The Skype Brand Book
Beautiful.
6 comments
Mar 05, 2009
Foomandoonian said...
Skype has a great brand, no argument, but there's always something that pisses me off about brand guidelines. While I was reading through this, I managed to put my finger on it.They all take a patronising tone. I'm sure the writers are just being thorough, but they always read like, "Now, make sure you don't clutter things up. You know to make designs look nice don't you? No clashing colours now, remember your Colour Theory 101! Don't just add a drop shadow because it 'looks cool', there's a good designer".
I guess they're worried that some secretary is going to be asked to design a flyer or something...
Mar 05, 2009
Jon Price said...
but the Skype app seems to follow none of these guidelines. what gives?
Mar 05, 2009
Dmitry said...
Foomandoonian: I think so (worried about some secretary designing a flyer). They want to be very thorough, and I think it could actually be much worse; here they chose a friendly if patronizing tone, it could have easily turned to strict and patronizing.Having said this, I think these are great. Covers a lot of ground and presented beautifully with plenty of examples for every point, which makes it easy to follow and digest.
Aug 25, 2009
Jake said...
I've developed enough confidence in my abilities over the years and am secure enough to take brand guidelines at face value, and still color outside the lines when I think it's the right thing to do. Brand guidelines are meant mostly for the office workers and interns who have trouble coordinating their outfits, and don't know Arial from Helvetica, but also for some creative types who spew garbage like "changing paradigms" and "out of the box thinking" and crap. So what may be patronizing to some, might actually be a useful instruction manual for another.
Dec 16, 2009
Evert said...
Actually you should have 3 brand books:- One for communication Pros
- One for design Pros
- One for the "normal" company staff
Jan 18, 2010
Ignou said...
but the Skype app seems to follow none of these guidelines. what gives?
