Yet Another Styleguide
The end of the summer finds me working wildly on another corporate identity style guide. This is the fourth style guide I've done for Digitas, an ad agency in Boston. This one is for a pharmaceutical company in Cambridge called Millennium.
Style guides require an interesting cross-section of all the random skills I've acquired in my career. I use my logo design skills to help develop a logo, its variations, and the rules for its use. My knowledge of both print and the web allows me to make informed decisions about how the brand has to work in various media. I call on my past life as a book designer and production manager to design and produce the final document (usually a book of 50 to 100 pages). And of course, being an accidental technical writer, I write the whole thing, too.
To give you an idea of how I make a living, here is a brief excerpt:
The area of noninterference ensures that the logo has enough breathing room and doesn't compete with other elements in the layout. There should be a minimum amount of clear space on all sides of the logo that is equal to the height of the logotype.The area of noninterference is considered the minimum uninterrupted space surrounding the logo; it is usually desirable to allow more space.
Don't add decorative elements behind, around, or interacting with the logo, even if they seem to be related to the Millennium identity.
Why: This weakens the overall impact of the logo and makes it less recognizable.
This project will keep me busy well into October, perhaps beyond. So far, so good!
