Brand
Guidelines
Overview
Everything we do is guided by our vision and mission statements. When we find ourselves stalled, we question ourselves, "What is the final aim here?" We practice user-centric design, and we believe we will always succeed as long as we are solving our customer’s pain points.
The goal of this brand style guide is to ensure that our audience receives consistent visuals and messaging. It specifies the Cut's brand elements and how they should be used in marketing materials. The purpose is to give you a solid foundation for your work, but it won’t solve every design question you’ll encounter. Stay creative and feel free to think out of the box when necessary.
Mission statement
To inspire confidence and to empower people to be the best version of themselves.
Vision statement
Barbershops are epicenters of culture. We're building the worlds largest barbershop platform, living at the intersection of all things style and grooming.
Wordmark Logo
This section covers the details of our wordmark. You can find a downloadable version under Resources.
What's in a name?
Everything, to sum it up. Your name is how you identify yourself. What you build your identity around. When someone who knows you hears your name, they often immediately visualize their experiences with you and think about how they will engage with you next.The same holds true for a brand.
Our name is theCut. It’s pronounced, “The Cut.” Our name is written as one word, but pronounced as two.
theCut:
- The first three letters in our name are lowercase.
- The fourth letter is uppercase.
- The last two are lower case.
Our cursive logo is available via Resources. But when writing about us, our name should be written as described above.
The one exception to this rule when our name is used in a title or in a paragraph header where the text is in all caps. In this instance our name should be “THECUT”.
Color
Our logo is displayed in two colors: black and white.
Logo should never be gold.
Exclusion zone
To ensure the logo is clearly visible, surround it with space free of elements that might cause confusion. The logo’s exclusion zone is equal to the height of the logo.
Partnerships
Follow the exclusion zone guidelines when locking theCut logo with affiliated logos. That means you should separate partner logos by a distance greater than or equal to the height of theCut logo.
Stamped Logo
This section covers the details of our STAMPED wordmark and brandmark. You can find a downloadable version under Resources.
Color
Our logo is displayed in two colors: white with gold blade, or black with gold blade.
Exclusion zone
To ensure the logo is clearly visible, surround it with space free of elements that might cause confusion. The logo’s exclusion zone is equal to the height of the logo.
Partnerships
Follow the exclusion zone guidelines when locking the STAMPED wordmark with affiliated logos. That means you should separate partner logos by a distance greater than or equal to the height of theCut logo.
Brand color palettes
We’ve organized our main color palette into three categories primary, nuetrals, and gradients. This could expand over time.
Our primary tint color / accent color is gold. We chose gold because it represents what we want for barbers: success, achievement and triumph.
It should be used sparingly, it’s used as our tint color within our app to draw your eye. In marketing materials it’s used as the “Cherry-on-top” to give content theCut feel.
Typography
Montserrat
When looking for fonts, we wanted to find a San Serif font that was clean and simple but could bring a significant impact both in marketing materials and inside of the app. This font was created by Julieta Ulanovsky and inspired by the Montserrat neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Julieta created Montserrat font to help preserve Buenos Aire's history as the city continued to contemporize. We wanted to capture that same impact as we modernize the barber industry.
Heading
Use all caps and bold weight.
Bold
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Body
Use sentence case and regular/light weight.
Regular
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
Light
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
Patterns
Camo pattern
Our pattern aims to create strong brand recognition, bring depth to brand identity, and create a memorable brand experience. To focus on the foreground elements, the contrast for the camo pattern should never exceed 1.18:1.
Variations
Feel free to magnify the grafitti to create a more abstract background. You can also show the edge of the grafitti if you don’t want the pattern to fill the entire area
Examples
Feel free to use dark or light camo for backgrounds. You can also combine both light and dark camo pattern for a cool contrast effect.
Distressed pattern
This is another pattern that we leverage with the camo pattern.
Examples
Feel free to use dark or light camo for backgrounds. You can also combine both light and dark camo pattern for a cool contrast effect.
Photography
Composition and context
The people and objects we include in our photos provide our audience with all the context it needs to understand our brand. For us, that's the urban barbershop community: fresh fades, tattoos, streetwear, dope sneakers, hip hop, and street art.
