Promoting Your Department of Energy SBIR Award

The Department of Energy (DOE) has a set of official branding assets for awardees of Departmental funding. The logo identifiers (links are at the bottom of this page) are meant to be used by small businesses, other companies, universities, consortia, and other funding recipients to self-identify themselves as official DOE Awardees.

Please feel free to use the appropriate logo according to the provided guidelines (see below) to showcase your partnership with the federal government in building our clean energy future.

Brand Usage and Logo Placement and Treatment

U.S. Department of Energy awardees are encouraged to use the brand identity, which consists of the phrase “U.S. Department of Energy Awardee” and a symbol which identify and distinguish the work under the U.S. Department of Energy via DOE funding. Use of this brand identity is conditional: awardees must clearly explain its appearance on any non-Federal materials, its appearance must be accompanied by a disclaimer, and it must not be used by the awardee in any way that applies or gives the appearance that DOE endorses the awardee. Correct use of this brand identity encourages consistency, quality, and accuracy of all communications products—whether in print or online.

The following are placement and treatment requirements for awardee use of the DOE Awardee logo:

  • Use of the logo on non-DOE materials must be accompanied by a statement clearly explaining its presence, such as “This project is being funded in part by [insert DOE logo]”.
  • Use of the logo on non-DOE materials must contain the disclaimer “Logo was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy to indicate receipt of DOE funding. Not an endorsement by DOE.” This must be displayed in a reasonably prominent position and easily readable type size on any such materials.
  • The logo must not be used in a manner that expressly or implicitly implies DOE endorses the views, opinions, products or services of any person or entity that is displaying the logo.
  • The logo must not be used in a manner that would disparage DOE or the Federal government, or on any partisan materials.
  • The logo may not be altered.
  • By displaying this logo, you understand and agree that your company and its employees using the logo are responsible for its proper use and for ensuring any person or entity to whom you or your company distribute this logo is informed of these guidelines, including but not limited to, advertising agencies, contractors, and companies that produce promotional items on its behalf.

Awardee Naming Conventions

Use “U.S. Department of Energy Awardee” for use in first text reference on each new page of a document. For subsequent references when the full program name appears previously or in a more prominent location, “Energy Dept. Awardee” is permitted.

Proper Naming of DOE Awardee

  • U.S. Department of Energy Awardee

Improper Naming of DOE Awardee

  • Awardee
  • DOE Awardee

U.S. Department of Energy Naming Conventions

Proper Naming of U.S. Department of Energy

  • U.S. Department of Energy
  • Energy Department
  • Energy Dept.
  • U.S. Energy Department
  • U.S. Energy Dept.

Award Attribution Language

When creating communications materials about your project, including press releases, webpages, presentations, fact sheets, and brochures, please use the following language to describe the U.S. Department of Energy. In addition to using this language, awardees are encouraged to acknowledge the Energy Department as the funding organization within the body of all press releases. For web communications, when the U.S. Department of Energy is first referenced, please link the U.S. Department of Energy Awardee name to energy.gov/about-us and provide the following statement:
“The mission of the Energy Department is to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions. Learn more at energy.gov.”

Awardee-Required Attribution for Research Reports

The recipient is required to include the following acknowledgement in publications arising out of, or relating to, work performed under this award, whether copyrighted or not:

Acknowledgment: “This work is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Award Number(s) [enter the award number(s)].”

Disclaimer: “This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.”

Awardee-Required Attribution for Presentations

Presentations related to projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy require the U.S. Department of Energy Awardee logo and verbally — and in writing acknowledge the Energy Department as the funder of the project or study. This includes, but is not limited to conference presentations, tradeshow demonstrations, webinars, and seminars.

Web Applications

In order to improve brand awareness and search engine optimization, when referring to your DOE awardee status online, DOE requires the following conventions:

  • When using any treatment of the U.S. Department of Energy Awardee logo on a webpage, digital newsletter, or report, DOE requires an embed a link to https://www.energy.gov on the image.
  • When referencing the U.S. Department of Energy Awardee logo for the first time in a digital piece of content, embed a link within the words “U.S. Department of Energy Awardee” to https://www.energy.gov.
  • For webpages referring to your organization’s position as a U.S. Department of Energy Awardee, tag your content with “U.S. Department of Energy Awardee” and/or add the words to your page’s metadata or page summary.

Reposting And Remixing Department of Energy Content

Awardees are encouraged to repost awardee Success Stories, blog posts, video, and other pieces of digital content created by the Department of Energy and featured on the Department’s websites. When content created by the Department of Energy is remixed or reposted in any form, attribution to the Department of Energy is required at the top of the page or in a similarly prominent way and the content must be linked to the original content source. For proper attribution, the following or a similar statement is required:

Acknowledgement: “This [blog post/success story/video/infographic] originally appeared on [PLACE – include link to original piece of content] and was created and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Press Release Protocol (Optional)

The Department of Energy Office of Public Affairs team is available to review press releases associated with Department of Energy- funded projects prior to their release to the media. This review process benefits both DOE and the awardee because it enables DOE to verify that brand consistency standards are being met, while offering constructive feedback to awardees. While this is not a required approval process, the DOE communications team has successfully used press release reviews as a way to help its awardees frame their work within the context of trends in the energy sector and DOE priorities.

Social Media (Optional)

Logo Treatments

The DOE Awardee logo is available in EPS, PNG, and JPEG. For all print materials, use the native vector format. Large formats require the logo to be in vector format (EPS). Do not scale up a rasterized format (TIFF, GIF, JPG); it will lose resolution and look pixelated. Please do not modify the shape, proportion, or colors of the logo.

The preferred use of the DOE Awardee logo is horizontal on a white background.

Do not reduce below minimum size of ½ inch. Do not rotate the logo.

Awardee Logo Usage (Video)

When adding the DOE Awardee logo in an awardee partnership video being displayed on the DOE website, the same logo placement and treatment requirements above apply. The following requirements also apply when creating the video:

  • The video must feature your DOE-funded project or projects.
  • When posted, it must be clear that the video is made “from a partner”, and clear that DOE did not produce it.
  • To avoid the appearance of endorsement by DOE, do not feature your organization’s logo except alongside the DOE Awardee logo once briefly at the beginning and once at the end of your video. Also ensure that the DOE Awardee logo is equally as prominent as your organization’s logo.
  • The video should have accurate content.
  • Do not include personally identifiable information, such as license plates, nametags, addresses, etc.
  • Avoid shots with any prominent corporate logos, including those of non-partners. Incidental logos in footage are OK, but efforts should be taken to limit them.
  • Make sure that any workers shown are using proper safety equipment.
  • Make sure not to use copyrighted content, including images, footage and music.

Captions And Text Versions

When creating videos and digital media, it’s important to remember to make your content accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires the federal government to make electronic and information technologies accessible to people with disabilities, which includes writing alt text for images and including captions and text versions of visual media.

When creating videos to be promoted through DOE channels, make sure that you create both captions and a text version to comply with Section 508 requirements.

A text version is a detailed transcript that is often posted on its own, separate content page. The text version typically includes all spoken language, a description of all important events and actions that occur in the file, and anything displayed visually in the file such as words or symbols. This page is then linked beneath the embedded video.

Captions should also be uploaded as a separate caption file on your video hosting site. DOE does not recommend using a video provider’s automatic captioning service—such as YouTube’s auto caption service, since there is no guarantee that the results will be accurate.

If you have questions, please email [email protected]