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About the Web Style Guide

This style guide outlines minimum standards to which all official university Web sites should adhere. The guide and accompanying templates provide Web designers with the flexibility to create sites that have a unique design while meeting minimum standards for the identity of the university.

Minimum standards

University Communications strongly recommends that official university Web pages include the following elements:

  1. The UW–Madison logo

    Ideally, the web logo should be included on every page; at minimum, it should appear on a site’s home page. The logo should link back to the UW–Madison home page. If you choose not to adopt the logo in your design, you must at least reference affiliation with the university by including the words University of Wisconsin–Madison near the top of your page.

  2. A link to the UW–Madison home page

    You should include somewhere on each page a link to the home page. The link should read either University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW Home or UW–Madison Home. This link ideally should be HTML text, though making it part of a type graphic is acceptable.

  3. Link to school, college or division home page

    Departments and offices should provide clear links to the home page of the school, college or division within which they reside.

  4. Footer information

    Each page should include the following standard footer information:

    • Copyright statement: Copyright © 2006 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
    • The e-mail address of the person responsible for maintaining the page and responding to user feedback: e.g. Feedback, questions or accessibility issues: webmaster@yourwebsite.wisc.edu.
    • The date the page was last updated — e.g. Last updated: January 6, 2006 — unless it is clear from the content on the page itself that the page is current.
  5. Academic Departments

    Academic departments should include all of the following features described above, plus:

  6. Accessible design

    All university Web pages must be accessible to users with disabilities. Please familiarize yourself with the university’s World Wide Web Accessibility Policy before designing your site. For additional information, see DoIT’s Web Accessibility Resources page.

Templates

The following templates meet the minimum standards outlined above and are available for use by any office or department on campus. (They should not be used for personal and other non-official Web pages.) The templates validate to XHTML 1.0 Strict and use CSS for all styling and layout. Read more about the templates.

Beige template, (Fixed width, 744 pixels)

Red template, (Fixed width, 744 pixels)

Download the templates

Using UW–Madison logo

Some official Web sites will call for unique designs, depending upon their function and audience. On sites that do not use either of the templates above, we strongly encourage use of the UW–Madison logo as an identifying mark somewhere within the design. Ideally, the logo would appear near the top of the page; if the logo is placed at the bottom of a design, we strongly recommend including text at the top of the design that reads University of Wisconsin–Madison. It is important that your office be readily identifiable as a part of the university.

(Note: The color for the Web version looks different from that of the print version. The Web-safe color values 990000 (red) and CC9900 (gold) of the logo’s crest are the best Web-safe matches, given variances between monitor color spaces.)

Download the logo:

See the logo as used in other designs:

Note that the images presented here are for Web use only, and are not appropriate for use in printed publications. Versions in EPS format for print uses are available. If you need help preparing a version of the logo to meet your specific needs, please contact University Communications (web@news.wisc.edu).

Contact us

University Communications staff are available to answer any questions and to help as you work with this guide and the accompanying templates. E-mail: web@news.wisc.edu.