Enviroment
It’s important to establish consistency with location and lighting. Preferred locations are inside a barbershop or in a urban enviroment and lighting should be leveraged to create drama.
franchise or stock photography vibe.
Color palette
The people and objects we include in our photos provide our audience with all the context it needs to understand our brand. For us, that's the urban barbershop community: fresh fades, tattoos, streetwear, dope sneakers, hip hop, and street art.
Writing
Guidelines
Who we are
theCut is a holistic tool that serves the dual role of assisting in organizing and automating individual barber operations, removing the guesswork out of finding a new barber, and making the process of getting a haircut seamless and painless.
theCut is a technology company, but we’re a lifestyle brand. Disagree? Think about it. Everything is better with a fresh cut, the way you walk, the way you talk, how you feel. With a fresh cut no one can tell you anything. You run faster, play harder, and stand taller. With a fresh cut, you have that much more confidence to land the job or win the girl, guy, or other, depending on your preference. Anthony “Spice” Adams has become famous beyond the internet, making videos. One of his first was a series of videos about his life before a haircut — sad, lonely and depressed — then after, bold, brash, ready to conquer all.
Everything is better with a fresh cut, and theCut is the solution that sits on your phone, always within reach that helps you live life better.
Our audiences
We have two distinct audiences as a business tool and a beauty and grooming technology solution. Barbers, Stylists, Beauty & Grooming Professionals. This audience uses our product as a business solution to streamline operations and increase financial gain.
The brand new new
From all walks of life. Decided to pick up some clippers and see what it do. The New G has some skills but low to moderate business acumen. She/he needs all the help they can get to create a schedule, manage payments, learn about the dos and don’ts of the industry. This barber is open and willing to experiment with different apps.
The OG seasoned
Don’t even try to win an argument. This man is old enough to be your daddy or your uncle, momma and auntie. You know the type – full of energy and has an answer for everything. Their razors, shears and clippers have put food on the table and put kids through school. They may even be a shop owner. If time stood still they’d do just fine. But it isn’t. They’re lacking in tech solutions to streamline their operations. This barber is considering entering the 21st century but needs to be served content that directly speaks to a problem they are having. They will require a bit more hand-holding and won’t be swayed by flashy graphics and ads.
The new School
A barber who is 2-7 years in the game. Tech-savvy, up on the latest trends, a hard worker with a modest, earned and loyal following who grinds day in and day out to make their personal brand the customers they represent look fresh, sharp and clean. This barber has skin in the game, is a great sixth man off the bench and is only one or two tweaks, classes, features, or opportunities from becoming a Boss Barber.
The boss barber
Potentially, the hardest sell. They are tech-savvy, built their business from the ground up, and have pioneered or cornered a niche in grooming and they have the following to prove it. The first and maybe only request they will make is “Tell me why should I switch over to you?” This person has their operations on lock and appreciates 5-star customer service and account management. It’s what they come to expect because they give it.
What these personas have in common is that the Barber is on the Hero’s Journey. The hero’s journey is described as a story or series of stories that involves a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home changed or transformed. For our purposes here at theCut barbers are our heroes. The challenges they face every day from booking, to mastering their craft, to becoming and remaining financially and/or commercially successful is the journey. We are rooting for them. We champion them. Our goal is to help them become successful (victorious) in the craft as well as financially.
Customers and clientes
As stated earlier, here at theCut we have two distinct audiences that comprise our user base. Customers/clients are the people seeking haircuts, for whatever reason — travel, seeking a new barber, not wanting to wait at the shop, not wanting to pay cash, etc. They are the barbers’ consumers.
The Client, no different than a patient seeking medical care, wants to be made better and or whole after going to his/her barber.
Deion Sanders said it best:
The above applies to all walks of life. Our goal here at theCut is to position the brand as an essential key to looking good. After all, Everything is Better with a Fresh Cut.
The words we use
The words we use
We use content here at theCut to surprise and delight our audiences. Our brand is young and sophisticated, in touch with the times while fully aware of the proud history of barbering that makes what we do possible. We are an urban brand and we do urban things, but we’re inclusive of all, no matter their color, creed, or socioeconomic status.
