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.

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)
  • Open Sans (Light, Regular, or Bold)

For Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, use Arial to reduce typography issues.

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.

Header

  • Specs
  • Font
  • Kerning
  • Tracking
  • 36pt / 36pt
  • Whitney Semibold
  • Optical
  • 10

Subhead 1

  • Specs
  • Font
  • Kerning
  • Tracking
  • 21pt / 24pt
  • Whitney Medium
  • Optical
  • -10

Subhead 2

  • Specs
  • Font
  • Kerning
  • Tracking
  • Styling
  • 16pt / 18pt
  • Whitney Semibold
  • Optical
  • +80
  • Uppercase

Body 1

  • Specs
  • Font
  • Kerning
  • Tracking
  • 18pt / 22pt
  • Whitney Book
  • Optical
  • -10

Body 2

  • Specs
  • Font
  • Kerning
  • Tracking
  • 14pt / 18pt
  • Whitney Book
  • Optical
  • -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

Applied Science Templates

The following APSC templates are available:

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

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

APSC Templates library