Guidelines for Style, Usage, and Graphics
in Trinity School Communications

Visual Brand Standards

Why do we have graphic standards?

The use of graphic standards and a uniform style reinforces Trinity’s visual identity. Visual elements such as colors, logos, and layout play a crucial role in communicating a consistent, effective message to people both inside and outside our school community. A strong visual identity is a key part of our enrollment management, advancement, and faculty recruitment efforts, and it enables people to more easily recognize Trinity’s “brand” in the marketplace.           

Fonts

Colors

Logos

Writing Style Guide

Like many schools and colleges, Trinity follows a specific style for writing and usage in all of our communications—in print and electronic communications and on our website. Having a consistent style and usage is important for maintaining the clarity and quality of our school communications.

We ask that Trinity faculty and staff follow Trinity style in all school-related emails, newsletters, and other school communications.

Our two main style references:

• The Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.), is Trinity’s official style guide and reference book. It lists rules for punctuation, capitalization, and usage, along with rules for bibliographies, indexes, and much more. Many schools and universities use the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) as a guide for their written communication. Trinity follows Chicago style, with some exceptions (see below).

• Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) is our resource for matters of spelling, hyphenation, and meaning.

Trinity Style

Here are some of the most common elements of Trinity's style, some of which differ from Chicago style. For matters of style and usage that aren't mentioned below, we follow the conventions in the Chicago Manual of Style and the spellings and hyphenations in Merriam-Webster's.

Punctuation

• Use the serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma)—that is, a comma before “and” in lists of three or more items.

• Use hyphens, en dashes (–), and em dashes (—) as in Chicago style. Don't use hyphens after most common prefixes, including pre-, post-, re-, non-, and sub-.  Check the dictionary or the CMOS hyphenation table if you have a question about whether to use a hyphen in a particular word.

• Use only hyphens (not parentheses or periods) in phone and fax numbers.

• Use periods in a.m. and p.m. (and remember that 12 p.m. = noon). Put a space between the numeral and a.m. or p.m.

• Put only one space after punctuation marks.

Numbers

• Spell out zero and the numbers from one to nine and use numerals for 10 and up. Exceptions: grades (grades 9–12), percentages, and in contexts with both larger and smaller numbers (for example: There are 12 students in the chorus but only 7 in the ensemble.).

• Spell out first through ninth and use superscripted -st, -nd, -rd, or -th for 10th and up.

• Use commas for 1,000 and up.

Capitalization

Grades and Divisions:

• Lower School, Middle School, Upper School

• Lower Schoolers, Middle Schoolers, Upper Schoolers but freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors

• transitional kindergarten but TK

• kindergarten, first grade, seventh grade, ninth grade

• kindergartners, fourth graders, eighth graders (not 4th graders, 8th graders)

• grades 2–6 (not 2nd–6th grades)

Subjects and Classes:

• Class and course names are capitalized (Bible, Humanities, Algebra I, Theology II, Chemistry, Senior Capstone).

• In the Lower School: Use capital letters for the content areas within the classroom instruction (Language Arts, Math, Art, Music). For unit studies, use capitals for the name of the unit study but not the words "unit study" (Colonial Trade unit study, Baby Chicks unit study).

• Generic references to subjects are lowercased, except for "Bible" and language names (algebra teacher, language arts curriculum, Latin instruction, chemistry experiment).  Proper names are capitalized (Singapore Math, Augustine Literacy Project).

Rooms, Buildings, and Spaces:

• Lower School Building, South Building, Modular, Arts and Engineering Building, Blue Gym, Gold Gym, the HUB

• Upper School commons, South Building mezzanine, Lower School library

• Hundred Acre Woods (plural, unlike in Winnie-the-Pooh)  

Titles:

• Use the official Trinity titles or positions listed on our website.

• Capitalize official titles before or after a person’s name. If the person's name comes first, follow it with a comma. (Head of School Chip Denton; Head of Lower School Amy Chauncey; Jez McIntosh, Associate Head of School; Karman Kent, Director of College Counseling).

• Use lowercase for generic references to a person’s position. (Karman Kent is Trinity’s college counselor and Dr. Denton is our head of school.)

• Capitalize the names of school offices and departments, but use lowercase for "department" and "office" (Enrollment Management office, Fine Arts department  but: Business Office)

• Capitalize the names of school committees and the word "Committee" (Education Committee, Admission Committee, Land and Building Committee, Finance and Investment Committee).

• Capitalize Board of Trustees and the Board when referring to Trinity's Board, but use lowercase for general reference to trustees.

School Events:

• All official school events are capitalized in headline style (Back-to-School Night, Lessons and Carols, Blue-Gold Games, Winter Formal, Spirit Week, Closing Chapel).

• There is no apostrophe in Grandparents Day.

Teams and Sports:

• Follow this pattern for team names, using only the parts needed to distinguish the team and the sport: [MS/JV/Varsity] [Blue/Gold/Navy] [Boys/Girls] [Sport]

• Examples:  MS Girls Soccer, MS Navy Boys Basketball, MS Cross-Country; Varsity Volleyball, JV Boys Basketball, JV Girls Soccer, Varsity Swimming

• Cross-Country always has a hyphen; Track & Field has an ampersand.

Special Cases

• internet (no initial capital), email, website, webpage  but home page

• Head of School (not Headmaster)

• Head of Lower School, Head of Middle School, Head of Upper School (not Lower School Head, etc.)

• Board of Trustees (not Board of Directors)

• Enrollment Management office (not Admission office)

• Covid-19 (do not use ALL CAPS).