The words we don't use
Barbering isn’t a “hustle” or a “grind”. We aren’t taking barbering to the “next level”. We are modernizing the barbershop experience. As such, we stay away from all modern-day colloquialisms and slang that belong to the “hustle hard” lexicon.
Voice
Authentic
We are who we say we are.
We’re the real deal. We’re true to our mission and speak from a place of genuine care for the communities we serve. We have no alternate agendas or hidden motives. We mean what we say, and say what we mean
Example:
Whether you chose the barber life, or the barber life chose you - we’re here to help you build a legacy.
Empowering
We help others see their power.
We recognize that it’s not enough to provide an excellent app. We want to help barbers and barbershop owners meet the best version of themselves. That starts with tools, resources and knowledge to help them to identify and acknowledge their unique power.
Example:
There’s no doubt, you got skills and now it’s time to build a booming business to prove it.
Nostalgic
We respect where it all started.
We celebrate the decorated history of barbering and the undeniable impact of the barbershop in the communities we serve. The barbershop has always been a safe space for men of color to openly converse, heal, love and laugh. It’s more than just a haircut- it’s culture.
Example:
Cities change, trends change, people change too. One thing that will always be the same? The undeniable vibes of a barbershop.
Relatable
We see you ‘cause we are you.
We’re building a connection between theCut and our users. It’s up to us to gain their trust by making them feel seen and heard in what we say and how we say it. We are a reflection of our target audience. We should always speak like it.
Example:
Bruh, your DM’s are in shambles— we’ve all been there. Organize your clients and manage your schedule using theCut.
Tone
If our voice is our personality, our tone is our mood. It changes depending on what we’re saying and who we’re saying it to.
Think of our traits (sincere, inspirational, guiding and empowering) as ingredients you can use to craft any piece of writing. Sometimes you might need more of one and less of another.
When we’re making a first impression (take paid ads as an example), aspirational and empowering messages will resonate most. When our audience is considering our product (maybe by visiting our site or reading user testimonials), we need to focus on proving our expertise and trustworthiness. Messaging around product announcements or big company news will always need more energy than “business” stuff (like account changes), where our priority will be informing the user in a way that gets them excited to be “a part of the family/community.”
Ap Style
We (mostly) follow AP Style for all our written content. Here are a few important rules to note:
AP Style doesn’t use the Oxford comma, so neither do we. This is such a common question, it has its own section.State abbreviations differ from postal service abbreviations. See how to format addresses correctly here.Write out numbers one through nine, and use numerals for 10 or higher. Refer to this section for more info.Dates should be formatted “day, month, year” if the audience is international, or “month, day, year” if you’ll only have U.S. readers. Either way, don’t include “st”, “nd”, “rd” or “th”. Visit this page for more date details.
We break with AP Style in a few notable areas:
Use “okay” instead of “OK.” (And please never use “ok” or “Ok.”). When writing a title or headline, follow the Chicago Manual of Style instead of AP. The key differences are outlined in our capitalization section. More questions? Just Google your conundrum with “AP Style,” and the internet will provide. If not, get in touch with your friendly neighborhood content folks via #writing-at-thecut and we’ll do our best to sort it out.
Capitilization
Capitalization is a dangerous power to wield. If you get too liberal with it, you end up with a dizzying array of mismatched letter sizes before you can blink an eye.
“Title Case” vs. “Sentence Case”
When we say “title case,” we’re referring to content where nearly all of the words start with a capital letter. Title case applies mostly to copy in headlines and buttons.
“Sentence case” is when you capitalize content like it’s a sentence — only the first letter of the first word is capitalized, along with any proper nouns.
Headlines, Subheads and Body Copy
The key takeaways:
- Headlines should be ALL CAPS with no end punctuation.
- Subheads and body copy should always be sentence case.
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Abbreviations
States
When a state name appears in the body of a text, spell it out. When the name of a city and state are used together, the name of the state should be abbreviated (except for Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Utah).
There are two ways to abbreviate a state name: the postal service abbreviation (two capital letters with no punctuation), and what AP Style recommends. AP Style can seem a bit inconsistent — for example, Nebraska is shortened to “Neb.” instead of “NE,” and New Mexico is “N.M.” instead of “NM.” The full list is on Wikipedia—be sure you’re looking at the “AP” column.
If you’re writing UI copy, use postal abbreviations to save space. For everything else, follow AP Style.
