESY TITLE When writing letters to a woman you don't know, address her as Ms. For unisex names (Pat, Jan, Alex, etc...) a phone inquiry to the recipient's office to confirm gender will save potential embarrassment. If you cannot confirm gender, do not include the courtesy title in the address and salutation. Pat White | Dear Pat White ADDRESSING COUPLES IN LETTERS When writing letters to couples, be sure to include both the primary contact AND his/her spouse in both the address label and the salutation. Do not use an ampersand (&); spell out the word and. Mr. and Mrs. | Dr. and Mrs. ADDRESSING BUSINESSES IN LETTERS When writing to a business, it is very important to write the name of the company or organization exactly. Is Company, Corporation or Incorporated abbreviated? Are there any stylistic elements, such as dashes, colons, ampersands or run-together words? Which letters are capitalized? Find out by checking the company's website or letterhead. The address format for a business or organization should include the following: Full name of the company Point of Contact Department name, if necessary Street Address City, State, ZIP America’s Automotive Trust Style Guide
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STYLE GUIDE NUMBERS
Spell out from zero to nine. Use numerals for 10 and above. Spell out numerals at the beginning of a sentence. One hundred, sixty-five members came to our Member Appreciation Day at held at Disneyland.
Age always appears as numerals, unless at the beginning of a sentence. My 10-year-old son has soccer practice today. An eighty-one-year-old man in Wisconsin claims he has found the secret to eternal youth.
Percent is always spelled out and used with figures. Repeat percent with each additional figure. We expect a 25 percent increase in kitten sales this year.
For monetary amounts of a million dollars or more, use the dollar sign and spell out million, billion, or trillion. $47.7 million. Write out: $245,000 (not $245 thousand), except in broadcast copy.
FEES
If the dollar amount does not include cents, .00 is omitted. Baskets of apples are $15 while oranges are only $8.
TIMES
Use lower case am & pm, no periods and use a space between the number and the am/pm; do not use :00. 3:30 pm | 2:20 am | 1 pm | 4 – 6 pm | 8:30 am – 12 pm
When listing times in a schedule or calendar, use the en-dash (–) to separate the times. Be sure to put a space before and after the en-dash. 1 – 3 pm | 8 am – 3 pm
For time periods, spell out the words. twentieth-century | twenty-first century
Use the en-dash in an inclusive period of years and repeat the century. 1994 - 1999 (not 1994 – 99)
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STYLE GUIDE DATES
Do not abbreviate a month unless space is an issue. The warmest month on record was August 1995.
When listing dates in a calendar/schedule, abbreviate Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. The rest should not be abbreviated. When listing a range of dates, use an en-dash to separate the dates and do not abbreviate. July 12 - September 21, 2020
Do not use ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd) in dates. Reservations are due by April 1.
Capitalize days of the week. Do not abbreviate except when needed in tabular format and use three letters without periods. Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat
TITLES
For titles of book, computer games, movies, operas, plays, poems, songs, television programs lectures, speeches and works of art: • Put quotation marks around the title • Capitalize the first and last words of the title • Capitalize the principal words, including all verbs, prepositions and conjunctions with more than three letters • Translate a foreign title into English unless the American public know the work by its foreign name Nietzsche's "Thus spake Zarathustra" | Mozart's "Magic Flute" "Amores Perros" | "The Bhagavad-Gita"
For titles of exhibits or programs, the name should be capitalized, but the descriptor (i.e. - exhibit or program) should be lowercase. Examples: The new Master Collectors exhibit will be very impressive. I learned lots of useful information at last months If Cars Could Talk program.
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STYLE GUIDE PUNCTUATION
COMMA (,) Do not put a comma before the conjunction in a simple series, but do use it in a complex series or for clarification. John, Paul, George and Ringo The breakfast options were: waffles, oatmeal, biscuits and gravy, and eggs.
Use a comma to set off a person's hometown and age. Jane Doe, Farmingham, was absent. | Joe Blow, 34, was arrested today.
