OpenCitations Logo License and Brand Gudelines

Introduction

Welcome to the official Trademark Policy and Brand Guidelines for OpenCitations. This page serves as a comprehensive guide for partner projects to maintain consistency and integrity in the presentation of our brand across all communication channels.

OpenCitations Trademark Policy

Introduction to the “OpenCitations” trademark

OpenCitations is an open citations database hosted by Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna and the Research Centre for Open Scholarly Metadata. Its mission is to make bibliographic and citation data freely available for the benefit of the scholarly community and society at large. The data and services provided are open and reusable under free licenses. Unlike the use of data and software, which remain open, the use of the OpenCitations trademark is subject to specific rules established by trademark law. The OpenCitations trademark, consisting of both word and figurative elements, is registered with the EUIPO – European Union Intellectual Property Office under No. 019045665 (EUIPO – eSearch), and its rights are held by Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna.

Protecting the trademark is essential to ensure that it continues to serve as a reliable indicator of the origin, quality, and identity of the project, in line with the values of the University of Bologna and OpenCitations. Strengthening and safeguarding the trademark helps prevent improper or misleading uses that could erroneously suggest that products, services, or initiatives from third parties are officially managed, endorsed, or approved by OpenCitations. In this way, we safeguard the reputation of our infrastructure, the integrity of our institution, and the trust of the community that relies on OpenCitations for access to open and verifiable data. For these reasons, this policy has been drafted to define the conditions and rules governing the use of the OpenCitations trademark.

The name, logo, and other distinctive signs of OpenCitations are subject to this Trademark Policy. Use of the logo (i.e., the visual element of the mark) is allowed only with prior approval. To request permission, you must complete the appropriate form and agree to the terms of this Policy. 

General Terms of use of the “OpenCitations” trademark

1. The use of the OpenCitations logo is subject to the completion of the form available at the following link and to the acceptance of these general terms and conditions. 

logo usage request and download

2. Authorization to use the OpenCitations trademark is granted exclusively for non-commercial purposes. 

In particular, the trademark may be used: 

a. in editorial or academic contexts, e.g. citations, presentations, articles referring to the use of OpenCitations; 

b. to indicate individuals or organizations that contribute to, support, or use OpenCitations, provided that such use does not imply endorsement; 

c. for activities strictly related to educational, research, or outreach initiatives concerning the OpenCitations project. 

Authorization is granted free of charge, limited in time and scope, and may be revoked at any time by Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna for just cause. 

3. Any commercial use, or any use likely to generate confusion about the origin, sponsorship, or approval by Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, is prohibited. The following are also expressly forbidden: 

(i) use of the OpenCitations trademark for the creation of commercial products or services (e.g. software, gadgets, merchandise, or paid services) in a way that may suggest that the product is authorized by or directly derived from OpenCitations; 

(ii) use of the “OpenCitations” trademark in the organization of events, conferences, or workshops that may imply that the event is managed, sponsored, or official when it is not; 

(iii) use of the trademark in internet domains, social media names, handles, or hashtags that may cause confusion regarding ownership or responsibility for the trademark. 

Any non-compliant use shall constitute an infringement of trademark rights and may result in legal action as provided by applicable law. 

4. When authorized, the trademark must be used in its complete and unaltered form, without modifications, translations, or graphic adaptations, and must comply with the graphic guidelines.

OpenCitations Graphic Guidelines

The new logo of OpenCitations is a combination of FOUR elements, each of those with a specific meaning related to the vision and aims of OpenCitations.

Letter O: the initial letter of “Open”. For OpenCitations, “open” is a crucial value and a final purpose.

Letter C: the initial letter of “Citations”. The two letters O and C summarize the mission of OpenCitations, which is to provide open citation data.

Eye: the eye gives an “human” connotation to the OpenCitations logo, which thus becomes a distinctive mascot of OpenCitations. It also has a symbolic meaning, representing the curiosity and exploration in research, not just the eyesight, but also the “investigator eye” of a questioning mind.

Citation Markups: the angle brackets are part of the <cite> HTML element which is used to the mark up the title of a cited creative work. They are a symbolic reference of the semantic web technologies adopted by OpenCitations.

