Keep Arkansas Beautiful Foundation Style Manual
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Authors
My colleague Kelsie Walker and I created this style manual collaboratively in the course Technical Style and Editing. Context Kelsie and I created our style manual on behalf of the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Foundation (KAB Foundation), a charitable organization that exists with the “exclusive purpose of supporting and benefitting the programs and activities of the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Commission (KAB Commission),” an organization whose mission is to “inspire and educate individuals to prevent litter, recycle, and keep Arkansas beautiful.” Audience Our audience for the style manual included employees, volunteers, and marketing personnel of the KAB Foundation. The audience’s direct need was an accessible, easy-to-use guide to standardize formal and informal, internal and external methods of written discourse. The audience's indirect need was consistent voice, style, and design in marketing and communication publications, as well as a reputation of professionalism and integrity. |
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Purpose
The purpose of the style manual was to gather a set of writing and design standards across the major publication categories of the KAB Foundation including external business letters to donors, internal memos, grant proposals, and news releases. As the Executive Director Bill Smith explained, even though the Foundation had been around since 2002, part of the largest reason it had been unable to flourish was due to inconsistent language usage in publication and branding materials. Therefore, our goal for the manual became not only to provide uniformity in style and formatting within a document and across multiple documents, but, ultimately, to also assist the Foundation in creating an appealing and memorable presence in the community that would attract financial donors and sponsors.
To allow for adaptability, expansion, and revision, we created an online style manual as well as placed the document on a flash-drive attached to the inside cover of the hard copies of the style manual. To ensure successful turnover to the new WordPress administrators, we included a section with the log-in codes and brief explanation of how to access the site.
Work Process
After an initial meeting with Executive Director Bill Smith and Associate Director of Public Relations Julie C. Robbins, we submitted a proposal with tentative plans for the style manual to the Foundation. Once we received feedback from Bill and Julie, we revised our plans according to the Foundation’s needs and standards. Next, Kelsie and I got to work on our respective duties. Though we both contributed to all aspects of the process, as it turned out, I took the lead in content writing and Kelsie focused on creating the online style manual and designing the layout for the print manual. Once we had compiled a first draft, we handed it over to our peers, Harold Brown and Bethany May, for an editorial peer review. Kelsie and I completed editorial peer reviews of our own for another set of classmates. At the completion of our style manual, we wrote a final memo describing our rhetorical strategies and reflecting on the collaborative experience as a whole. We created the following Prezi to show our work flow to the class.
The purpose of the style manual was to gather a set of writing and design standards across the major publication categories of the KAB Foundation including external business letters to donors, internal memos, grant proposals, and news releases. As the Executive Director Bill Smith explained, even though the Foundation had been around since 2002, part of the largest reason it had been unable to flourish was due to inconsistent language usage in publication and branding materials. Therefore, our goal for the manual became not only to provide uniformity in style and formatting within a document and across multiple documents, but, ultimately, to also assist the Foundation in creating an appealing and memorable presence in the community that would attract financial donors and sponsors.
To allow for adaptability, expansion, and revision, we created an online style manual as well as placed the document on a flash-drive attached to the inside cover of the hard copies of the style manual. To ensure successful turnover to the new WordPress administrators, we included a section with the log-in codes and brief explanation of how to access the site.
Work Process
After an initial meeting with Executive Director Bill Smith and Associate Director of Public Relations Julie C. Robbins, we submitted a proposal with tentative plans for the style manual to the Foundation. Once we received feedback from Bill and Julie, we revised our plans according to the Foundation’s needs and standards. Next, Kelsie and I got to work on our respective duties. Though we both contributed to all aspects of the process, as it turned out, I took the lead in content writing and Kelsie focused on creating the online style manual and designing the layout for the print manual. Once we had compiled a first draft, we handed it over to our peers, Harold Brown and Bethany May, for an editorial peer review. Kelsie and I completed editorial peer reviews of our own for another set of classmates. At the completion of our style manual, we wrote a final memo describing our rhetorical strategies and reflecting on the collaborative experience as a whole. We created the following Prezi to show our work flow to the class.
Technical Tools
- Microsoft Word
- SugarSync Shared Folders
- WordPress.com
