Writing Style Guide Quick reference Capitalization Email Signature Font Spacing When referring to Southwest Airlines, always capitalize the “e” in Employee, See SWALife >Tools >Communication Tools >Brand News for an example and Written correspondence: Arial 10-12 point One space after a period, colon, and/or semicolon. the “f” in Fellow Employee, the “p” in People, the “c” in Company, Coworker, Crew, instructions for creating a signature. Below are the requirements: Crew Member, and Culture, the “t” in Team, Team Member, and Team Player; the “l” in Electronic correspondence: Arial 10-12 point Leave a space on either side of an ellipsis [ … ]. (i.e.: The ceremony honored 12 brilliant Leadership and Leader; the “c” in Customer; the “s” in Shareholder, Station, etc. Align all information and logo to the left (never centered). athletes … visiting the U.S.). Additionally, an ellipsis consists of three evenly spaced Arial type should be used at the size of 12pt or smaller. Indentation dots (periods). Company Name All contact copy should be in Bold Blue (RGB=48/76/178). The logo should follow your individual contact information. Rather than indenting the start of each paragraph, use a block text format: Leave no spaces when using em dashes. Use Southwest Airlines in commercial or community-related communication on first The following elements are prohibited: use of the heart alone, use of old mention. Thereafter, Southwest or the carrier may be used. branding, pictures, and quotes. Mario the carp woke up in his lakefront estate to the sound of inflating balloons. No more than five lines of contact information permitted, and approved options for He was momentarily startled. The birthday party was supposed to take place on Spell out ordinal numbers up to (and including) “ninth” when indicating sequence in Use Southwest Airlines Co. reporting anything financial, contractual, or regulatory. those lines include: Wednesday, was it not? time or location (e.g., first kiss, 11th hour) but not when indicating sequence in naming Use Southwest or Southwest Airlines for internal communication. Additionally, employ a single space after each punctuation mark rather than a conventions (usually geographic, military, or political, e.g., Name double space. 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals). Comma Position Department Italics Times Use the Oxford (or serial) comma which is placed immediately before the coordinating Phone number conjunction (usually and, or, or nor) in a series of three or more terms. For example, Email address When writing times, always use figures; use the forms a.m. and p.m.; and skip one space Official Southwest URL Italicize the names of books, magazines, documents, and newspapers; specific ships between the final numeral and the a.m. and p.m. designations: 7 a.m.; 11 p.m. a list of three countries should be punctuated as “France, Italy, and Spain” (with the Twitter handle and aircraft; art forms—plays, paintings, musical compositions; radio and TV shows; and Oxford comma), instead of “France, Italy and Spain” (without the Oxford comma). Address foreign words and phrases: Southwest: The Magazine, Colorado One In regards to showing the hour and minutes—either format can be used, but please be Dates Each Employee will know what information is most helpful for their audience. consistent throughout your document: 7 a.m.; 7:00 a.m. Numbers When you’re writing out a date like September 2, 2015, the day is a cardinal number. Figures There are two kinds of numbers: an ordinal number and a cardinal number. Cardinal Websites You should never write September 2nd, 2015. Also, please note the comma usage numbers represent amounts like one, two, and three. Ordinal numbers represent after the year. When writing a date, a comma is used to separate the day and month Currency: When writing amounts of money, use figures and decimals for whole-dollar a place in a series like first, second, and third. When referring to our website, Southwest.com should be capitalized. from the year. and fractional amounts: $123.72 ; $1,234.56. If the dollar amounts in your document are When writing only a month and a year, no comma is needed. You should write rounded to the nearest whole number, no decimal amount is needed. Either format can Spell out whole, cardinal numbers up to (and including) nine, and use numerals for In email communication, type in the full link (and hyperlink) www.Southwest.com “September 1972”, not “September, 1972” be used, but please be consistent throughout your document. numbers 10 and above (e.g., zero, one, 10, 96, 104). to make it easy to access our website. Percentages: When writing percentages, always use figures, and spell out the word Spell out numbers that begin a sentence unless it begins with a year. Em Dash vs. Hyphen percent (9 percent; 25 percent). Exception to the rule—financial articles. Use a comma in numbers greater than 1,000. The em dash (—) is arguably the most versatile punctuation mark. Flight Numbers: When referring to a Southwest Airlines flight, capitalize the word Depending on the context, the em dash can take the place of commas, parentheses, or Flight and follow it by one space, the number sign, and the numerical flight number: colons—in each case to slightly different effect. Microsoft Word will automatically insert an Flight #5 em dash when you type a pair of hyphens after a word or letter and hit the enter key. The Page Numbers: When identifying pages in a book, magazine, etc., always use figures: em dash is used without spaces on either side. This issue is covered on pages 5-12. The hyphen’s (-) primary function is the formation of certain compound terms. We also use it to represent a span or range of numbers, dates, or time. Never use a hyphen in place of an em dash. Writing Style and Trademark Guide Southwest Airlines Brand Style Guide | 118