Titles and signatures: Design Standard for the Federal Identity Program

Applied titles

• In this section

  • Criteria for creating applied titles and abbreviations
  • Approval and registration process

A department’s applied title is its official name that it uses in all communications with the public and in its corporate signature. An applied title is mandatory under the Policy on Communications and Federal Identity.

Applied titles are not to be confused with legal titles, which are established through enabling legislation or by order-in-council.

A department’s legal title can be registered as its applied title if it meets all of the criteria for applied titles. Legal titles that do not meet the criteria for applied titles cannot be adopted as applied titles.

Legal titles are to be used only where required by law, such as in legislation, orders-in-council and contracts.

Ministerial titles

Ministerial titles refer to the “styled titles” that ministers are given when they are sworn in. These titles are used together with the arms of Canada to form ministerial signatures. To distinguish ministers’ communications products from those of their staff, the words “Office of” and “Cabinet du” are added to the title in the signatures that are used in products from staff. Parliamentary secretaries also add their designation to the ministerial titles.

Examples of ministerial titles and offices:

• Minister of Transport / Ministre des Transports
• Office of the Minister of Transport / Cabinet du Ministre des Transports
• Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport / Secrétaire parlementaire du ministre des Transports

Flag signatures

Flag signatures consist of the flag symbol on the left and an English and French applied title on the right, set in Helvetica light, regular or medium weight.

Most flag signatures are on 2 lines, but 3-line signatures are generally used for long titles. See Figure 1 for examples.

Departments must use the digital master files of flag signatures, which are created and maintained by the Communications and Federal Identity Policy Centre at TBS.

Figure 1. Example of a 2-line flag signature (top) and a 3-line flag signature (bottom)

Government of Canada signature

The Government of Canada signature (see Figure 2) combines the flag symbol and “Government of Canada” in both official languages. It is used to identify:

• items intended for government-wide or international use
• activities that involve more than 1 department
• facilities occupied by more than 1 department
• departments that do not have an approved applied title

Figure 2. Government of Canada signature

Arms signatures

Arms signatures consist of the arms of Canada and an English and French applied title, set in Helvetica light, regular or medium weight.

Most arms signatures are on 2 or 3 lines, but 4-line signatures are generally used for long titles.

There are 2 types of arms signatures:

• asymmetrical
• symmetrical

Asymmetrical arms signatures have the arms on the left and the applied title in both official languages on the right. See Figure 3 for an example.

Asymmetrical arms signatures are used in all products unless otherwise specified. See How to apply the official symbols to products for specific requirements.

Figure 3. Example of an asymmetrical arms signature

Symmetrical arms signatures have the arms in the centre, and the applied title in one language on the left and in the other language on the right. See Figure 4 for an example.

Symmetrical signatures are used in specific situations such as decision letters from federal tribunals.

Figure 4. Example of a symmetrical arms signature

Departments must use the digital master files of arms signatures, which are created and maintained by the Communications and Federal Identity Policy Centre at TBS.

Signatures with service titles

The name of a departmental branch, unit, program or service may appear as part of a corporate signature. Known as service titles, these names appear in both official languages directly below the corporate signature, left-aligned with the applied title. Service titles should:

• begin with a keyword and be as short as possible
• avoid repeating keywords used in the applied title
• not include acronyms, abbreviations and special characters, for example, the ampersand (&)

In signatures with service titles, the applied title and the service title:

• appear in the same typeface and size
• are separated by a 0.5 to 1-line space
• may use contrasting weights of Helvetica, for example, Helvetica light with Helvetica medium

Signatures with service titles must be developed in consultation with your department’s Federal Identity Program coordinator. Departments are responsible for adding service titles to the digital master files of corporate signatures, which are created and maintained by the Communications and Federal Identity Policy Centre at TBS.

Figure 5. Example of a corporate signature with a service title, separated by a 0.5 line space and using different typeface weights

Figure 5 - Text version

Contrast between the applied title and the service title was created by using Helvetica light for the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat applied title and Helvetica medium for the Federal Identity Program service title with a 0.5-line space in between.