Redesigned or revised brand guidelines remain an important matter for businesses, even if they long ago ceased to be published in expansive corporate-identity manuals. Independent publishing imprint Standards Manual was established in New York City in 2014 by designers Jesse Reed and Hamish Smyth with aims of archiving and preserving the publications of design history and making them available for future generations. Standards Manual consequently collated doorstops of books and delved into the CI manuals of NASA, New York City’s public-transport authority and the EPA in order to collect relevant designs and guidelines. With the publication of Standards, the publisher is now focusing on how designers work in the present era. Standards represents the creation of a tool for designing identities and brand guidelines that draws on the best of the past while building on current developments within branding. Its intention is to help the CI design process and simplify its communication within companies and to customers. The tool, presented on a teaser site a few days ago, is limited to necessary information such as colour values, customisable elements, fonts and animations.
