Create an Acquia writing style guide
Problem
At Widen, I created a style guide that was used in addition to AP styles. When Widen was acquired by Acquia, we realized there were a number of different writing styles being used across the organization and needed one style guide to address them all.
To begin, I worked two writers from our Marketing team. Initially, we met weekly to review Widen's style guide, then the other guides that Acquians were using and combined them into one. We greatly expanded the Widen guide and added content from Acquia guides. Our Learning Services team, which creates all product documentation, reviewed and consulted throughout the process.
When content was ready, the design lead from the Creative team stepped in format. After formatting was complete, the Marketing team members I'd initially worked with had moved on from Acquia, so I connected with the People team, Learning Services, Design, and Product to market the new guide across the organization.
The continuing goal was to review and update it quarterly. I worked with a copywriter from marketing and a technical writer from Learning Services to review and make updates.
Project goals
There were three goals for this project:
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Create one style guide for all content creators at Acquia
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Replace disparate existing style guides
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Add branding to the guide
Where I came in
I was tasked with leading the effort to collaborate with marketing to create a new Acquia writing style guide to ensure consistency in written projects across the organization.
Roadblocks
The biggest roadblock was deciding whether or not to keep the guide as a Google doc (keeping control over updates) or involve our Creative team to format it in Figma (losing some control over updates). The team working on it ultimately decided to use Figma so that there would be a cohesive experience when people were using this guide and the brand guidelines.
Collaborators
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Creative
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Marketing
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Learning Services
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People team
Results
A style guide that is in use across the organization. It matches the Acquia branding of the brand guide, which includes rules for use of colors, fonts, the Acquia logo, etc., thus fostering a more cohesive experience for both branding and writing.
The output: Acquia writing style guide
Click the image to see the full style guide, which was last updated in December 2024.
An image of the Acquia writing style guide.
An image of the Acquia writing style guide.