I’m updating a brand guideline and under the “Corporate Colours” heading I came upon this paragraph:
“which comprise the “One Voice” colour scheme. Consistent use of these colours will contribute to the cohesive and harmonious look of the {company’s} brand identity across all media.”
The “One Voice” is in quotes leading me to believe it’s a specific type of, or style of, colour scheme so of course I google it… and all I find is the same word for word paragraph in a ton of other brand guidelines but no actual definition of what “One Voice” means.
Does anyone know of an actual definition of the “One Voice” colour scheme?
Most likely using the term one voice simply is to reenforce the notion that by following their brand guidelines, all materials produced are in one voice, one brand, one look.
I agree with @CraigB. It’s a common way of stating that everything needs to match and be focused on achieving the same results, saying the same things and using the same formula, as in everything speaking with one voice — in this case, with color.
Which is what I initially thought, but the quotes indicated to me that it was a “something”… I’ve been going through this with a fine tooth comb and I guess my radar is set to high. lol
“…which comprises a colour scheme that speaks with one voice.”
Calling it a “One Voice” color scheme makes it read like they’ve given a special name to their color scheme. Anyway, when one voice is used as a compound adjective, it should be hyphenated, as in one-voice colour scheme. The missing hyphen is a minor concern, but it all points to the text not having been edited by a good copy editor, which would give me less hesitation about changing it.
I’d also leave out the quotation marks since it makes it read like a quote from some higher-up in the company who named their colour scheme. If one voice needed to be emphasized for some reason, I’d use italics.
Then again, I’m assuming things. For all I know, some higher-up did decide to name their colour scheme “One Voice”.
Don’t get me started on grammar and syntax. I can bore for Britain. The whole idea of compounds seems to have fallen by the wayside. Start me on possessive apostrophes and steam actually comes out of my ears.
As to the ‘One-Voice’ thing; instinctively I despise it as crass, self-aggrandising meeting-room jargon. It’s up there with, blue-sky thinking, thinking outside the box, etc. Makes my toes curl. Just explain it, as Just-B says, in clear, unambiguous sentences.
Couldn’t agree more. I hate how everything has to have it’s own catch phrase now. I will take the good advice and just be clear… I guess I wanted to be sure my old self wasn’t missing some “new” lingo.