FIGURE DASH (–) Make a dash by striking the hyphen key twice. Put a space on either side of the dash. Used to separate LeMay and America's in LeMay – America's Car Museum. LeMay – America's Car Museum
APOSTROPHE (') For plural nouns ending in s, add only an apostrophe. the girls' toys | states' rights
For singular common nouns ending in s, add 's. the hostess's invitation | the witness's answer
For singular proper names ending in s, use only an apostrophe. Descartes' theories | Kansas' schools
For singular proper names ending in s sounds such as: x, ce or z, use 's. Marx's theories | the prince's life
For plurals of a single letter, add 's. Mind your p's and q's | the Red Sox defeated the Oakland A's
Do not use 's for plurals of numbers or multiple letter combinations. the 1980s RBIs
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STYLE GUIDE PUNCTUATION (CONT.)
ELLIPSIS (...) When the grammatical sense calls for a period, question mark, exclamation point, comma or colon, the sequence is: a word, the punctuation mark, a regular space then the ellipsis. Will you come? ...
EN-DASH (–) So called because it is approximately as wide as the letter n, located on the keyboard as Ctrl + Num - (Ctrl plus the hyphen in the number pad on the far right, top corner). The en-dash is conventionally used between dates. February 22 – June 22, 2007
EM-DASH (—) So called because it is approximately as wide as the letter m, located on the keyboard as Alt + Ctrl + Num - (Alt plus Ctrl plus the hyphen in the number pad on the far right, top corner). The em-dash is conventionally used to set off comments. Put a space on either side of the em-dash. The president’s nephews — sons of his late brother — include Amar and Lucas.
COLON (:) Capitalize the first word after a colon only if it is a proper noun or the start of a complete sentence. He promised this: The company will make good all the losses.
Colons go outside quotation marks unless they are part of the quoted material. HYPHEN (-) Use a hyphen for compound adjectives before the noun. Do not use a hyphen in LeMay – America's Car Museum. That is always a dash. Do not use a hyphen when the compound modifier occurs after the verb. Do not use a hyphen to denote an abrupt change in a sentence – use a dash. well-known actor | full-time job | 20-year sentence The actor was well known. | Her job was full time. | The sentence was 20 years.
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STYLE GUIDE PUNCTUATION (CONT.)
PARENTHESES () The perceived need for parentheses is an indication that your sentence is becoming contorted. Try to rewrite the sentence, putting the incidental information in commas, dashes or in another sentence. If you do use parentheses, follow these guidelines: • If the material is inside a sentence, place the period outside the parentheses. • If the parenthetical statement is a complete independent sentence, place the period inside the parentheses. He gave me a nice bonus ($500). Please read the analysis. (You'll be amazed.)
PERIOD (.) Use a single space after the period at the end of a sentence. Do not put a space between initials. C.S. Lewis | J.K. Rowling
QUOTATION MARKS (" ") In dialogue, each person's words are placed in a separate paragraph with quotation marks at the beginning and end of each person's speech. Periods and commas always go within quotation marks. Periods and commas always go within quotation marks. He said, "I love you."
Dashes, semicolons, question marks and exclamation points go within the quotation marks when the apply to the quoted material. They go outside when they apply to the whole sentence. Afterwards, John told me, "that was the coolest thing ever!" Can you believe she said, "everyone gets a raise"?
Use single marks for quotes within quotes. She said, "He told me, 'I love you.'"
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STYLE GUIDE MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS
WEBSITE When referencing our website, do not use www. in front of the URL. The only exception to this rule is for the RPM Foundation's URL. Also, website should always be one word. americasautomotivetrust.org americascarmuseum.org www.rpm.foundation
LEMAY LeMay should always have a capital L and M. OPENROAD The publication OpenRoad should be written as one word— no space— and the O and R should be capitalized. OpenRoad should always be italicized and never put in quotes. EN ROUTE The publication En Route should be written as two words and italicized. It should never be put in quotes. PHONE NUMBERS When writing phone numbers, use periods instead of hyphens between the numbers. 253.779.8490
EMAIL ADDRESSES Nothing should be capitalized in email addresses. kyle.muir@americasautomotivetrust.org | rsvp@americascarmuseum.org
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STYLE GUIDE PHONES
ANSWERING THE PHONE When answering the phone you should use the following greeting: “Thank you for calling [name of entity], this is _____, how may I help you?” VOICE MAIL GREETINGS Your voice mail message should follow this message: “You've reached the voice mail for ______ at [name of entity]. Please leave your name and phone number and I will return your call as soon as I am able.”
