How can you create a cohesive design system for a brand?

Many times the answer to these questions lies in the founders, key stakeholders, and (especially if it's a new brand) the customer. The more we focus on bridging the gap between the brand and the way it's perceived by the audience, the clearer the goals become. This in turn will influence every design and copy writing decision from here on out. Don't rush the discovery phase!

When creating design systems for your brand and setting goals the most important thing to create is room for agility, yes we are all well versed with the fundamentals but we so often create rigid systems that quickly become dated and leave you and “your” locked in a cage you designed. Design Agility is what keeps your brand afloat when trends, markets, economies and audiences change.

To create a cohesive design system for a brand, start by establishing a set of fundamental elements like the logo, color palette, typography, and imagery style. Consistency across these elements is key. Develop guidelines for their usage, specifying things like color codes, font styles, and logo variations. Create reusable design components and templates for different materials, ensuring a consistent look and feel across various platforms.

Beyond the obvious and fundamental, such as creating a strong logo, a specific color palette, your own typography or a representative graphic, any cohesive design system for a brand requires an organizational commitment that starts from the very heart of each one. of his collaborators. That is to say, a very good brand, without the commitment of an organization, is exactly the same as having nothing. The mark of any human endeavor is like a flag for an army; It is the summary of the spirits and desires of those who make up this organization and, without this commitment and individual attitude at a global level, nothing can be achieved.

The designer's primary goal should be to familiarize themselves with the results of the brand discovery and any other information that can help understand the brand and the audience. Get to know not only the core idea, mission, vision, and personas but also the tone of voice and the marketing and PR strategy. Knowing all of the above will enable you to establish the appropriate brand touchpoints, allowing you to figure out all the ways the brand identity and/or a design system needs to exist.

Before you touch upon any color palette. Close your eyes and imagine your users using your design and the brand that you are building. Think about the emotion and the environments that your design will live through. Get a sense of those colors that bring to your mind and play around with your design. Always do research and referencing at common places for designers. Font play another huge role on balancing the design. Imagine a red crisp color, with a subtle serif font in white. Feels alerting right? But imagine that with a font thats thick and playful, your emotions changed right away! Its depends on what might for different audience but always have an eye for learning new designs by emotions and feeling!

This phase is completely dependent on the core values and personality traits of the brand in question. There are no bad color choices or fonts, but ones that more readily convey the sentiment the brand is trying to express. The interplay of specific font and color combinations is the special sauce that can bring a brand's personality to life and connect to the subconscious of the intended audience.

The color you choose for design system, convey the emotion and feelings of brand. And the fonts you choose, define which way and tone can make a stronger connection with audiences. These are the most memorable tools of your visual identity.

For me, this step for Graphic in Footwear industry is very specific. We have to follow our customers branding guidelines (Fonts, logo…) Colors they also have their own colors palette. We just need to create base on what we have. We used to use TPG, TPX or C pantone

There are so many areas to unpack when looking into colours and fonts. There is a beautiful science and art that comes into play, more now with the value of great research and insights. No matter the budget, there are options to make something that is unique and valuable to the audience. Understanding that visuals can drive an emotion. Use colour theory to help guide the journey you want the audience to go down. For both fonts and colour doing your research on the audience and competitors to ensure your brand stands out is vital. Testing, testing, testing is a must can your brand work in all mediums if the ones that haven't been considered? Something that gets missed all too often these days is CMYK and RGB factor everything in.

In my experience looking back at all the brands we helped create a cohesive design system always involves establishing a set of guidelines, principles, and assets that ensure consistency and unity across all brand elements. Staying true to these rules is key this is why a brand guide is essential so all rules are clear and set for all contributing partners and collaborators.

The logo can be seen as the simplest form of your branding identity. Your brand mark should stand out from other organizations through its simplicity & power to elicit emotion. It’s important that your logo is simple & minimalistic; over-complicating it will water down the impact it has on viewers. Creating a logo takes time & strategy—it’s not something you can just whip up in 5 min. A logo is often the first thing people see when they encounter your brand, so it needs to be memorable & evocative. It should encapsulate the essence of who you are as a business & what you represent to consumers. Make sure you have a strong visual identity by using consistent colors, fonts, etc.

