Typography

With every piece of communication, we make a statement about who we are. To instantly communicate our brand identity to audiences, we must use consistent typography.

On this page

Primary Font

UBC’s primary font, Whitney, should be used in all formal communications* to establish a strong, institutional look.

It can be downloaded for free as a desktop or web font.

Submit UBC font request

*For exceptions, review alternative fonts below.

Alternative Fonts

If Whitney is not available for your medium, you can use:

  • Arial (Regular or Bold) – recommended for Word and PowerPoint to reduce typography issues
  • Open Sans (Light, Regular, or Bold) – recommended for websites

External vendors or consultants must purchase their own font files

  • Whitney is available for purchase through Hoefler & Co
  • Arial is a system font
  • Open Sans is available for download through Google Fonts

Hierarchy

When creating a document with writing of any kind, we aim to assign visual importance to each piece of copy. The reader should be able to easily differentiate between sections, and they should understand where to look.

As a general rule, we use sentence case for all headers and subheads. Do not use periods in headers when punctuating.

The specifications provided are for print applications like Microsoft Office and Adobe Create Cloud suites, thus the typography examples on this page may not be true to specifications.

ElementSpecsFontKerningTracking

Header

36pt / 36ptWhitney SemiboldOptical10

Subhead 1

21pt / 24ptWhitney MediumOptical-10

Subhead 2

16pt / 18pt (UPPERCASE)Whitney SemiboldOptical+80

Body 1

18pt / 22ptWhitney BookOptical-10

Body 2

14pt / 18ptWhitney BookOptical-10

Application

Typography should be used to effectively emphasize and organize information on a page. These examples outline how we use our typography in a layout.

Download Assets

Official UBC Fonts

Submit a request to UBC Brand and Marketing for the official UBC fonts.

UBC font request form

Brand Templates

The following brand templates are available:

  • PowerPoint
  • Social Media
  • Digital Signage
  • One-pagers
  • Brochures
  • Postcards
  • Posters
  • Trade Banners
  • Email Headers

Download the assets from the APSC intranet – EAD\CWL login may be required.

Brand Templates