Voice is our consistent brand personality that we communicate in. They should be represented in all forms of communication between us and our audience: website, social media, emails, blog posts etc.

• Confident, but not cocky
• Smart, but not “academic”
• Sincere, but not humorless
• Direct, but not rude
• Warm, but not effusive
• Encouraging, but not pandering

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Examples

Smart, but not “academic”

• What can engineering students from UC Berkeley, one of the top engineering schools in the world, create in 9 months? The answer: a great deal — from AI that detects fraud in Bitcoin transaction, to an exercise bike that responses to fatigue, to a VR tool that maps out patents, to prosthetics for children and many more!

 Confident, but not cocky

• Why Choose Berkeley?
  • A Powerful Collection of Today’s Top Students
  • A Location Like No Other
  • A Diverse, Welcoming, Collaborative Community
  •  Multidisciplinary Labs, Research Centers
  • Museums and Institutes All on One Campus
  • Unparalleled Resources and Opportunities

Sincere, but not humorless

• Recruiting season is…. every season! Score some tips from an awesome MEng alumni (UC Berkeley Department of Bioengineering) on how to navigate the job market.
• Happy #PiDay! (Fun fact: we’re posting this at 1:59 for even more accuracy 🤓)

Direct, but not rude

• I’ve been working in the industry for a few years. Is this program a good fit?
  We recognize that students do not always follow a linear trajectory from education to career. The MEng program welcomes early-career professionals who opt to resume their education. Industry experience will be an advantage in the leadership and Capstone courses. Being out of school for more than 5–7 years, however, may make it harder to do well in the technical or quantitative graduate courses. In the selection process, we will be looking for a balance of these two skill sets.

Warm, but not effusive

• We’d love to have you join our family. Become a student at the #1 public university in the world, and learn what it means to be a Cal Golden Bear!

Encouraging, but not pandering

• Attention #CalMEng admitted students: today is the deadline to accept or decline our offer of admission! We are eager to learn of your decision and hope to welcome you to @UCBerkeley soon.

Our tone may change depending on the specific content that we are trying to communicate and the audience that we are communicating to.

Types of content that require a more serious tone:

• Alumni highlight (career or academic focused)
• Event highlight
• Technology news
• Technical marketing

Types of content with a more casual tone:

• Holiday/public event
• Current event
• Alumni highlight (personal/social focus)
• Marketing/promotional content

We do not want to use the same tone when we are congratulating a newly admitted student as when we are turning down a prospective student. Similarly, we shouldn’t address prospective students in the same tone as we address industry sponsors.

In titles, capitalize the first word and nouns.

• We capitalize: Internet, AI, and IoT. Comprehensive Exam.
• We use sentence case for new/blog headlines
• Capitalize titles when they appear before a name or appear on their own after a name: Will Allison, Director of the Air Pollution Control Division. 
• Boot camp:
  • When referenced in isolation, boot camp should be 2 words, lowercased.
  • When referenced with a specific date as a title of our programming, boot camp should be capitalized, ex: Fall Boot Camp
• Fall, spring:
  • When referencing a fall or spring semester, fall and spring are lowercased.
  • When referencing a title of a program or event, fall and spring are capitalized, ex: Fall Boot Camp, Spring Boot Camp

We prefer the following format for one’s address, phone number, and email:

2451 Ridge Road
Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 642-0633
funginstitute@coe.berkeley.edu

Dates
Capitalize the names of months in all uses.

When a month is used with a specific date, abbreviate only the months of January (Jan.), February (Feb.), August (Aug.), September (Sept.), October (Oct.), November (Nov.), and December (Dec.).

When a phrase lists only a month and year, spell out the month.

Always use Arabic figures, without st, nd, rd or th: Oct. 8 (not Oct. 8th).

Do not separate a month and a year with commas: “The start-up went public in July 2016.”

If a phrase includes the day, month, and year, use commas: “Jenny’s birthday is January 13, 2002.”

Times
Lowercase the am and pm when they follow a time. No spaces, even when using a time range. Include the time zone when communicating with an audience outside of California. Do not include the minutes when the time is right on the hour. Spell out the word noon and midnight when referring to 12pm and 12am. For example: 10pm, 10:15pm, 9am-noon, or 1:30-4pm. 

Social Media and Email
On social media, we prefer the date include the abbreviated day of the week, month/date, and time. For example: Fri. 3/2 at 10am.

Abbreviations
We abbreviate degrees and do not use periods in abbreviations. For example: BS, BA, MBA, MEng, MS, MFE, PhD
*Also note that the “h” in PhD is not capitalized.

When academic degrees are referred to in general terms such as doctorate, doctoral, bachelor’s, or master’s, they are not capped: He earned a bachelor’s degree in English, or a degree in history.

