The ORCID logo — correctly called the ORCID iD icon — must be displayed unaltered, in one of three approved layouts (Full, Compact or Inline), in an approved colourway (green, black-and-white or reversed white), and always hyperlinked to the holder’s ORCID record; anything outside those rules counts as misuse under ORCID’s published brand guidelines. This reference sets out what publishers, repository managers and developers need to get it right.
An ORCID iD is a free, persistent 16-digit identifier — structurally compatible with ISO 27729:2012, the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) format — that uniquely distinguishes one researcher from every other researcher with a similar name. The ORCID logo is the small icon used everywhere that identifier is displayed, and its correct use is what makes the identifier instantly recognisable across thousands of independent systems.
- What is the ORCID iD icon, and why does correct display matter?
- Which display format, colour and size should you use?
- What counts as misuse of the ORCID logo?
- How do you add the ORCID icon in LaTeX, Word and submission systems?
- Answer-first: ORCID logo questions publishers and developers ask
- What this means for publishers, repositories and standards bodies
What is the ORCID iD icon, and why does correct display matter?
The ORCID iD icon is a trademarked visual mark, not a generic decoration. ORCID’s own brand guidance states plainly: “ORCID™, the ORCID logo, and the iD logo are trademarks of ORCID, Inc.” and requires that the icon “must be used as provided, and must not be changed or altered in any way.” That single rule underpins everything else in this article.
Consistent display matters for three reasons. Recognisability: the same icon on a journal page, a repository record and an institutional profile trains readers to trust it as a link to a verified identity. Accessibility: ORCID publishes a high-contrast black-and-white variant so the icon stays legible for users with visual impairments. Trust: the guidelines exist partly to stop third-party sites appearing to be, or endorsed by, ORCID itself.
ORCID iDs increasingly function as connective tissue across scholarly infrastructure: UKRI has progressively required them for funding applications since 2017, and many publishers now request one at manuscript submission. Correct icon display is the visible, user-facing half of that plumbing.
Which display format, colour and size should you use?
ORCID’s iD display guidelines define three approved formats. Choose based on available space and context, not aesthetic preference — each has a specific “when to use” rule.
| Format | What it shows | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Full ORCID iD | Icon + complete URL (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1825-0097) |
Shown on its own, or in a list of links, where space allows the full URL |
| Compact ORCID iD | Icon + 16-digit identifier only, hyperlinked to the full record | When human readability matters more than showing the technical URL |
| Inline ORCID iD | Icon alone, placed after a name or phrase | Author lists within publications; the icon sits inside running text |
Icon colour is equally prescriptive. ORCID publishes three colourways and states that no other variant should be used:
| Colourway | Default use case |
|---|---|
| Green (default) | Standard use across most contexts |
| Black-and-white (high contrast) | Where a specific accessibility contrast ratio is required |
| Reversed white | On dark-coloured backgrounds |
Sizing is specified down to the pixel. ORCID’s guidance sets 24×24px as the optimal size, prefers larger where space allows, and restricts 16×16px to genuinely space-constrained inline text; 32px and 64px variants are also published. The 16px, 24px and 32px icons are separately optimised bitmaps for legibility at small sizes, not scaled copies of one master file — relevant if a repository generates its own thumbnails rather than downloading each fixed size.
Authenticated iDs — collected via ORCID’s OAuth sign-in workflow, confirming the researcher controls the record — use the standard icon. Unauthenticated iDs, entered manually or sourced without verification, must use a separate “unauthenticated” icon plus the word “(unauthenticated)”; ORCID states this pairing is the only acceptable way to flag an unauthenticated iD.
What counts as misuse of the ORCID logo?
