General Content Guidelines
- Content may only promote ETSU activities, events, information, and educational opportunities.
- Campus-wide content should only promote items relevant and/or accessible to most students
and/or faculty and staff, not a limited subset of individuals.
- Content relevant to specific students may run in select buildings/locations.
- Content relevant to only faculty/staff will be posted to the computer screensavers only.
- For security reasons, all URLs and QR codes must link to an ETSU hosted webpage.
- Content cannot overlap into multiple slides as viewers may miss or confuse these messages.
- Course annoucements may only run for up to three weeks.
- Due to technical limitations, videos must be no longer than 10 seconds in total length and require open captions (captions added to the video that cannot be removed).
- To ensure that all content has equal airtime, announcements must only appear for 10 seconds each rotation (this also applies to facility-specific content uploaded by those with departmental access to Reach).
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Acceptable Content
- Event information for upcoming activities sponsored or coordinated by ETSU
- Event information for upcoming activities sponsored or coordinated by recognized alumni and student organizations/clubs
- Event information for activities to be held in or at ETSU but hosted or sponsored by an unaffiliated approved organization
- Changes in timing or location of regularly scheduled classroom activities or special events, including street closings and parking procedures
- Results of academic competitions (congratulatory listing of winners)
- Upcoming deadline information for nominations, scholarship applications, event reservations, etc., for approved programs
- Information on new programs, courses, or services available to students or faculty (may only run for up to three weeks)
- Announcements relating to significant student or faculty/staff achievements, awards or accomplishments
- Welcoming statements for special guests or groups visiting ETSU
- School, departmental, or building directories
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Unacceptable Content
- Classified ads (cars/apartments/bicycles/computers, etc.)
- Personal messages or self-promotion
- Personal events (i.e., a student holding an event that's not through an ETSU-affiliated organization)
- Political statements relating to campus, local, statewide, or national elections
- Artwork that isn't in a horizontal format (i.e., vertical flyers, square social media graphics, etc.)
- Videos with individuals talking without captions
- Videos/animations that are longer than 10 seconds
- URLs or QR codes that link to a non-ETSU webpage
Dimensions & Formatting
- ETSU’s Digital Signage displays are 16:9 (1920x1080) widescreen displays. Before submitting artwork, make sure it has been designed at a 16:9 aspect ratio, or 1920x1080 pixels.
- JPGs or PNGs are preferred with a max file size of 1 MB.
- Vertical flyers (e.g., 8.5"x11") and square social media graphics will not be accepted and must be reflowed to fit the required 16:9 format.
Design & Legibility
General Guidelines
- Keep it simple. Only show what’s essential to get your message across. This usually means only having a HEADLINE, DATE/TIME, LOCATION, and a QR CODE linking to an ETSU webpage for access to additional details. Everything else in the design should not overshadow these key items.
- Think of digital signage as a highway billboard—your audience will have a limited amount of time to view your announcement and will often be unable or unwilling to pause and read a slide that is too text heavy or contains too many visual elements. This is not a captive audience!
- Avoid the use of acronyms that may not be understood by all students.
Visual Guidelines
- Establish a clear visual hierarchy (i.e., make your headline larger than your date/location information, which should be larger than any auxiliary information you might include, etc.). This makes it easier for the eye to scan the information on a design quickly.
- Utilize “white” or empty space to create breathing room in your design. Use one or two photos or images/illustrations, but don’t overcram your design with text, visuals, clipart, etc.
- Prioritize using ETSU brand colors in your design. For a list of all ETSU identity approved colors, click here (there are more than just blue and gold!).
- When possible, avoid using reds and oranges as the primary colors of your design.
- For examples of ETSU identity approved design standards, click here.
Legibility Guidelines
- Insufficient contrast between text and background can make reading difficult. Make sure your color combinations do not hinder the legibility of your message.
- Avoid light, ornate fonts with fine lines or fonts that distort characters to a degree that makes them difficult to discern. For a list of ETSU brand standard fonts, click here.
- Avoid stretching/distorting images, logos, or other elements in your design.
- Avoid using low resolution or outdated versions of ETSU logos. To obtain current and high resolution files of your department logo or other ETSU logos, click here.
