One Style Guide, One Brand Voice: MIT Nord Anglia Collaboration

Client: MIT Nord Anglia Collaboration

Years: May 2022-present (style guide developed 2024)

Role: Contract copyeditor and writer

Scope: Team of 5-7 contributors producing 4 video series; written work across all channels of a program serving 90+ Nord Anglia schools in 40 countries

Challenge
The MIT Nord Anglia Collaboration provides STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) programming to students and teachers at more than 90 Nord Anglia K-12 schools in 40 countries. The team includes contributors across multiple video series and small differences accumulated: the Collaboration’s name was abbreviated several ways across channels, and video titles and subtitles followed no shared pattern.

What I did

• Developed a bespoke style guide as a single source of truth, covering the default dictionary and style manual plus examples and use cases drawn from the team’s previous work

• Defined the brand voice through close review of existing work and meetings with stakeholders

• Developed a titling structure for videos (series name, topic title, descriptive subtitle) for both existing and future series

• Drafted an easy-to-use list of key words and phrases that characterize the brand voice

Result

• Adopted by staff immediately as a quick reference, and still in use today

• The collaboration now uses one name on every channel, and every video follows one title and subtitle format

• Served as a key reference in developing and naming two new video series, which replaced two of the original four

Relevant skills
Content operations: building the style and naming standards that keep a multi-contributor team consistent as it scales.