WILL Website Manual for Section & Project Owners

Each program, project, or department at Illinois Public Media that has a digital presence is a sub-brand of IPM. Each needs certain branding elements to present itself in the various digital spaces and social media where our content is distributed and shared. On the WILL website, these elements make our content findable by search engines, and more shareable on social media. Because they are so important to making our brand work in digital and social media spaces, they are required for any section of our website. If the project includes video content we want to distribute through PBS COVE, these elements are required by PBS.

You can request a new website section for a program or project by contacting New Media & Innovation. The items described in this section must be provided before the new site section can be built.

Branding is more important than ever in the digital media age. New Media & Innovation expects that new programs and projects will have developed a branding plan, to include art direction and design elements that serve as resources throughout the life of the program or project. The branding plan must be done in coordination with Marketing, and any costs for artwork etc shall be included at the planning stage. Branding strategy and art direction must be built into the project from the start. Our process includes working together as a team to develop a project timeline and the deliverables described on this page.

Section Branding Image

The section branding image may be used on the section home page, but will always be used by Facebook and other social media when people share a link to the section home page. Provide an image that is 2400 x 1260 pixels for the best display on high resolution devices, or 1200 x 630 pixels at a minimum.

Section Description

Two sentences describing the section, written to entice the reader to engage with the content. This will be indexed by search engines, so make it accurately describe the section and the nature of its content. It will also be used by social media, e.g. when someone shares the section home page on Facebook, the description will appear in the share dialog box along with branding image.

Keywords

A list of tags that describe the main concepts you would associate with this section as a whole. These will be used by search engines to fine-tune the indexing of our content. Best practice is to include both specific keywords for the section e.g. "artist profiles, tattoo, hip hop," and general keywords e.g. "Illinois Public Media, public radio, art, music," etc.

COVE Channels

Each channel in COVE must have specific branding text and images. Currently, we provide these to PBS via this downloadable COVE New Program Request Form.

Text needed for each COVE Channel:

• Program Name
• Short Description: (90 characters, including spaces)
• Long Description: (400 characters, including spaces)
• Home page URL (the home page for the program or project)

COVE channels have three required image specifications. The image for new content channels/programs is used in various ways throughout PBS products, both for promotion and to aid in workflow. These images are displayed in many places, including in the growing number of mobile apps, OTT platforms, and other on-demand video applications where our content flows from COVE.

Channel images should feature the program title and meet the following specs:

• Program Name
• minimum 640x360 pixels, 16x9 aspect ratio
• minimum 600x900 pixel, 2x3 aspect ratio
• 400x70 for the channel logo which appears at the top of the COVE channel page

COVE Assets

Each COVE Asset needs an image, which appears in the COVE portal as a thumbnail and cover image for the video. COVE calls this a mezzanine image, and it must be:

• 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high with a 16:9 aspect ratio.

COVE Manual at PBS

Everything you might want to know about COVE and how to use it is available on the PBS COVE User Manual.