Design As a Language

“Have you ever heard the adage that communication is only 7 percent verbal and 93 percent non-verbal, i.e. body language and vocal variety? You probably have, and if you have any sense at all, you have ignored it.”

Ubiquity

While this statistic may be hard to quantify, there is still an interesting underlying meaning. There is much subtextual conversation in our everyday interactions of which we’re not aware. Whether that’s a slight lean towards a person you like, crossing your arms in a new place because you feel uncomfortable, or starting to play with a pen in a meeting when you get antsy, your body is fluent in an entirely different language you may not have ever thought about before, punctuated with nuance. 

Overall Design Language & Styling

Design can be thought of similarly. We have well-known design elements: shape, form, line, space, value, color, and texture. These minute components work towards a larger framework – the design language or system. While using these individual pieces to create the experience of a brand or website, you should speak to a much higher level with your design than arbitrarily choosing fonts or haphazardly dropping circles all over the page. While building your design language, you can use all of these elements and more to craft your system, just as in writing, you use words and punctuation to create a paragraph that turns into books (or this post).

Writing language has a set structure of rules to follow – every sentence has to have a noun and a verb and end with punctuation. The design language is no different. It is a way to curate the harmonious interaction of the design elements by setting usage constraints and other guidelines to maintain a cohesive brand image. So, rather than focusing on the primary brand color, it is also how it communicates with the secondary and tertiary colors in the set and what that grouping means as a whole. The design language also explains how these colors inform the typography, layout, and form. 

The big brand boom: An argument for the styleguide

There’s this famous saying, ”It’s hard to see the forest for its trees.” It rings true, meaning it’s hard to see the big picture if you’re laser-focused on the tiny details. Often, when we design, we aim for pixel-perfect. However, when you work at this scale, it is hard to ensure the consistency of the overarching design system you are working within. Rather than thinking this way, where we work so granularly, it is a good practice to take a couple of steps back to see how the entire piece works and how the elements speak to each other. This is where you interact with higher-spectrum design elements across multiple applications, such as unity, balance, dynamics, and composition.

The design language for your business works even larger than the graphics that design creates daily. It is the holistic approach to the visual presence of an organization. It reaches across departments well outside the four walls of the design team. This is why creating a brand guide is of the utmost importance, as it acts equivalently to a dictionary, defining all the brand elements and their implementation. A brand guide houses all information about the organizational brand vision, from logo use to when and why to use a certain font weight.

Your design language goes even deeper than the brand guide though – it seeps into every visual aspect of the business, down to folder and file naming conventions.

PA sets the design dialogue with our base code

In our case, our PA Base Code sets the precedent for the site’s design system. It is the basis of all we code on a website built to start with a sound and solid foundation. In this, we have a built-in style guide, a somewhat watered-down version of the brand guide. We can define heading styles, colors, table styles, form styling, and other visual site elements. This ensures consistency across the entirety of the site without having to think twice about it.

You may say, “Okay, that’s great. It seems like a good organizational tool, but why do I really need one? It sounds like it’s more work to put together than it’s worth!”

With all good things comes a little elbow grease. There is more to be gained than just consistency of your visual presence. Consistency subconsciously creates legitimacy in your branding. People will trust your business more if everything they see from your messaging carries the same tonality in an ad that it does on your website and in your email newsletter blast. This consistency also reinforces your brand’s ability to be recognized, which is huge if you want to grow your business. If it couldn’t get any better, this will also help speed up your company’s workflow as all the company assets will be neat, organized, and easily accessible to all the team members who need them with no question of usage. 

Does your company have a design language?

Let us know how your design language has helped shape your business. If you want Perfect Afternoon to write one for you, contact us!

Photo Credit: Envato Elements