Style guide

This article explains design guidelines in media design; for other meanings see design guidelines .

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Exemplary page of a style guide with specifications for colors

A style guide (or German design guideline ) describes how certain elements of a print product or a website are to be designed. These guidelines are intended to create a uniform appearance for various means of communication in an institution or company, e.g. B. advertising and information material, business letters or websites, guarantee and thus enable the creation of a corporate identity . Style guides are also used for software creation or products in general; Here, too, the goal is: products should be perceived as belonging together and possibly also associated with the associated brand.

aims

The guidelines of a style guide can be used to regulate:

• the language; with the aim of using uniform designations, formulations and linguistic styles
• the page formatting; Layout and design of texts and communication media, with the aim of creating a uniform overall impression with regard to e.g. B. Font, outline, date formats and use of colors
• technical and visual aspects for creating source code for programs, websites, etc.

Design means for printed communication media

With a style guide for printed communication media, z. B. established:

• Paper type
• Paper size
• Printing inks
• Printing techniques and finishing (e.g. embossing, stamping, varnishing)
• Type area
• Fonts
• Font size
• Line spacing
• Type of outline
• Imagery
• Use of design elements

Design means for digital communication media

In digital media, especially in web design , style guides are gaining in importance in the design process. This is due to the increasing relevance of responsive web design , in which the individual, pixel-perfect layout is becoming less important. It is replaced by global design principles that can be defined in the form of a style guide and are only implemented in concrete user interfaces in a second step. Typically, digital style guides contain information on:

• Colors used
• Fonts and typographical settings for various areas of application, for example for headings and body text
• Imagery
• Type and characteristics of the animations used

Depending on the characteristics, the style guide can also contain ready-made elements of the user interface, such as:

• Buttons of various functions
• Typographic design elements such as quotes
• Modal windows

In some cases, more general information on branding such as tone of voice , logos and slogans used are also included in the style guide.

Examples

Style guides online from

• German Federal Government , BMEL
• EU: Interinstitutional Rules for Publications

Design guidelines online from

• OpenOffice.org Wiki

See also

• Human Interface Guideline
• Corporate design manual
• Editorial guidelines

Web links

Collections of style guides and corporate design manuals:

• designtagebuch.de
• ci-portal.de