Say goodbye to ineffective model tips
Designers will know that brand guidelines are only as useful as the receiving end customer is willing to create them. Months of work developing strict specifications and fine-tuning details can wash away immediately after delivery. However, for customers, following or finding guidelines can be an awkward, time-consuming task, endlessly searching through a tangled PDF file that is likely lost in a wormhole of computer files.
To update the way branding guidelines are created, shared, stored and referenced, Jesse Reed and Hamish Smyth – the team behind the Publisher Standards Manual – are designing a tool called Standards that aims to bring an outdated process into the modern world bring to.
Standards are created in partnership with Seattle-based design and technology agency Shore, while the identity, UX / UI, and product experience were designed by Order (a studio also founded by Reed and Hamish). The platform includes the most common elements of the branding guidelines, including color values, customizable elements, fonts and animations. It also promises to allow designers and clients to share comments on WIP guidelines and eventually sign a final sentence.
While sharing files and assets using cloud-based services like Dropbox is common in the creative industry and far beyond, brand guidelines have been maintained in the past.
A web-based platform instead of a static PDF format should make the process far less painful while also making the version control guidelines more watertight and easier to manage. This type of solution feels so obvious that it seems incredible that it is not yet an industry standard.
The tool was developed based on what we learned from guidelines over the years (which Reed and Smyth will have seen much of) and how the system can be adapted to today's design practice. Designers can now deal with standards at an early stage. The full platform is expected to be rolled out early next year.
Standards.Site