Master of Engineering (MEng)
When referring to the UC Berkeley Master of Engineering (MEng) program, first use the full official name, followed by the abbreviated version. References to the program:

• The UC Berkeley Master of Engineering (MEng) program
• The Berkeley MEng program
• MEng program
• Berkeley MEng

Examples of usage:
…UC Berkeley MEng students…
…courses taught in the MEng program at Fung Institute…

Masters Degree or Master’s Degree

• The correct way to spell master’s degree is with the apostrophe.
• The s in master’s indicates a possessive (the degree of a master), not a plural.
• If you’re speaking of a specific degree, you should capitalize master and avoid creating a possessive: Master of Engineering.
• The same rules apply to a bachelor’s degree.

Department, Concentrations, and Tracks
Refer to the following departments by the full name, followed by the abbreviations. List concentrations with a forward slash. For example: IEOR/Decision Analytics. 

• Bioengineering (BioE)
• Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE)
  • Systems Engineering
  • Transportation Engineering
• Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS)
  • Data Science and Systems
  • Integrated Circuits & Physical Electronics
    • IoT Design Experience
  • Robotics & Embedded Software
  • Signal Processing & Communications
  • Visual Computing & Computer Graphics
    • AR/VR Design Experience
• Industrial Engineering & Operations Research (IEOR)
  • FinTech (capital F and T, no spaces)
  • Part-Time in Data-Driven Decision Analytics (default preference use “Data-Driven Decision Analytics”)
• Materials Science & Engineering (MSE)
  • Advances in Opto-Electronic Materials
  • Advanced Structural Materials
  • Materials for Advanced Energy Systems
• Mechanical Engineering (ME)
  • Advanced Energy Technology
  • Modeling and Simulation of Physical Processes and Systems
  • Experiential Advanced Control Systems Design
  • Product Design
• Nuclear Engineering (NE)
  • Fission Reactor Analysis & Engineering
  • Non-Proliferation
  • Nuclear Materials
  • Nuclear Waste & Materials Management

Degrees and Graduation Years
When identifying Berkeley MEng alumni, use the abbreviated degree followed by the two-digit graduation year with no punctuation. For example: Han Jin, MEng ’12 (IEOR) | Grace Bailey, MEng ’18 (NE) |  Ethan Wells, MEng ’17 (ME/Product Design) 

Alumni, Alumnus, Etc.

• Alumnus refers to a male only. The male plural is alumni.
• Alumna refers to a female only. The female plural is alumnae.
• Groups consisting of male and female graduates are referred to as alumni.
• Alum may be used for colloquial purposes.

Hyphenate two words or more when they modify a noun preceding them. When the modifiers follow, usually a hyphen is not needed. Example of proper uses of hyphens: “My two-year-old dog, Ernie, loves chewing on bones.” OR “My dog Ernie is two years old.” 

We use hyphens for the following:

• start-up
• part-time and full-time
• in-person

When a web address contains “www,” it is not necessary to include the “http://.” You may also omit the “www” (optional). www.funginstitute.berkeley.edu | funginstitute.berkeley.edu. If you’d like, you may include “http://” with addresses that do not contain “www” (optional).

Use a person’s first and last name the first time he or she is mentioned. On second reference, use only first name with no title, unless the person specifies otherwise.

• We write with the symbol % instead of the word percent.
• Write out numbers up until 10.

We use the serial comma: a comma before the last item in a series. For example: The Berkeley MEng community consists of faculty, students, and staff.

Give your links unique and descriptive names

When including links in your content, use text that properly describes where the link will go. Using “click here” is not considered descriptive, and is ineffective for a screen reader user.

Just like sighted users scan the page for linked text, visually-impaired users can use their screen readers to scan for links. As a result, screen reader users often do not read the link within the context of the rest of the page. Using descriptive text properly explains the context of links to the screen reader user.

The most unique content of the link should be presented first, as screen reader users will often navigate the links list by searching via the first letter.

For example, if you are pointing visitors to a page called “About Us”:

• Try not to say: “Click here to read about our company.”
• Instead, say: “To learn more about our company, read About Us.”

More accessibility tips: https://webaccess.berkeley.edu/resources/tips/web-accessibility#accessible-links

• “Blockchain” is always one word and, if it is not at the beginning of a sentence or title, it is lowercased.
• “Breakout” is always one word and, if it is not at the beginning of a sentence or title, it is lowercased.
• Shortened “information session” is two words: info session

• Stroke Size: 2 pt
• Stroke Color: #003262 (Berkeley Blue)
• Stroke Cap: Default stoke cap

Details:

• Grid background – Stroke: 1 pt
• Circuit board – Stroke: 1 pt

Font is consistent with logo Isometric Effect: (Adobe Illustrator) Use Effect → 3D → Extrude & Bevel → Extrude Depth = 0pt → Surface = No Shading → Position: Isometric