Have you ever worked for a client that sees graphic standards and style guidelines as laws that must be strictly adhered to? Or adhered to them so literally that you question the value you bring to a project?
For example, I was once told, “Our style guide only shows samples of blue buttons, therefore we cannot have green or red buttons, they must all be blue.”
Standards should never reinforce consistency to the point of sameness. While you want your brand to remain steady in the mind of your customers, you do not want to restrict creativity in presenting ideas, products and services.
Graphic design experts are employed to present consistent and creative marketing efforts across a wide array of media but can get frustrated being restricted to making everything look exactly the same. Blind devotion to a Standard/Guideline document can force these design professionals into making routine “assembly line” copies instead of making the creative aesthetic decisions we hire them for and trust them to do.