Most misuse is unintentional and falls into a small number of repeatable errors:
- Recolouring or restyling the icon — a brand palette, drop shadow, rotation or animation instead of an approved colourway
- Displaying the iD without the icon, or the icon without a working hyperlink to the ORCID record
- Failing to mark unauthenticated iDs with the dedicated icon and “(unauthenticated)” suffix
- Using ORCID Member or Certified Service Provider logos without holding that status
- Building a look-alike interface that could be mistaken for the official ORCID registry
- Registering ORCID-containing domains or subdomains beyond the narrow patterns ORCID permits
None of these require legal expertise to avoid — only reading the guidelines once and building the icon into a template rather than a one-off design decision.
How do you add the ORCID icon in LaTeX, Word and submission systems?
Authors and typesetters most often need the icon in three environments, each with a different practical route:
- LaTeX: the community-maintained
orcidlinkpackage (via CTAN) provides an\orcidlink{16-digit-id}command that renders the correct green icon inline and hyperlinks it, without sourcing an image file manually. Several journal templates now load it by default. - Word and other word processors: download the official SVG or PNG from ORCID’s brand library, insert it after the author’s name, and hyperlink it to the full
https://orcid.org/…URL — never recolour or resize outside the published sizes. - Submission systems and repositories: use the vector SVG wherever supported, since it scales cleanly across the 16–128px range, and collect the iD through the authenticated OAuth workflow rather than a free-text field.
Journal production teams working in XML should note that display and tagging are separate layers: JATS4R (JATS for Reuse), a publisher-led best-practice initiative, publishes recommendations for tagging ORCID iDs in journal XML, distinct from — and complementary to — the visual display rules covered here.
Answer-first: ORCID logo questions publishers and developers ask
How do I download the ORCID iD icon?
The official ORCID iD icons — in both PNG and SVG, across all approved sizes and colourways — are published in ORCID’s brand library, linked from its brand guidelines and iD display guidelines pages. Do not source the icon from third-party icon repositories, since those copies are not guaranteed to match the current approved artwork or colour values.
What does an ORCID iD look like?
An ORCID iD is displayed as a 16-digit number grouped in blocks of four (for example, 0000-0002-1825-0097), shown as part of the URL https://orcid.org/ plus that number, and it should always appear next to the small green ORCID icon, which acts as the visual cue that the number is a clickable, verifiable identifier rather than plain text.
Can the ORCID icon colour be changed to match my brand?
No. ORCID’s brand guidelines permit only three colourways — green, black-and-white, and reversed white — and explicitly state that no other colourway should be used. A publisher or repository that recolours the icon to match its own palette is out of compliance with ORCID’s trademark usage terms, regardless of intent.
Do unauthenticated ORCID iDs need a different icon?
Yes. An unauthenticated ORCID iD — one entered manually rather than verified through ORCID’s sign-in workflow — must use the dedicated unauthenticated icon and be labelled “(unauthenticated)” immediately after the identifier. ORCID states this is the only acceptable way to distinguish an unverified iD from a verified one.
What this means for publishers, repositories and standards bodies
ORCID iDs sit alongside other persistent identifiers — DOIs via Crossref and DataCite, ROR IDs for institutions — as connective infrastructure across scholarly communication. Of that set, ORCID is unusually prescriptive about the visual presentation of its identifier, not just its data format, because the icon carries a user-facing trust signal a bare identifier string does not.
For publishers, the icon belongs in a template or component library, checked once against ORCID’s current guidelines, rather than reproduced ad hoc by each production team. For repository developers, icon display is an accessibility-compliance matter, not a cosmetic afterthought — the black-and-white and reversed-white variants exist to meet contrast requirements the default green icon cannot satisfy on every background. For research administrators evaluating vendor systems, correct, unaltered ORCID iD display is a reasonable, checkable procurement criterion, alongside broader author identification and authorship attribution practice.
As more funders and publishers tie workflow steps to a verified ORCID iD, the small green icon is likely to become even more ubiquitous across manuscript, grant and repository interfaces. Getting its display right once, at the template level, is a small task that prevents a recurring compliance gap.
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