According to university web policy, all UAB websites are required to meet minimum brand standards. UAB branding communicates our image and identity; and proper branding affects our ability to recruit and retain the best students, faculty, and staff.  Additionally, UAB branding ensures that audiences are able to easily associate your work or services with the university.

UAB's Web team is charged with maintaining an online strategy with a clear set of best practices to simplify access, navigation, and search; promote high-quality web design; incorporate social networking; and uphold security. Web content hosted on UAB platforms is copyright of UAB. Additionally, UAB website footers always include necessary legal disclaimers.

If you are using a UAB-hosted website, it must remain within UAB's brand standards outlined above. But as the manager of your UAB website, you have creative control over content, layout, navigation, user experience, etc. and may alter your site's:

• Copy
• Navigation / menu items
• Images
• Page design and layout

If you are building out a UAB Joomla website, you can find more information for support and training on page updates on https://www.uab.edu/toolkit/web/joomla. This training can help you feel more comfortable and confident implementing different page layouts and design features on your website.

To learn more on building out pages and content on a UAB WordPress website, go to https://www.uab.edu/toolkit/web/wordpress. WordPress also has great options and opportunities to customize your page layouts and give your site a custom and modern user experience design.

Because UAB websites are required to meet the brand standards listed above, some elements of the page cannot be altered. These elements include:

• Header at top of page*
• Footer at bottom (includes required UAB logo, Privacy, Terms of Use, Copyright, and Equal Opportunities statement)
• Fonts
• Colors

Additionally, altering the website's CSS to override required branding is not permitted.

*Special initiatives comprised of multiple, non-UAB entities may be allowed to remove UAB branding from the header, though branding will be maintained in the footer. These special instances will be evaluated by the Office of Marketing and Communications on a case by case basis. Please email marketing@uab.edu about custom branding options for your website.

Launching a personal website presenting as an official UAB website is never permitted. To ensure authenticity and eliminate public confusion, only true sites hosted by UAB may feature UAB's brand elements. UAB funds cannot be used to launch unofficial or official websites outside of UAB approved vendors.

Special initiatives comprised of multiple, non-UAB entities may be allowed to remove UAB branding from the header, though branding will be maintained in the footer. These special instances will evaluated by UAB Web team on a case by case basis. For these exceptions, a neutral grey UAB branded footer (below) may be used.

According to university web policy, all UAB websites are required to meet minimum brand standards. If the website is hosted on a UAB platform, UAB branding will be integrated by default. Websites for programs, projects, initiatives, studies, or campaigns supported by UAB funds - including 3rd party awarded funds - are still required to be UAB hosted and branded. 

Please see our Accessibility Guidelines and Resources page on our Toolkit website for more information on UAB's standards for web accessibility.

Non-Joomla or WordPress sites built on the uab.edu domain require special approval from UAB's Web team prior to building. If approved, these sites must include the current university logo and avoid violating any UAB brand standards. Once built, the site must be reviewed and approved by UAB's Web team prior to launch to ensure branding is acceptable.