Don't send a font to do a Style Manual’s work…

I'm a designer so I'm not the guy to say what's technically possible (although I doubt if it can be done). Just wanted to mention making making employees stick to graphic standards (such as colors) is a common problem, especially when they have no design training. Teaching them the rules is one thing; getting them to understand the importance of sticking to them is often the bigger challenge.

You need to educate them on the guidelines, have someone high up in the organization impress upon them that the company is serious about this, provide templates when you can, and have someone review documents they produce and tell them when they're doing it wrong.

Print out a card with the following text and distribute to all users:

“Anyone who uses our corporate font in any color but black will be fired.”

That should do the trick.

The short answer is no, this is not possible, short of exotic or experimental font formats. You can't do it with TypeTool.

What may be helpful to you is to define a palette of character and paragraph styles in your layout application and then instruct your designers to use those styles rather than build up their typographic formatting from scratch. Do the same thing with colors — add your corporate colors to the swatches menu and then remove everything else.

(Especially if your designers are not experienced or not professionals, it may actually help to make them use InDesign or some other program they're unfamiliar with, rather than Word, as it may deter them from trying to mess with the settings. You can point them to the styles window and say, "You choose what the type looks like by clicking on one of these styles." Of course, the better idea is having well-trained and intelligent designers who can both inhabit the brand guidelines and also adjust them as necessary in sensitive and appropriate ways. But since you asked about restrictions …)

Style sheets can be a good idea, but I don't think the problem will be the tools they're using. It'll be getting managers to enforce the rules. And many managers just won't care unless their bosses tells them it's important.

I once saw a secretary modifying her company's logo with a marker pen (it was an outline logo and she filled it in). She told me she did it on every piece that left her office because she thought it looked better that way. Her manager didn't care. It didn't stop until someone higher up finally put their foot down.

Ok thanks for all your help!

We are creating guidelines for the organisation and I think the Clients concern is how they're going to enforce it and get employees on board, exactly what you guys have said, restricting the colours would be that magic (and impossible) answer. I think the main application it's going to be used by employees is Microsoft Office ,so I think the best thing to do is look at some template themes/styles that can be easily saved and applied by the employees.

And JamesM

"I once saw a secretary modifying her company's logo with a marker pen (it was an outline logo and she filled it in). She told me she did it on every piece that left her office because she thought it looked better that way. Her manager didn't care. It didn't stop until someone higher up finally put their foot down."

That gives me chills.

> That gives me chills

Yep. Over the years I've seen that many folks just aren't concerned about identity standards, they consider it nit-picky nonsense. That's why it's important for upper management to get behind the rules and expect compliance.

You could put the color in the font name.
That way, people might be disinclined to set “MegaCorp Pantone Warm Red” in Purple.

The name "MegaCorp Sans Black Pantone White" might be a little confusing, though.

Is there a Pantone white?

(I know, I know, it's a joke …)

There's no Pantone White, but there is a Pantone Transparent White.

Transparent White is ink with no colorant, but it has a semi-opaque appearance due to the other standard ingredients in ink (waxes, silicates, etc).

Tell the client you'll need $2000.00 to research the question.

Then take a week off.

When you come back, tell them "No. It can't be done."

:o)

That's how I'd handle it, but then maybe that's why I work for a government agency.

I couldn’t resist including the Black weight in my Brown typeface.

So if we use your idea of incorporating the corporate color in the name (which I think is a clever idea), it could become "Brown Black Red"? ;)

Sounds like Rothko's made his type design debut.

What's Brown and Black and red all over?

Bear hunting season.

hhp