Levers: Broad, sweeping
decisions about how
our experiences
should feel
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Size
Small Large
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Scale
Low size
contrast
High size
contrast
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Density
Compact Airy
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Weight
Light Heavy
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No content
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Small Large
Compact Airy
Low High
Small Large
Compact Airy
Low High
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How to define your levers
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Use your brand traits
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Does the work, Explanatory, Smart,
Audience-first, Generosity
Illuminating, Beautiful, Rebellious,
Thoughtful, Entertaining
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Small Large Small Large
Compact Airy Compact Airy
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What’s your range?
Small Large
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What’s your range of
expression?
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creative.starbucks.com
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First, the design prioritizes
legibility and conveying
information as clearly as possible.
“
—Mark Wilson, Fast Company Starbucks just publicly
deconstructed its brand—here’s why
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The other half is about
expressivity, emotion, and all the
other intangibles Starbucks
wants to spark in the consumer.
“
—Mark Wilson, Fast Company Starbucks just publicly
deconstructed its brand—here’s why
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Depending on the context, the
brand system allows designers to
dial up either trait as needed.
“
—Mark Wilson, Fast Company Starbucks just publicly
deconstructed its brand—here’s why
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creative.starbucks.com
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What contexts are your
teams solving for?
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What contexts are your
teams solving for?
Environments:
In store
On-the-go
Platforms:
iOS
Android
Social
Web
Formats:
Digital
Physical products
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What should your brand
feel like, across all of
these contexts?
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Mobile Order & Pay Social Media
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Defining your range,
helps teams understand
where they can be
expressive
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“Can I change the font?”
What they say:
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Dials: Small, detailed
choices that enable
the levers
Always design a thing by considering it in its
next larger context—a chair in a room, a
room in a house, a house in an environment,
an environment in a city plan.
—Eliel Saarinen
“
I began to realize that if you made
everything the same, it was boring
after the first year. If you changed
it individually for each play, the
theater lost recognizability.
“
—Paula Scher
Unintentional divergence
Intentional, but unnecessary divergence
Intentional, meaningful divergence
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Unintentional divergence
Intentional, but unnecessary divergence
Intentional, meaningful divergence
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Contexts for variation.
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Brand
Audience
Environment
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Good Variation Bad Variation
vs
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Good Variation
• If there’s a specific problem
that we need a new pattern to
solve
• Determined by user scenarios
and content needs
• Strengthens brand voice in a
way that serves our audience
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Bad
Variation
• Visual variation on components
that serve the same function
across brands,
• Don’t do much to strengthen
brand voice
BBC Gel “Card” Component
BBC Gel, https://www.bbc.co.uk/gel/guidelines/cards
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BBC Gel “Card” Component
BBC Gel, https://www.bbc.co.uk/gel/guidelines/cards
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Google Material, https://material.io/design/material-theming/#material-theming
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BBC Gel “Card” Component
BBC Gel, https://www.bbc.co.uk/gel/guidelines/cards
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Enable improvisation.
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Chefs vs cooks
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A cook knows what to do to create an
enjoyable dish, then they use that knowledge
and repeat what works to create a consistent
experience. A chef not only knows what to do,
but why it’s done.
“
—Stephanie Poce
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When people understand the
rationale behind the system, they’re
more likely to use it creatively
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The right tool for the job
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No content
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Not expressive
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No content
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No content
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Shared
foundation
Room for
variation
+
High bedrest
Generous seat
Polished or powder-coated
Leather or fabric
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Shared
foundation
Room for
variation
+
High bedrest
Generous seat
Polished or powder-coated
Leather or fabric
Corporate
Public
Private
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No content
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No content
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Shared
foundation
Room for
variation
+
General, flexible
components
More rigid and specific
components
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Evolving patterns
from products
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Patterns stay alive because the
people who are using them are
also testing them.
“
—Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language
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No content
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No content
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No content
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No content
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Encourage contribution
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“I’ll just fork this
component.”
What they say:
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Shared ownership
What they care about:
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Shared ownership
keeps systems alive
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Contribution
• Why should you contribute?
• How you should contribute?
• Celebrate contributions
We want to tap into a
designer’s inherent desire to
evolve or even completely
rethink parts of our system.
“
—Josh Mateo and Brendon Manwaring
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We want to create a paradigm shift wherein our
designers no longer view themselves as users of
the system, but instead see their role as core
contributor and co-author of a shared system -
one that they have ownership of.
“
—Josh Mateo and Brendon Manwaring
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The “Edge Effect”
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Borders contain
the greatest
sources of diversity
and creativity.