Years ago, I was at an event production company’s studio. I watched an operator drop a sponsor’s logo onto an artwork—drag, drop, scale. Without realizing it, he used the RGB version for a CMYK print. He didn’t notice he wasn’t holding the Shift key to maintain proportions. He also failed to see that the logo was too small and lacked the necessary white space.
The best part? This was all done on a cracked version of CorelDRAW.
Colors. Proportions. Minimum size. White space. All clearly documented in the brand identity guidelines that had been given to the production company—and completely ignored by the operator.
That was almost 20 years ago. Technology has evolved, but the people in the business haven’t changed much. Think about it: the people responsible for producing and delivering design are often not designers. The operators at printing and signage companies. The contractors, carpenters, and painters. The coders in digital solutions firms. The LED technicians setting up displays. The tech guys sitting behind consoles.
Shouldn’t that be a major consideration for designers when proposing design solutions?
As a younger designer, I thought the grand finale of brand design was delivering the brand identity manual. I started working in an era when brand manuals came in huge binders.
Logos were deconstructed. Proportions documented. White space defined. Endless lists of dos and don’ts.
Then came the meticulous details—font sizes, baseline grids for letterheads and business cards. The name of the game was, I suspect, about how much one could document (or prescribe as rules). Confession: I was guilty of this. I thought it made me look more professional, more sophisticated—maybe even justified adding another zero to the invoice.
I am very sure the following three examples would leave many designers stumped.
I can’t speak for Western markets, but I’ve seen the gap between design idealism and on-the-ground reality. What’s logical and feasible in London or Amsterdam can become an uphill battle in Bhubaneswar or Ho Chi Minh.
Consider this: how most of us in Asia were raised.
We learn in a structured, step-by-step manner. We’re rewarded for focusing on details, following instructions closely, and diligently ticking the right boxes. We are trained in rote memorization and recall. In other words, we are passive learners—we lack critical thinking skills. We aren’t taught to analyze the bigger picture, nor are we encouraged to form our own perspectives and approaches.
Just follow what the teacher says, and we’ll get good grades. We’ll be fine.
I don’t blame foreign consultancies for leaving behind brand guidelines that are open-ended and non-prescriptive. But perhaps a better understanding of cultural differences would help?
“Shaded areas may be infringed upon by imagery if necessary, but it is preferable to give the Speedmarque prominence through clear surrounding space.” Try explaining the concept of clear space to people raised in maximalism.
“We use inclusive language to make our writing feel relatable, relevant and authentic.” Try explaining this “tone-of-voice” in cultures where English isn’t the first language, and academic excellence is measured by vocabulary mastery rather than effective communication.
What’s more troubling is when local designers create brand standards that are completely unrealistic. For example:
- Gradient backgrounds for mass-market brand identities—when we all know most print shops don’t have calibrated machines.
- Complex grid systems for publishing—when we know operators (not designers) will be the ones inserting text and images.
- Setting up type hierarchies based on principles of contrast and proportions—when we know in the coders’ world, everything has to be prescribed in absolute pixels.
If design is to scale and be implemented effectively, it has to be simple—because the people executing a designer’s vision may not have the same design sensibilities. Having total control over a client’s visual output is vastly different from designing for a network of partners and vendors.
One of my favorite clients always says, “Make it idiot-proof.” It wasn’t meant to be insulting but a guiding principle in design. If something is meant to be rolled out at scale, the system has to be simple, and the guidelines have to be simple too. Open-ended decisions that rely on a designer’s interpretation are risky propositions. Over-prescribing? Remember this: Designers don’t read. Operators don’t read.
Recently, an outsider—a 70-something ex-pilot—asked me, “In your line of work, I assume creativity is the most important thing. How do you protect your ideas and work?”
I had never given much thought to intellectual property. My quick response: “This might surprise you, but in reality, I’d be happier if people could take my design and quickly make many, many good versions of it. I’m not an artist. I’m a designer. And I’m only a good designer if my ideas can scale—fast and effectively.”
At the end of the day, design isn’t about artistic control—it’s about impact. If a design system can’t survive beyond the designer’s hands, then it’s not a good system. The real measure of success isn’t how perfectly a design follows the manual, but how well it works in the messy, imperfect real world.
Because in the real world, designers don’t always get the final say. But at least designers can try to make sure what they create is built to last.