Countries
Most of the time, country names should be fully spelled out. The exceptions are when there’s a commonly accepted abbreviation, such as “U.S.” for the United States, or “U.K.” for the United Kingdom. Make sure your audience will understand the reference, and don’t forget to preface the abbreviation with “the.”
Addresses
When it comes to addresses that include a street number, abbreviate avenue (Ave.), boulevard (Blvd.), street (St.) and directional parts of street names. Otherwise, write out all generic parts of street names (avenue, north, road). For more rules on formatting addresses — including how to write addresses in our product—check this page.
Versus, VS, V
In UI copy, always display “versus” as “vs” without a period.
In long-form writing, like in marketing materials or support articles, you can spell out the entire word or abbreviate to “vs.” with a period.
We never use just “v” to represent “versus.”
Symbols (“&”) vs. Words (“and”)
This one’s easy — only use “&” in navigational labels, title case headlines, or the official name of a company or product.
These are our prices & packages.
Pricing & Packaging
Common Latin Phrases
(“e.g.” and “i.e.”)
Though we don’t want our voice to be pretentious, these Latin abbreviations are occasionally the most concise way to convey our message. E.g. and i.e. are both used to add details, but they’re not interchangeable.
The easiest way to remember the difference is to learn their meaning. E.g. means “for example” and i.e. means “in other words.” When wondering which to use, just substitute the meaning of each abbreviation into your sentence to see which makes more sense.
I like movies based on comic books (e.g., Ironman, Captain America, Batman, etc).
I like movies based on comic books (e.g., Ironman, Captain America, Batman, etc).
Schools & Grades #
For editorial and product content with space concerns, high school can be shortened to “HS”. Grades can also be abbreviated for player descriptions (leave off the period for product copy):
Freshman: “Fr.”
Sophomore: “So.”
Junior: “Jr.”
Senior: “Sr.”
Punctuation
Periods
The period gives your thought a hard stop before beginning a brand new, self-sustaining sentence. Think of it as an extended pause between the two. It should be used at the end of just about every sentence that’s not a question. (Unless it’s a title case headline.)
This one’s easy — only use “&” in navigational labels, title case headlines, or the official name of a company or product.
We help barbers win.
With performance analysis tools.
We help barbers win with performance analysis tools.
Not sure if you have a sentence? There should be a subject and a verb, maybe even an object. If it’s not a complete sentence, it’s called a “fragment.” In marketing or long-form copy, we’ve been known to allow fragments for stylistic reasons. (Reach out to Eric Payne on Slack if you need advice.)
And as you’ve seen in this section, there’s no need to add two spaces after your period. We’re not writing on typewriters anymore, so a single space is all you need.
Exclamation points
We don’t want to seem like we’re yelling at our audience, so use exclamation points sparingly. Stick to one per content piece or product interface, and only if it’s appropriate. Never use more than one at the end of a single sentence. If you want the reader to get excited about something, use your words.
We help barbers win!
Congrats! You just invested intheCut for your barbershop!
There are two clear-cut moments where the exclamation is a no-brainer:
- What we’re telling them is really going to change their life. Not in the marketing “this product is pretty awesome” sense, but in the “this could be our biggest release of all time” sense.
- The message preceding the exclamation is beyond important and we need to make sure they realize the significance. As in, they’re about to delete something forever, make an irreversible change or spend $1 million.
Question marks
If you put one at the end of a sentence, make sure we’re really asking a question. And if we don’t provide the answer (either in the content or with a CTA), make sure it’s a rhetorical question. Why? A question the reader can’t answer comes off as condescending. Not our style.
Questions work well in subject lines, headlines and confirmations. Avoid putting them where interaction is harder to come by, like an empty state or tooltip.
We help barbers win.
With performance analysis tools.
Ready to share? Use the linkbelow to get started.
Overall, question marks should be used sparingly. However, if the content is formatted with question, answer, question, answer, etc., multiple is totally fine.
Apostrophes
Adding an apostrophe should do one of two things:
- Indicate a contraction (it’s, we’re, he’ll, etc.)
- Indicate ownership (Michael’s, the president’s, our neighbors’)
We love contractions, so definitely use apostrophes for those. But what do apostrophes not do? They don’t make singular words plural. (Football games are on “Fridays,” not “Friday’s.”)