OTHER GENERAL GUIDELINES
The Trust's logo should appear on all documents for the Trust and it's entities. Pay attention to plurals and singulars. Use an active voice, rather than passive. Choose words carefully and be precise. Avoid jargon, needlessly technical terms or complicated phrasing if simpler wording will do. For formal writing, do not use contractions, catch phrases or slang.
ABBREVIATIONS
When space allows, do not use abbreviations. If your space is limited and you need to abbreviate, do so as sparingly as possible. Below is a list of common abbreviations. Page / Pages - Pg./Pgs. Road - Rd. Street - St. Minute(s) - min. Second(s) - sec. States should use their two-letter abbreviation without separating periods. Seattle, WA | San Francisco, CA | Albany, NY
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STYLE GUIDE WORDS IN THE WORKPLACE
Words and phrases that are not a part of standard vocabulary or language and are used informally are called slang. These words are mostly used in speech rather than in writing. In a professional setting, slang should be avoided. All guidelines outline in this guide, while they are primarily focused on written applications, should also be used as models when speaking on behalf of the Trust and its entities. When addressing an audience, especially externally, be sure to use verbiage and phrasing that is inclusive and non-offensive. Examples include many phrases that may seem innocuous, such as saying "you guys" when addressing an audience of mixed genders, saying something is "retarded" when you dislike something or saying "this sucks" when you are unhappy. These are just a few of many potentially inflammatory or offensive statements that are commonly used. Take care to chose your words wisely and never use a word or phrase you are unsure about. Profanity is socially offensive and should not be used under any circumstances.
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PROGRAM NAMES The following lists are the correct names for AAT and its entities, as well as the various events and programs hosted by ACM. It is essential that we call them by their full and proper names, so please refer to this list for any verbal or written communications.
ENTITY NAMES AND ABBREVIATIONS
America's Automotive Trust (AAT) LeMay – America's Car Museum (ACM) RPM Foundation (RPM) Club Auto Concours Club Please refer to the "Name Usage" section earlier in this document for more details regarding the correct usage for each entity.
SIGNATURE EVENTS
Drive the Blues Away Wheels & Heels Annual Gala Vintage Motorcycle Festival: The MEET at ACM Cars & Cigars Summer Ender Fender Bender
EDUCATION PROGRAMS
If Cars Could Talk Family STEM Day Full STEAM Ahead: A K - 12 Educator Workshop Insider Talks Summer Camps
RPM FOUNDATION PROGRAMS AND PUBLICATIONS
Under the Hood RPM Shop Hop RPM Summit Meeting RPM Collection & Shop Tours Car Week for High School Car Lovers
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PROGRAM NAMES ADDITIONAL EVENTS & PROGRAMS
The Drive Home Race Night at ACM Cruise-Ins at ACM Member Double Discount Days Santa at ACM Take A Spin Hoods Up for Father's Day
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FACILITY NAMES PROPER FACILITY NAMES
This list gives the proper names for the various areas of the Museum. Be sure you use the exact names of the areas you are referring to when you talk or write about them. AAA Heritage Road State Farm Theatre Grand Lobby Weyerhaeuser Concours Club Haub Family Field NAPA Auto Care Center Ben B. Cheney Foundation Gallery Titus Will Families Foundation Gallery The Boone Family Racing Experience Family Zone Rev It Up Club (AKA Banquet Room) Club Auto Hedges Family Estate Collectors Hall of Fame Rev It Up Club Lobby Area Miller Slot Car Circuit Dimmer Legends Gallery Boeing Classroom Christine & Karl Anderson Plaza Columbia Bank City View Deck McFarland Mezzanine Flex-a-lite Education Resource Center Wes Lematta Champions Gallery Miller Concert Stage Madeira Administration Center Classics by Pacific Grill
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