Brand guideline documents have always been graphic designers’ secret treasures. If you’ve ever flipped through the reprints of 1960s and 70s guidelines like those from Standards Manual or Unit Editions, or heard British designers geek out over the ‘holy grail’ that is the RAC guidelines by North, you’ll know what we mean. We seem to be obsessed with these things.

Let’s be honest, most graphic designers are control freaks. There's something deeply satisfying about creating the ‘rules’—the logo clear space, the dos and don’ts, color swatches, type scales, vehicle liveries, even uniforms. It feels like a perfect military operation: order, consistency, precision.

But here’s the thing: many guidelines documents end up as straightjackets. They're designed for designers to obsess over, calculating type-size-to-leading ratios or meticulously following grids with no room for flexibility. It often feels like designers like to create these documents for themselves, rather than the end users who will actually need to follow them.

At Manual, we believe a good modern design system—and the resulting guidelines document—is much more than a set of rigid instructions to provide clarity and consistency—that‘s table stakes. No, a good brand design system should be incredibly flexible, providing a myriad of ways a designer can bring an identity to life. It should have systems within systems. Not one way of doing things, but 4, 5… maybe even 10.

It should also be exciting and inspiring. And it shouldn‘t just teach a designer how to make something look 'on brand'—it should help them understand the soul of the brand, the communication objectives, and the 'why' behind the design. It‘s a mini school. Think of it like handing a chef-in-training a fresh box of really great ingredients, along with a dozen recipe cards, but also the freedom to experiment. Yum.

Thanks to modern tools like Standards, we now have the ability to create brand guidelines that are not only structured, easy to navigate, and interactive, but also fresh, dynamic, and alive—things that design and marketing teams actually want to spend time in. (Well, that‘s the idea anyway).

The Obama Foundation Brand World, built on Standards, is the most comprehensive design system reference guide we’ve ever created. It’s been a true labor of love.

Tom Crabtree and Vanessa Lam recently spoke with Hamish Smyth at Standards about our work with the Obama Foundation. You can read the full interview here.