GAOR Style Guide

The GAOR Style Guide is an overview of styles for look-and-feel, UI/UX and content reproduction for GAOR. Sections covering content adhere approximately to the AP Style Guide, which is published by the Associated Press and in use at most U.S. media outlets. Other sections of the GAOR Style Guide address web styles, including font, color, components (such as buttons) and other patterns.

The first paragraph represents the main point of the content on this page. In keeping with newsprint style, the first paragraph answers at least one of the following questions: Who? What? Where? Why? When? Which? How? This is the "hook". Paragraphs following the lead paragraph support the hook by adding description, facts, data, and other ideas. Any parts of the post or article that do not support the hook should be removed or rewritten.

Guidelines for Web Production

The below describes styles for representing copy, images and patterns on a webpage. Exact colors are shown in hexadecimal format (#FFFFFF).

Headers. All web headers H1-H6 should be Josefin Sans font and should not be resized from the default code (CSS).

Text: All copy that is not a header should be Montserrat font, 300 weight. It should be 16px size for the main article and 12-14px for sidebars, headers and footers. It should not be resized from CSS.

Link color. Links are light blue #698a91. They should almost always open in a new window.

Header text and copy color is dark gray #626262.

Except for rare occasions, all copy should be on white background #FFFFFF.

Drop quotes and callout boxes. Background color for boxes is pale cyan blue #2EA7E0. Text inside the box may be black #000000 for contrast.

Call-to-Action boxes. CTAs should have white #FFFFFF background, red #CF2E2E for text and 2px border. For content, see buttons (below).

Alternately, CTAs may have a red background and white text.

Editing CSS

Making changes to fonts, colors, sizes, spacing, and other elements should be avoided whenever possible - in the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) files or inline HTML tags.

Use discretion when using style edits on the the editor screen for writing content, including bold, italics, colors

For CSS changes, ensure that they do not inadvertently affect another element on the page or another page on the site.

Never use "!important" in any manually written CSS tags.

Watch for CSS conflicts that may occur from plugins. Such conflicts can make inadvertent changes in the site that are unrelated to the plugin's original purpose.

Optimizing for Mobile

Pages should be tested in a mobile browser setting or on an actual mobile device to ensure proper function.

Rows with more than one column should collapse as intended, so that the content still makes sense and is readable.

Images or content that do not render properly on mobile should be removed, set to not display on mobile, or replaced with something else.

Images containing written content that is hard to read on mobile should be replaced with a mobile-friendly image or be removed.

In most cases, web and email content should be single-column. Certain pages may benefit from sidebars and can be added through the site editor.

Buttons

The following are examples of different buttons and their uses:

Copywriting Guidelines

The following are guidelines for writing copy in all GAOR publications:

Capitalization

  • Title Caps should used in headers and titles (All words with the first letter capitalized except words like the, and, of, etc.)
  • Title Caps for personal titles, for example: Vice President Smith, Director Jones. Roles like "president" or "director" that do not accompany a person's name should be capitalized.
  • Usage of "REALTOR®" and "REALTORS®" are according to NAR Copyright Guidelines.
  • Capitalize first letter of bullets and lists.
  • All other copy should be lower case.

Proper Nouns

  • Proper nouns, especially organizations, locations and lesser-known acronyms should be fully spelled out on the first occurrence of the name in a document. Abbreviation thereafter should be used with discretion.
  • Major cities and locations, such as "Los Angeles" or "San Francisco" should be spelled out without abbreviation. Lesser known cities should include their state. The state may be abbreviated but not with its two-letter postal designation, for example "Odessa, Tex." or "Irvine, Calif."
  • Acronyms, especially for meanings not widely used by GAOR should be spelled out first and then followed with parentheses, for example: "Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)". Following occurrences in the same document may just use the acronym without parentheses.
  • Capitalize the word “City” or “County” when in reference to a city or county government or department.
  • General reference to the California State government should be "Sacramento" when there is no mention of the Legislature, Legislators, the Governor, or specific departments.
  • General reference to the federal government under the same criteria should be "Washington" or"Washington, DC".
  • Title Caps for proper nouns, i.e. places and organizations: Los Angeles, Glendale Association of REALTORS®.

General Grammar Guidelines

  • Avoid common contractions. For example use "do not" rather than "don't".
  • Bullet and list items should end with a period if they are a complete sentence; they should have no period if the list item is not a sentence.
  • There should be no period following headers, subheads or other article titles.
  • Single space (not double space) between sentences in the same paragraph.

Date and Time

Dates and times should fully spelled out as shown. Abbreviation as shown may be used to save space:

  • January 10, 2024 at 10:00 a.m.
  • Jan. 10 at 10am
  • September 5, 2025 at 3:30 p.m.
  • Sept. 5 at 3:30pm

Avoid using "@" instead of "at", and avoid all caps like "SEP" instead of "Sept." or "September". Use discretion with the number-date system, "9/5/24" and reserve it for space saving needs only.