It’s hard to read if this headline’stoo many confusing apostrophes.
We’ll let you know as soon asit’s ready.
The most common (and potentially confusing) use of the apostrophe at TheCut appears on team names: “boys’ varsity football,” “women’s JV soccer,” etc. Here’s how it works:
- If there’s an “s” at the end of the plural noun (“boys,” “girls”), the apostrophe goes at the very end.
- Indicate ownership (Michael’s, the president’s, our neighbors’)
Commas
These useful guys indicate pauses within sentences. Not sure about adding a comma? Read the thing out loud. If you pause naturally, it’s probably okay to add one.
You can share any full game orcustom playlist, with the entireteam or individual athletes, just byselecting the intended recipients.
When it comes to sharing customplaylists with coaches andathletes, all existing commentand drawings will be visible.
Commas are also used to separate some items in a list, but we don’t use the Oxford comma.
Ampersands
As mentioned in our abbreviations section, the ampersand is a replacement for “and.” It should only be used in official names, navigational labels and short, title case headlines.
We don’t use ampersands in subheadings or body copy for a few reasons:
- It’s not AP Style.
- You might accidentally switch from the symbol to “and,” especially in longer pieces. Things could get messy.
- Using the symbol draws the reader’s attention to the most inconsequential word in your writing. Don’t give it the satisfaction.
Dashed and hyphens
Did you know em dashes ( — ), en dashes ( – ) and hyphens (-) aren’t interchangeable? They each have different purposes. But there’s one rule that applies to all three: no matter what, never add spaces to either side of your dash or hyphen.
We don’t use ampersands in subheadings or body copy for a few reasons:
- It’s not AP Style.
- You might accidentally switch from the symbol to “and,” especially in longer pieces. Things could get messy.
- Using the symbol draws the reader’s attention to the most inconsequential word in your writing. Don’t give it the satisfaction.
Em dash
One of TheCut’s favorite pieces of punctuation is the em dash. It’s the long dash you can put in place of nearly every other piece of punctuation.
We don’t use ampersands in subheadings or body copy for a few reasons:
- It can connect two separate, but related and complete thoughts (a semicolon also does this).
- It can create a dramatic effect before a punchy close.
- A pair can frame an aside in the middle of a sentence, like parentheses or commas.
One of TheCut’s favorite pieces of punctuation is the em dash. It’s the long dash you can put in place of nearly every other piece of punctuation.
We don’t use ampersands in subheadings or body copy for a few reasons:
- It can connect two separate, but related and complete thoughts (a semicolon also does this).
- It can create a dramatic effect before a punchy close.
- A pair can frame an aside in the middle of a sentence, like parentheses or commas.
The game—5 p.m.
The game is at 5 p.m.—don’tbe late.
Within the product, em dashes should only be used in wordy modals or longer blocks of text.
To create an em dash on a Mac, press the shift, option and hyphen keys. On a PC, hold down Alt, then type 0151, then let go of Alt.
En dash
Use the shorter en dash in place of “to” or “through.” It’s the dash we use to represent number ranges.
- The session will run from 1 – 3 p.m.
- These are the results from FY19 – 20.
To create an en dash on a Mac, press the option and hyphen keys. On a PC, hold down Alt, then type 0150, then let go of Alt.
Hyphen
In the case of numbers, use hyphens to separate non-inclusive digits, like a phone number or Social Security number.
With words, you can use a hyphen to make one word out of two. Hyphenate two (or more!) words into a compound adjective when they come before the noun they modify:
- High-quality video
- Out-of-season haircut
We don’t use ampersands in subheadings or body copy for a few reasons:
- The video is high quality.
- That scrimmage was out of season.
Colons
Other than using it to format time correctly (3:30 p.m.), the main use for a colon is to introduce a list. The AP Style rule of thumb is to only capitalize the word that begins the list or series if it’s a proper noun.
- “TheCut has several video review tools: playlists, text effects and drawings.”
- “We have three forwards: Mike, Dan and Sam.”
But with rules come exceptions:
- If the list or series extends over multiple sentences, you should capitalize the first word after the colon.
