Its like the never ending story – “Web development team waits for designers to finish page – project delayed”; OK, you caught me – they never delay the project!  ;)

What I think every company, every brand and especially every website needs is a style guide.  I caught this great post at Smashing Magazine called “Style Guides for Brands and Websites“.  It is awesome.

The just of the post is why would you want to do this – well they spell that out in a few short bullet points:

• You’ll have an easy guide to refer to when handing over the project.
• Makes you look professional. They’ll know you did everything for a reason
• You maintain control of the design. When someone does something awful, you can refer them to the document.
• You avoid cheapening the design, message and branding.
• Forces you to define and hone your style, making for a more cohesive design.

What I see in todays media world (this is my background – but think it applies to most companies) is the designers who are designing for the web are not digital natives – nor spend much time on the internet.  They can build a nice once page site - because a one page site is just like a print piece – but when they get to tieing sites, pages, landing pages, single article level pages – the wheels fall off the bus.

I’m not saying it is easy – but it is necessary.  If you do not build a style guide BEFORE you make a site layout/design, then you don’t really need the guide.  Use the guide to guide you – at a minimum, you can back into a style guide after.

So anyway – poor web developers.  We always get the short end of the stick…so please – feel sorry for us!

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