How this guide works
This is the working brand guide for the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. It is written for staff, agencies, partners and AI tools. Everything here is plain text so people and machines can both read it.
Who to ask
Marketing & Communications owns the brand. Staff, agencies and partners go through their Library contact; if you don't have one, write to hello@trlibrary.com. "Ask Marketing & Communications" anywhere in this guide means that.
What governs what
| Area | Authority | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Visual identity: logo, marks, color, type, graphic elements | Brand Style Guide (v0.1, September 2026) | trlibrary.com/brand |
| Tone, terminology, naming, formatting | Story Guide (2022) | trlibrary.com/storyguide |
| Historical fact: dates, names, quotes, image IDs | Historical accuracy rules in this guide, checked by HistorianPanel | Accuracy and approvals |
| Everyday editorial decisions | Editorial style guide in this repository | Editorial style guide |
Where this guide and the Brand Style Guide or Story Guide disagree, those documents win. Flag the conflict so this guide gets corrected (see Keeping the guide current).
Two documented exceptions:
- "Teddy." The Story Guide allows it occasionally. Current standard is stricter: never in prose. See the editorial style guide.
- The Story Guide is not a source for historical fact. It governs how the Library tells the story, not what happened. Verify every date, name, quote and event independently before publishing.
The pages
- Brand foundation: mission, vision, values, pillars, tenets, audiences
- Voice and tone: how the Library sounds
- Editorial style guide: word-by-word rules, A to Z, including gratitude
- Visual identity: logo, marks, color, type, graphic elements
- Imagery and media: photography, AI imagery limits, and where to find historical images and film of T.R.
- Theodore Roosevelt essentials: orientation, names and titles, common traps
- Accuracy and approvals: the accuracy rule and what needs review
- Channels: web, social, email, press, letters, print and signage
Keeping the guide current
The guide is maintained in this repository. Anyone can propose a change; a member of Marketing & Communications approves it.
- Staff using Claude: say "add a rule to the style guide" (or "change the
rule on ..."). The
update-style-guideskill drafts the change, checks it against the rest of the guide, and opens a pull request. - Everyone else: open an issue in this repository describing the rule and an example.
Every accepted change is logged in CHANGELOG.md.