1. Primary Logo
  • Use the primary logo in all instances unless the secondary logo applies.
  • Maintain clear space around the logo.
  • Do not alter the colours of the logo.
2. B/W Logo
  • Use the B/W logo on dark backgrounds.
  • Do not alter the colours of the logo.
3. Secondary Logo
  • Use the secondary logo if you have limited space.
  • Maintain clear space around the logo.
  • Do not alter the colours of the logo.
4. Secondary B/W Logo
  • Use the secondary logo if you have limited space.
  • Use the logo on dark backgrounds.
  • Do not alter the colours of the logo.

Logo Misuse

  • Do not alter the proportions of the logo.
  • Do not change the colours of the logo.
  • Do not add additional elements to the logo.

Colour Palette

OpenCitations Violet: #aa5bf9

OpenCitations Blue: #3e48e1

Typing Colour: #3c3c3c

Background Colour: #FFFFFF

Typography

The font used is Aqua Grotesque, a font that provides for a personal and commercial “free” use created by Laura Pol: https://www.behance.net/gallery/14884671/AQUA-GROTESQUE-TYPEFACE

It is a particular font, very pleasant on the lettering of the graphic sign but it is NOT to be used for long texts. In combination, especially on documents, it is recommended to use system fonts, whether serif or san serif. In particular, Georgia (serif) or Verdana (sans serif) is recommended. These are two fonts with a good degree of readability, also in relation to the accessibility of the contents.

OpenCitations Brand Identity

Vision Statement

OpenCitations provides an enduring open and fit-for-purpose source of comprehensive high-quality scholarly bibliographic and citation metadata. By enabling integration with complementary sources of open scholarly information, OpenCitations provides the basis for the collaborative development of an integrated global network of open knowledge services that meet the practical requirements of scholarly institutions and their members, in terms both of fundamental community-curated scholarly information and of interpretive academic analytical metrics, thereby facilitating free access to such crucially important information and indicators for scholars, academic administrators, research funders and other interested parties across the globe.

Mission Statement

As a key infrastructure component for global Open Science, the mission of OpenCitations is to harvest and openly publish accurate and comprehensive metadata describing the world’s academic publications and the scholarly citations that link them, and to preserve ongoing access to this information by secure archiving. We provide this information, both in human-readable form and in interoperable machine-readable Linked Open Data formats, under open licenses at zero cost and without restriction for third-party analysis and re-use.

Values

OpenCitations’ main priority is to keep its services, software and data always without charge under open licenses (CC0 for data ISC for software) for fostering maximum reuse.​

In compliance with its priorities, OpenCitations is engaged in I4OC and I4OA, and espouses the following values:  ​

Mottos

“OpenCitations for Open Science”

“OpenCitations is a plural: together we are OpenCitations”

Voice and Tone

When communicating about OpenCitations, consider the following characteristics:

  • Independent: OpenCitations cannot be sold or acquired
  • No fees for services, data access or software: OpenCitations charges no fees for any of its services, for access to any of its data, or for reuse of its software. OpenCitations members, donors and third parties all have equal free access.
  • Community-driven and Academia-based: OpenCitations’ governance is based on the feedback and guidance from the stakeholder’s community. OpenCitations is owned and run by  the  academic  community,  not  by  a commercial company.  This ensures that it is not at risk of arbitrary closure for commercial reasons.
  • Global in scope: OpenCitations data coverage is universal, not  limited  to  a particular scholarly domain (e.g. biomedicine, computer science, or humanities), nor to the English language, nor restricted by imposed acceptance criteria.

Messaging Guidelines

OpenCitations should be referred to as an ‘open infrastructure organization’.

OpenCitations name should be written as follows:

  • OpenCitations (**do not** separate the words “open” and “citations”)
  • OC

This short description can be used for communicating OpenCitations’ mission and purposes:

For more details and messaging on OpenCitations Mission and Benefits, please read the documents OpenCitations Mission Statement and The Uniqueness of OpenCitations .

Contact Information For further inquiries or assistance, please contact us at comms@opencitations.net