- Capitalize the first word after the colon if you’re introducing a complete sentence that clarifies or expands on the original sentence.
Semicolons
Around here, we don’t use semicolons much. Their main value is to clarify a list within a sentence that already has multiple commas. But since we strive to be conversational and concise, it’s probably a better idea to rephrase.
They can also be used to connect two related, complete thoughts. But stylistically, we prefer using an em dash for that purpose.
Parenthesis
AP Style isn’t a huge fan of parentheses because they can often be replaced with other types of punctuation, like commas or em dashes. But we use them when appropriate. Information included in parentheses is supplementary to the rest of the sentence, like an example of what you just described or an additional clarification.
If the parenthetical text is a complete sentence, use sentence case and add correct end punctuation before the last parenthesis. If the parenthetical is a fragment, any necessary punctuation for the rest of the sentence will be outside the parenthesis.
theCut helps barbers (and workers win.).
theCut can help any level of barbering (e.g., elite, college, high school and youth).
Quotation marks
It’s right in the name — quotation marks go around a quote, which is something someone said. Here are the details:
- Periods and commas always go within quotation marks, unless you’re quoting an exact word or phrase where the addition of the punctuation would be inaccurate.
- All other punctuation: determine if it applies to the whole sentence. If so, it goes outside the quotation. If the punctuation only applies to what’s within the quotation marks, it goes inside them.
- Single quotation marks should be used only for a quote within a quote, or for a quote within a headline.
- If a running quotation spans multiple paragraphs, you only need the closing quotation mark on the last paragraph. (You still need opening quotation marks at the beginning of each new paragraph in the quote.)
But they don’t stop there. Add quotes around terms or phrases your audience may not be familiar with (i.e., jargon), or to call out words or phrases you’re referring to.
Check out the What's Next?
report in your library.
Check out the "What's Next?"
report in your library.
Ellipses
At some point (maybe not since school), you’ve probably used the ol’ “dot dot dot.” This punctuation indicates the deletion of one or more words when you’re condensing quotes or other texts. Just remember to be careful not to delete anything that could distort the meaning of the sentence.
“theCut is a company that helps barbers.”
“theCut is a company [...]”
“theCut […] helps barbers.”
An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a thought you (as the writer) don’t complete for emphasis. However, we don’t recommend using them for this purpose as it can get confusing for the reader.
Divider punctuation
When we need to separate distinct pieces of information on a single line, we use the “middle dot” ( • ) instead of a pipe ( | ) or a shift in typography. You can type the middle dot by hitting option + 8 on your Mac or PC.
This Is a Headline • This is the longer subhead!
High School A vs High School B • Feb 3, 2020
Date, numbers, and addresses
Dates
Dates should be formatted as “day, month, year” if the audience is international, or “month, day, year” if you’ll only have U.S. readers.
- Don’t include “st,” “nd,” “rd” or “th.” Simply put, it’s “July 1,” not “July 1st.” (Pro tip: numbers written like “1st” are called ordinal numbers. They’re generally a no-no.)
- You don’t need a comma when writing just a month and year (July 2020). If you include a day, be sure to set off the year with a comma (July 1, 2020). Don’t include commas for our international date format (1 July 2020).
- Abbreviate January, February, August, September, October, November and December when writing a specific date (Nov. 1, 2020). When you aren’t indicating a specific date, write out the full month (November 2020).
- If you’re really pressed for space, you can abbreviate days of the week and months to three letters. End abbreviations with a period, except for when you’re writing within the product.
- Always use numerals for years; never spell them out.
- When expressing decades or centuries, add the letter “s” without an apostrophe. Only use an apostrophe before figures for decades when numerals are left out (e.g., the ‘90s).
September 28th, 2020
7 January 2020
Referencing Dates in Product
Most of the AP Style rules still apply here, but with less space, it’s more likely you’ll have to abbreviate days and months.
- Use three-letter abbreviations with no periods (every pixel counts!).
- Even if space is tight, never shorten the year. It could get confused with the actual day.
- Even though numbers-only formats for dates are shorter, avoid them. There could be confusion when localization rearranges the order. Plus, placeholder zeroes get tricky.
Oct. 6, ‘20
Oct 6, 2020
Time
To be as clear as possible about the time you mean, follow these rules:
- Use lowercase letters and periods to differentiate between a.m. and p.m. times.
