Imagery

Similar to color and typefaces, photography must be considered at all points to convey a consistent brand message. Specific photo styles have been selected to properly reinforce the bold, ambitious “in-the-moment” tone of the GW brand.

Our photographic styles include angled architecture, unstaged moments, motion and stylized portraits. GW is in and of D.C. and our community takes full advantage of our location. Photos should support this unique attribute and help to tell this story. The tone of all photography should be idealistic, ambitious, influential, engaged, socially responsible, diverse, passionate, fearless and innovative.

Treatments added to photos, such as color-washing, can add additional creativity to photography and attract attention in a different way. Designers may choose to use color-washing for various reasons, but it should primarily be used for the cover of books, large-scale creative pieces and pieces that have a large quantity of content. Colors for color washes must be chosen from GW’s color palette.

Full bleed (or edge-to-edge) imagery allows the viewer to get “in the moment” with the content of the piece, as well as provides an engaging platform to present graphic elements and typographic lockups.

Photography may be used within a parallelogram-shaped container as a way to provide support imagery to full bleed or color-wash images. In some cases, a parallelogram may not be appropriate as a container or the image simply does not fit within a parallelogram. In these cases, a square or rectangle may be used.

Do's & Don'ts of Imagery Treatments

Do

• Use engaging, in-the-moment photography
• Consult with our photography team for help with photo selection

Don't

• Use clearly staged photography
• Use photography in unapproved containers