Video Creation Guidelines

  • Promoting something? Keep it brief. Videos less than 90 seconds perform best. 
  • Use university branding (See brand guidelines.):
    • Include the primary (stacked) university logo in your video intro or outro. Note that the secondary (horizontal) logo and university seal are reserved for special circumstances and may be used only with permission of the Office of Communications.
    • Use official or alternative university fonts in video titles, credits, lower thirds, etc. 
    • We encourage the use of maroon as one of the university’s primary colors—as long as it’s our Logger maroon. 
    • Follow the university style guide for text in the video. In particular, refer to the standards on professional and courtesy titles, including alumni class years and parent years, building names, and using “Puget Sound” instead of “UPS.”
  • Caption your video as recommended/required (see below). Note that captions will appear at the top of the screen any time text appears at the bottom of the screen, so it is advised NOT to leave speaker titles on the screen for more than five seconds.
  • Videos must be uploaded to the university’s institutional Vimeo and/or YouTube accounts. The best option for transferring videos and other recommended files (SRT caption file, JPG/PNG still image for video thumbnail, any requested chapter times and titles or video descriptions) to the Communications office for posting is via your university Google Drive account. Put all the required files into a folder on your Google Drive and share it with bweist@pugetsound.edu. 
  • Do not use copyrighted material (including music, images, or video clips) that we don’t have written permission to use in any video clip on the university website. Only educational clips to be used in a class and stored in the protected classroom resource tool (currently Canvas) meet the requirements for educational fair use. Anything used on the website is considered promotional, even though we are an educational nonprofit and even if it is for a free event. Some resources for copyright-free images and music are listed below:
  • You also need appropriate permissions from any persons in your video. Follow the university Photograph and Video/Audio Recording Permission Policy. This policy includes links to the photo and recording release form that all persons in the video would need to review and sign. 

Caption Guidelines

Video captioning is required. If you're unable to get video captioning done right away, we can post the video in some cases and add the captions at a later date, but if you receive a request for captions, you are legally required to provide them. Your department must be prepared to incur that cost for videos intended for the university website.

  • Options for captioning:
    • Pay for a service like Rev.com ($1.25 per video minute; be sure to cut the video BEFORE submitting, if needed) to create an SRT caption file.
    • Create your own caption file with a freeware program like Subtitle Edit (or have student staff assist with this work). Be sure to adhere to the university style guide.
    • Provide a transcript if the video is a speech or other content for which you have a reasonably accurate record.
  • Remember to proofread your captions before submitting them! Check to make sure they are accurate, in addition to double checking the spelling of names and other proper nouns. Follow the university style guide.

Need more help?

For information about video project assistance offered by Media Services, including training on and the use of video editing software in the Digital Media Mac Lab, visit pugetsound.edu/media.

To partner with communications on a video project, please complete a Communications Request at pugetsound.edu/communicationsrequest, and one of our project managers will contact you.