There is a huge misconception on what exactly is Branding. Many developers think that branding is the fonts, colors, logos, and images that are associated with the organizations in which they work. Nothing can be further from those artifacts. The fact is, a Brand is a decision-making tool. It is the criterion that guides an organization in the way they present themselves.
A well-defined brand can help resolve conflicts that may arise in a web application project. Stylistic and implementation differences between the designers, the artists, and the developers can easily be resolved if the architect or product manager reviews the company’s branding with the team. The guidelines spell out exactly what is needed from a deliverable perspective. For example, Apple’s brand voice guidelines are; simple, declarative, clean. With those brand traits spelled out for you, you have some guidance as to how to proceed forward as a team on delivering features for a web product.
For faster front-end development, your developers will need to see the brand guidelines spelled out in a concrete way. There’s no better solution for this than a UI Library. Here’s what your UI Library should contain:
- Fonts (text styles)
- Typography (block-level text formatting)
- Icons
- Logos
- Colors
- Style Guide for HTML Elements
- Reusable Components
I hope this helps identify problem areas in your web UI development and overcoming time-wasting disputes related to implementing features for your product.