While creating a logo one should keep these things in mind, the logo is the base of the whole branding and the logo is a brand in itself. 1. Simple and memorable 2. Meaningful and mindful 3. Should work well on various platforms 4. Complements brand personality 5. Readable in different sizes For the icons maintain a consistent style across your icons. Or we can also you icons that complements branding like we can use hand-drawn icon types for a business related to kids and for a business we can use simple outline icons.

Créez un logo distinctif qui incarne les valeurs et la personnalité de la marque. Les ic?nes doivent être simples, reconnaissables et alignées avec le style global.

The logo should design simple and unique. Notice that the logo make senes and meaning over time in audiences mind by brand communication activity and experiences that create for audiences and customers. It's not necessary to make it complicated as means of telling somethings or specific meaning.

Defining a specific layouts and grids helps you to create a space that your design elements such as color, fonts, logo and ... can be more efficient and convey meaning according the brand's goals.

For print design it is necessary to spend some time in printshop. To work as a prepress operator is super-helpful to understand the whole process and every small detail needed to have good printing result. Also, to learn to talk with printers is very good, because if something goes wrong they will target the designer by default :) Margins, paddings, white spaces... are of great importance and should be very strict about limits if customer want to make it smaller due to some costs.

établissez une grille de mise en page qui détermine la structure visuelle de vos designs. Assurez-vous que cette grille est flexible pour s'adapter à divers supports tout en conservant la cohérence.

This step is another important step in point of view. I am working with many different brands so I always create my own layout and gird for each brand. It helps to keep our design signature but consistent with our customers. By the time it will have your team members can easy follow up and complete their duty in the right way.

This is a very interesting topic, depends on what you are designing. Most likely for web you can use a static grid from 8 to 12 columns based on an 8 pixel formal, that is the standard and way more simple when building wireframes and prototypes. For mobile that proportion of columns can very to 4, depending on how complex your layout needs to be, remember that good practice is always to start the mobile first since a great percent of modern users do access content trough their mobile devices. I even use a more dynamic grid based on the golden ratio, 1,618 proportion for divisions and visual balance.

Having a well crafted design system in your style guide ensures consistency in design regardless of who is executing new assets for the brand. Consistency and attention to detail are the most important aspects of ensuring your brand is cohesive, recognizable and ultimately able to stand out in the minds of your customers and prospects.

It makes you have an overview of your work, understand the mistakes and shortcomings of your design when you want to establish your style guide.

In the context of business growth, a style guide that's designed to be accessible and understandable is a strategic tool. It ensures that every employee has access to learn and effectively communicate the brand's identity regardless of their role. This uniformity in brand representation, especially in customer interactions and sales, directly supports business growth by building a consistent and strong brand image.

Instead of viewing a style guide as a set of rigid prescriptions, consider it a living document that fosters collaboration and creative exploration. Encourage designers and developers to contribute to its evolution, fostering a sense of ownership and shared responsibility for upholding brand consistency. Don't just list specifications; weave a narrative around your design choices. Explain the rationale behind each element, the emotions it evokes, and the message it communicates. This adds depth and meaning to your style guide, making it more than just a technical reference.

Consistency in the application of any brand is paramount in the building of that brand. The style guide, though constraining at times is the friend or partner of the brand. The logo says, "who we are" and the style guide says, "how we are." They are the ying and yang of fundamentally good logo design.

One of the most important problem which you should solve as a brand designer is color display control and management in digital pages (RGB) and printed materials (CMYK). You should be able to display the same color as much as you can.

It is important to remember that visual brands are ever-evolving. The consistent use of colors, fonts, and logos will ensure brand recognition. Still, the treatment of those graphical elements and the addition of supporting graphics can ensure that the brand's visual material remains fresh and relevant over time. Revisiting the brand guidelines every so often to refresh them with new treatments that evolved is key to ensuring that the brand's evolution is documented and the guides don't become stale.

Assurez-vous de maintenir la cohérence à travers tous les supports, des réseaux sociaux au packaging, en passant par les documents imprimés. Gardez une ouverture à l'évolution de la marque tout en préservant son identité visuelle de base. Obtenez des retours de la communauté et ajustez le design en conséquence pour rester en phase avec les tendances actuelles tout en maintenant la pertinence.

Control end to end colour reproduction using digital colour space as opposed to PMS nominated colour. Ensure all reproduction processes use a digital colour library and maintain to Delta E of less than 2, preferably 1.5..

After all the above is done, the MOST important thing to do is to STICK TO IT. Before putting anything out there, make sure it is aligned with everything outlined in the brand guide.