- Don’t include colons for times on the hour.
- Avoid “yesterday” or “tomorrow.” Use the specific day of the week instead.
3:00pm
3 p.m.
The training is 11-2.
The training is 11 a.m.–2 p.m.
Only include the time zone when the time pertains to a specific location or event that might not be local. Don’t include S(tandard) or D(aylight) in the time zone — it’s easy to get the two confused over the course of a year, so better to leave it out.
Referencing Time in Product #
For the sake of space when expressing time, drop the periods in a.m. and p.m and eliminate the space after the last digit, but make sure you still always include am or pm. Also, don’t use a 24-hour format — this will help distinguish the time of day from something like the duration of a video.
Oct 25, 7:30 p.m.
Oct 25, 7:30pm
For items that have a longer life span within the product, like feed cards and exchanges, it’s important to clearly communicate when something was created or shared. Each timestamp should be exact — don’t include “about” before them.
- New within the hour, use “ago”: 13 minutes ago.
- Shared or created that day: 2:16pm.
- Shared or created yesterday: Yesterday at 2:16pm.
- New within the last week: Wednesday at 2:16pm.
- At least one week old, but less than a month: Mar 6, 2:16pm.
- At least one month old, but less than a year: Mar 6.
- One year or older: Mar 6, 2020.
- We’re a video and data company, so we need to express the time duration of videos and clips often. Here are the guidelines for how we approach this:
We need to express the time duration of videos and clips often. Here are the guidelines for how we approach this:
- Always include the digits for minutes and seconds. Hour digits are not required until the video or user activity hits the hour mark.
- Include a zero as the minute digit for durations less than sixty seconds.
- Durations under 10 minutes can be displayed as a single minute digit.
- Milliseconds aren’t required and shouldn’t be used in any static displays of time. If you’re using milliseconds for elapsed time as the video plays, use a period instead of a colon.
- Never use “h,” “m” or “s” for hours, minutes and seconds. Stick to the colon format.
59s
00:08:14
1:23:15:41
0:59
8:14
1:23:15.41
Numbers
Write out numbers one through nine, and use numerals for 10 or higher. (You can use numerals for numbers under 10 when writing addresses, ages, monetary values, dates, times, sizes/dimensions, percentages, speeds or temperatures.)
Twenty-eight teams competed in the tournament.
Nine players were paid $12 million.
Here’s a few more general rules to keep in mind:
- When using age as an adjective phrase before a noun, use hyphens. Drop them if the noun comes first.
- My 34-year-old friend remains impressively athletic.
- My friend is 34 years old.
- “Thousands,” “millions” and “billions” may be shortened to “K,” “M” and “B” when displayed in a graphic treatment.
- For percentages, use the % sign, no space, paired with a numeral.
The average number of home runs per game increased 15% this season.
- Avoid starting sentences with a number, unless referencing a year.
1977 was the last year the Minnesota Vikings went to the Super Bowl.
- Finally, when talking quantities, it’s always “more than,” not “over.”
We have more than 10 million users.
Decimals
For clarity and accuracy, decimals are always written as numerals, even if the number less than nine. In basketball, “3-pointer” is also written as a numeral since it’s a statistic.
Johnson averaged 8.4 points per game last season.
Smith hit four 3-pointers in the win.
Paired numbers
When two numbers come next to each other in a sentence, spell out one of these numbers. The main purpose of this rule is to avoid confusion for the reader. This could require you to write out a number larger than nine.
The Tigers won with fifteen 3-pointers.
Addresses
Write out all generic parts of street names (avenue, north, road) when you’re not talking about a specific address. Otherwise, include a street number, and abbreviate avenue (Ave.), boulevard (Blvd.), street (St.) and directional parts of street names.
Also, heads up! State abbreviations differ from postal service abbreviations.
- Nebraska is shortened to “Neb.” instead of “NE.”
Most of them live on that St.
They live at 202 Federal St.
Referencing Addresses in Product
Here’s an exception to AP Style. When referring to specific addresses in UI copy, use postal abbreviations to save space.
70 Federal St.
Lincoln, Neb. 02210
70 Federal St
Lincoln, NE 02210